Hmmm... I just saw in the technote that Veritas NetBackup does not support that (a little table in that same technote indicates that)... I will be checking with Veritas on that because they know we plan to test this and have given no indication that this would not work.
Kelly
--
Kelly Wyatt, Kelly.Wyatt@SAS.com Systems Programmer Integrated Solutions Consulting SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Drive / Cary, NC 27513 http://www.sas.com
-----Original Message----- From: [ISS] Veritas-Users Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 9:54 AM To: 'Roth, William'; 'gwong@futureshop.com' Cc: 'toasters@mathworks.com' Subject: RE: Backing up a filer
I understand that you can do NDMP dump across the network to a media server... it is even mentioned in technote 3066, section 4.3 (# 4 below):
---- The NDMP protocol specification allows the following backup configurations: 1. Local backup from a filer to a SCSI-attached tape device 2. Three-way backup from a filer via the network to another filer with a local tape device 3. Backup from a UNIX or Windows NT server via the network to a NetApp filer with a local tape device 4. Backup from a NetApp filer via the network to a UNIX or Windows NT backup server with a local tape device ----
We currently backup filers via dedicated directly attached tape drives (using Veritas NetBackup)... but, this is a costly solution because the tape drives are idle probably 75% of the time. We will be testing NDMP across a dedicated GB ethernet network in the near future. Even if we see some decrease in backup throughput, it will good if we can get those 20 dedicated DLT7000 tape drives in S'Tek 9710's doing more work for us...
Is anyone already using a private network and NDMP to backup a filer?
Kelly
--
Kelly Wyatt, Kelly.Wyatt@SAS.com Systems Programmer Integrated Solutions Consulting SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Drive / Cary, NC 27513 http://www.sas.com
-----Original Message----- From: Roth, William [mailto:William.Roth@netapp.com] Sent: Friday, January 07, 2000 11:21 AM To: 'gwong@futureshop.com' Cc: 'toasters@mathworks.com' Subject: RE: Backing up a filer
Greg,
If you want to use NetBackup with NDMP to back up the filer, you need to have at least one direct attached tape drive connected to the filer(not considering a three way NDMP backup using two filers with a tape device direct connected to the remote filer). You can dedicate one or more drives from an existing library controlled by NetBackup, or you can attach a new/different library to the filer(yes, the filer does support a locally attached library). Either the NetBackup host (NDMP client) or the filer can be direct connected to the robotic portion of the library(assuming the library has individual scsi ports for the connection). In the end, NetBackup ends up controlling the library either way. If the robot is direct connected to the NetBackup host via scsi, NetBackup controls it. If the robot is connected to the filer via scsi, the NetBackup host sends scsi cdb's via NDMP to the robot through the filer, thus the robot is still controller by NetBackup. What other information or assistance do you require?
Bill Roth Technical Marketing Engineer Network Appliance, Inc. 495 East Java Drive Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Telephone 408-822-3308
-----Original Message----- From: Greg Wong [mailto:gwong@futureshop.com] Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2000 11:45 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Backing up a filer
Hi all,
I'm kind of new to the this filer business and I have a question about backing it up. We have an F720 on site that isn't doing much since we aren't backing it up. I need some options on how to do this. We currently back up our other systems vith Veritas Netbackup and a tape library. Now, my question(s) is if I want to use Veritas to back up the filer using NDMP, do I have to dedicate a drive on the remote tape library to the filer? Will the filer support a locally attached library, and if it does, does Veritas control the library or does the filer?
Thanks for your help
Greg
On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Kelly Wyatt wrote:
Hmmm... I just saw in the technote that Veritas NetBackup does not support that (a little table in that same technote indicates that)... I will be checking with Veritas on that because they know we plan to test this and have given no indication that this would not work.
QuickRestore 2.6 offers this feature (they have written an NDMP server for Solaris and other platforms, http://www.worksta.com/). I'm told 2.6 should be shipping very soon (awaiting my eval copy of it).
Received a 30 day eval copy today. I'm setting it up on my 740 with an exabyte 220 hooked to it with QR running on an Ultra10 with Solaris 2.6. If I run into any problems I will post them.
Brian Tao wrote:
On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Kelly Wyatt wrote:
Hmmm... I just saw in the technote that Veritas NetBackup does not support that (a little table in that same technote indicates that)... I will be checking with Veritas on that because they know we plan to test this and have given no indication that this would not work.
QuickRestore 2.6 offers this feature (they have written an NDMPserver for Solaris and other platforms, http://www.worksta.com/). I'm told 2.6 should be shipping very soon (awaiting my eval copy of it). -- Brian Tao (BT300, taob@risc.org) "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"
Hey, could you do a review for those of us considering alternatives (i.e. from budtool)? It'd be really appreciated....
On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Jerald Tillery wrote:
Received a 30 day eval copy today. I'm setting it up on my 740 with an exabyte 220 hooked to it with QR running on an Ultra10 with Solaris 2.6. If I run into any problems I will post them.
