OneFS NDMP provides a feature to select the most desirable network interfaces and preferred network for NDMP three-way sessions. You can configure one preferred IP address to a cluster or network subnet.

Note: Avamar and Commvault DMAs support selecting the most desirable network interface for NDMP three-way session by the preferred IP addresses on the NDMP server or the PowerScale cluster. Other DMAs do not support the preferred IP addresses feature.

A preferred IP addresses setting is a list of prioritized IP addresses on the NDMP server. The NDMP server connects to a data server or media server using the preferred IP addresses during an NDMP three-way backup or restore.

During an NDMP backup or restore session, a DMA sends a request to the NDMP server. The NDMP server receives the request through the NDMP server IP address that decides the scope and precedence for setting the preference. If the incoming IP address from DMA is within a subnet scope that has a preference on the NDMP server, the preference setting is applied. If a subnet-specific preference does not exist, but a cluster-wide preference exists on the NDMP server, the cluster-wide preference setting is applied. The subnet-specific preference always overrides the cluster-wide preference. If both the cluster-wide and subnet-specific preferences do not exist on the NDMP server, the IP addresses within the subnet of the IP address that are receiving the incoming requests from DMA are used as the preferred IP addresses.

Run the following command through the command-line interface to configure a preferred IP to a subnet defined in OneFS:

# isi ndmp settings preferred-ips create <scope> <subnet>