System Requirements

Ensure that you have the required system configuration and browser to deploy and run ECX.

Upgrades to new versions of ECX will continue to use the previous network configuration found at this location: /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net.

Virtual Machine Installation

ECX is installed as a virtual appliance. Before deploying to the host, ensure you have the following:

  • The correct OVF template, which has an OVA extension, and is approximately 1.4 GB
  • vSphere 6.0, 6.5, 6.7, or 7.0.
  • Note: For later versions of vSphere, the vSphere Web Client may be required to deploy ECX appliances.
  • Network information and VMware host information
  • Either an available static IP address to use or access to DHCP

For initial deployment, configure your virtual appliance to meet the following recommended minimum requirements:

  • 64-bit dual core machine
  • 48 GB memory

The appliance has three virtual disks that total 400 GB storage:

  • 50 GB for operating system and application, which includes 16 GB for the swap partition, 256 MB for the boot partition, and the remainder for the root partition
  • 100 GB for configuration data related to jobs, events, and logs
  • 250 GB for Inventory data

Users of DPX who are deploying ECX for the purpose of DPX Reporting should use the DPX Reporting (powered by ECX) OVF template. For DPX Reporting requirements, refer to the DPX Reporting Guide, which is available on the DPX product page of the Catalogic MySupport site along with the OVF template.

It is recommended that the ECX appliance, storage arrays, hypervisors and application servers in your environment use NTP. If the clocks on the various systems are significantly out of sync, you may experience errors during application registration, Inventory, Backup, or Restore jobs. For more information about identifying and resolving timer drift, see the following VMware knowledge base article: Time in virtual machine drifts due to hardware timer drift.

Browser Support

Run ECX from a computer that has access to the installed virtual appliance.

ECX was tested and certified against the following web browsers. Note that newer versions may be supported.

  • Microsoft Edge 20.10240
  • Firefox 49.0
  • Chrome 53.0.27

If your resolution is below 1024 x 768, some items may not fit on the window. Pop-up windows must be enabled in your browser to access the Help system and some ECX operations.

Application Server Requirements

DellEMC Unity Requirements

  • EMC Unity 300, 400, 500, 600 (All-Flash and Hybrid Flash)
  • EMC UnityVSA
  • EMC VNXe 1600 running software version 3.1.3 and later
  • EMC VNXe 3200 running software version 3.1.1 and later

HPE Nimble Storage

  • HPE Nimble Storage running version 5.2 or later.
  • Note: Firmware version 5.2 or later is required for iSCSI and Fibre Channel.

IBM Storage Requirements

  • IBM storage systems running IBM Spectrum™ Virtualize Software version 7.3 and later/8.1.2 and later, including IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize, and IBM FlashSystem V9000 and 9100 systems. Outdated SAN Volume Controller (SVC) firmware may result in a storage warmstart. SVC firmware should be updated to the latest supported version to ensure system reliability.
  • HyperSwap is supported on both IBM Storwize V7000 and FS9100 for both physical and virtual server types for Volume, Virtual Machine, and SQL applications.
  • IBM storage systems running IBM Spectrum Accelerate version 11.5.3 and later, including FlashSystem A9000/A9000R and IBM XIV storage systems
  • IBM FlashCopy Manager systems running IBM Tivoli® Storage FlashCopy® Manager version 4.1.3 and later

Note: IBM providers must be registered by an IBM user with administrator-level privileges.

NetApp ONTAP Requirements

Any NetApp ONTAP storage system model running specifically listed Data ONTAP versions operating in 7-Mode is supported. The following versions of Data ONTAP are supported:

  • Data ONTAP 8.1.0 and later operating in 7-Mode
  • Data ONTAP 8.2.0 and later operating in 7-Mode
  • Clustered Data ONTAP 8.1 and later
  • Clustered Data ONTAP 8.2 and later
  • Clustered Data ONTAP 8.3 and later
  • Clustered Data ONTAP 9.4 and later
  • Data ONTAP 9.x
  • Note that ECX does not support new features specifically introduced in ONTAP 9.x. ECX was tested against Data ONTAP 9.3.

ECX 2.7 and later supports NetApp MetroCluster configurations running ONTAP 9.x and later. After successful completion of MetroCluster Switchover or Switchback operations, mirror or vault relationships must be reestablished through an ECX job. See Create a Backup Job Definition - NetApp ONTAP .

Clustered Data ONTAP providers must be registered with a cluster administrator account. Cluster peering must be enabled. Peer relationships enable communication between SVMs. See NetApp ONTAP's Cluster and Vserver Peering Express Guide.

Note: Ensure that TLS protocol is enabled on the NetApp storage system by setting the tls.enable option to ON. For TLS to take effect on HTTPS, ensure that the httpd.admin.ssl.enable option is also set to ON. See Enabling or disabling TLS on NetApp's Support site.

NetApp ONTAP File Inventory Job Requirements:

ECX uses SnapDiff in the NetApp ONTAP file level jobs to perform cataloging based on snapshot differences. SnapDiff cataloging is supported on storage system models running the following versions of Data ONTAP:

The following options must be enabled on the volume of the NetApp storage system to catalog: 

  • create_ucode and convert_ucode - These options are turned off by default. See Related Topics.
  • Inode to Pathname - The Inode to Pathname function creates relationships between file names and relative paths. If Inode to Pathname is disabled on a volume, you must enable it, then delete existing snapshots on the volume. When new snapshots are created with Inode to Pathname enabled, the volume can be cataloged.

Internationalization Requirements

  • The language code must be set and the UTF-8 variant must be specified on the NetApp storage system. For example, en_US.UTF-8. Only the English locale for vol0 for UTF-8 is supported. See Related Topics.
  • The ECX application and documentation are available in English only. However, cataloging, searching, and reporting functions support international metadata.

Pure Storage Requirements

  • FlashArray//c
  • FlashArray//m
  • FlashArray//x
  • FlashArray-4xx series
  • REST API version 1.16 and later
  • Purity 5.2.X and later

VMware Requirements

  • vSphere 6.0 and 6.0 update and patch levels
  • vSphere 6.5 and 6.5 update and patch levels
  • vSphere 6.7 and 6.7 update and patch levels
  • vSphere 7.0 update and patch levels

Ensure the latest version of VMware Tools is installed in your environment. ECX was tested against VMware Tools 9.10.0.

Third Party License Requirements

For NetApp ONTAP storage systems, a FlexClone license is required to fully utilize Instant Disk Restore and Instant VM Restore features. SnapVault and SnapMirror licenses are also required on both source and destination resources if your workflow includes vault and mirror protection. Similarly, a SnapRestore license is required if your workflow includes individual file recovery. Note that individual file recovery is only supported at the primary site.

For IBM storage systems, Remote Mirroring and FlashCopy licenses are required.

For VMware, a Storage vMotion license is required. A Kroll license is required for individual mailbox recovery on a Microsoft Exchange VM protected by ECX.

 


Catalogic ECX™ 2.12

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