SANs with block level replication?

[Mindflux]

If like you say your SAN had a supported agent then you could run a job to backup the SAN to disk then backup to tape from there. We currently just run a backup straight to tape as it doesn't take more than a night to do.

 

Yeah that's part of the problem, since my servers are virtualized even if I put in a SAS/SCSI controller none of the guests would have direct access to and ESXi 4 doesn't allow for services to be installed. Our backups wouldn't take more than a night (I don't imagine).. so I don't have a problem backing up directly off the SAN if possible.

Edited November 17, 2009 by Mindflux

[mjs_mjs]

Yeah that's part of the problem, since my servers are virtualized even if I put in a SAS/SCSI controller none of the guests would have direct access to and ESXi 4 doesn't allow for services to be installed. Our backups wouldn't take more than a night (I don't imagine).. so I don't have a problem backing up directly off the SAN if possible.

 

how were you planning to backup to tape without having an OS that can see a tape drive?

[Mindflux]

how were you planning to backup to tape without having an OS that can see a tape drive?

 

 

Well my OP doesn't even put tape in the equation, it wasn't until someone brought up some stuff I hadn't considered. So, I do not rightfully know.

[Duke]

how were you planning to backup to tape without having an OS that can see a tape drive?

 

NDMP is designed to backup a SAN/NAS to tape without the need to go through a Backup Server. The S7000 has NDMP support and I imagine there are certain tape drives/autoloaders/libraries that will be supported. I have never used this and honestly don't know how it works in reality, but I believe you can remotely manage backups that go directly from the S7000 to the tape drive. If you go to the NDMP section on the S7000 BUI it will show the devices that are connected to it.

 

In short, the OS can see tape drives, but personally I don't know how you go about setting it up!

 

Chris

[plexer]

Have a look at the Open-E DSS software.

 

A whitepaper on block level replication for you too:

 

http://www.open-e.com/site_media/download/presentations/Open-E_DSS_V6_Synchronous_Volume_Replication_with_Failover_over_a_LAN.pdf

 

Ben

[nicholab]

Remember the only backup tape technology to go for is LTO as it been muted that AIT and SDLT may stop development.

 

LTO4 is fast!!!

Tape is also green as it not using energy in storage.

[cookie_monster]

One problem that I've noticed with LTO is that each generation almost doubles the storage but the data to tape speed doesn't double. We use LTO and it's damn fast but surely eventually this trend will cause problems for some, I know the article points out that some feel capacity is more important than performance but surely that can only be to a point. I suppose this is why D2D2T will become more popular.

 

IT SecCity.de - IT-Security, Safety & High Availability-Magazin