Do any of the available backup solutions support a "dump to disk mode" like amanda? Amanda uses the disk on the local backup machine as the cache. After the backup completes to disk amanda dumps that file to tape. This takes care of the streaming issues. This of course would be a problem with large NetApp filesystems. But imagine if the packages (veritas, legato, workstation solutions, etc.) took the incoming data stream and wrote it as configurable chunks (100Mb, 1GB, etc.) to disk. They could then flush those chunks to tape.
barry
On Wed, 16 Feb 2000, Bruce Sterling Woodcock wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Tao taob@risc.org To: toasters@mathworks.com Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 10:50 PM Subject: Centralized backup of multiple filers
This is my plan, after having debated the merits of distributed tape libraries on each filer vs. centralized tape library with network backup.
Have you considered Netapp's recently announced ability to share backup devices between filers through a FC SAN using Legato and a Vixel switch? But I guess this doesn't address your problem, which seems to be streaming speed to the tape to minimize backup times. Personally I think you're spending a lot of money just to make backups faster, and I'm not even sure how much time that saves, since you have to spend time to do the rsync over the net first, and then do the local backup from the UNIX box.
Bruce