Brian Tao wrote:
On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Kelly Wyatt wrote:
Hmmm... I just saw in the technote that Veritas NetBackup does not support that (a little table in that same technote indicates that)... I will be checking with Veritas on that because they know we plan to test this and have given no indication that this would not work.
QuickRestore 2.6 offers this feature (they have written an NDMPserver for Solaris and other platforms, http://www.worksta.com/). I'm told 2.6 should be shipping very soon (awaiting my eval copy of it). -- Brian Tao (BT300, taob@risc.org) "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"
----------- Jay Orr Systems Administrator Fujitsu Nexion Inc. St. Louis, MO
I personally prefer Quick restore writing to Overland Data LibraryXPress units. You can read all about our implementation via the press releases at either manufacturer's site.
Derek Kelly Genome Therapeutics Corporation On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Jay Orr wrote:
Hey, could you do a review for those of us considering alternatives (i.e. from budtool)? It'd be really appreciated....
On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Jerald Tillery wrote:
Received a 30 day eval copy today. I'm setting it up on my 740 with an exabyte 220 hooked to it with QR running on an Ultra10 with Solaris 2.6. If I run into any problems I will post them.
Brian Tao wrote:
On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, Kelly Wyatt wrote:
Hmmm... I just saw in the technote that Veritas NetBackup does not support that (a little table in that same technote indicates that)... I will be checking with Veritas on that because they know we plan to test this and have given no indication that this would not work.
QuickRestore 2.6 offers this feature (they have written an NDMPserver for Solaris and other platforms, http://www.worksta.com/). I'm told 2.6 should be shipping very soon (awaiting my eval copy of it). -- Brian Tao (BT300, taob@risc.org) "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"
Jay Orr Systems Administrator Fujitsu Nexion Inc. St. Louis, MO
Jay Orr wrote:
Hey, could you do a review for those of us considering alternatives (i.e. from budtool)? It'd be really appreciated....
Hi all,
I promised to do this quite a while ago. I finished the Quick Restore evaluation last month, but haven't had time to write up the results. So here it is (hopefully better late than never).
Bottom line:
For those who don't want to read the details, we did end up purchasing the Quick Restore software and a Overland Data LXB-7210 which will be attached to one of the NetApps. Our existing DLT4700 stackers will be attached to a Sun acting as the QR server. I think the product will meet our needs. The biggest selling features were the price and their technical support.
Background:
We have been a Budtool customer in the past. I run a Sun shop with 2 F740's as the main file servers. I've got ~200 Sun workstations ~50 of which are backed up centrally. We currently have 2 DLT 4700 stackers and several desktop DLT drives that are used for backup. We liked Budtool because of the price, the non-proprietary backup format, and the easy to use interface. I hadn't yet purchased the NDMP module for Budtool when I learned of the Legato buyout. At that point I decided to look elsewhere for backup software. I've never been a fan of Legato, and assumed (correctly) that they'd take the NDMP support from Budtool and drop the rest.
Quick Restore:
The Quick Restore software seems much more advanced in their NDMP support than Veritas, offering 3 way NDMP so I can back up my filers and Suns in any way that is convenient (Sun to NetApp, NetApp to NetApp, NetApp to Sun). Sun to Sun backups do not use NDMP but are (of course) supported. I liked the fact that both QR and Veritas used an ISO standard tar format for the backup. This ruled Legato out early, since they use a proprietary format. I was impressed that Jim Ward (President of Workstation Solutions) came out to meet with me personally, AND could answer technical questions that the Veritas SE couldn't answer. WS impressed me as a small, technically savvy company that was very responsive to me during the evaluation period. I had a couple small glitches that were fixed within a few hours. The software has the feel of a product written for, and by techies. It's highly customizable, but also fairly easy to mess up. I was not at all impressed with the GUI or the scheduler. The status windows in the GUI left out key error messages that could only be found in the log files. The scheduler lacked any way to deal with our current 2 week rotation of level 0 backups. You can go "day of week" or "day of month", but can't select something like "every other Friday". On the other hand, just about everything can be done from the command line, so I could, in theory, set up just about any schedule I like using cron jobs.
Version 2.6 of QR should be out soon. I haven't yet seen it, but it's supposed to have a much better user interface. With or without the improved interface I think QR will handle all our backup needs well. And since it costs less than half what Veritas costs, it's worth a little hassle with the interface. Like most backup software I don't expect to mess with it that much once things are stable.
If you have any questions about my experience with QR, please feel free to drop me a line. I hope this helps any of you working on this issue.
Lisa Paton Hardware/Systems Manager Chandra Science Center Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics lpaton@cfa.harvard.edu
On Mon, 14 Feb 2000, Lisa Paton wrote:
We have been a Budtool customer in the past. I run a Sun shop with 2 F740's as the main file servers. I've got ~200 Sun workstations ~50 of which are backed up centrally. We currently have 2 DLT 4700 stackers and several desktop DLT drives that are used for backup. We liked Budtool because of the price, the non-proprietary backup format, and the easy to use interface. I hadn't yet purchased the NDMP module for Budtool when I learned of the Legato buy out. At that point I decided to look elsewhere for backup software. I've never been a fan of Legato, and assumed (correctly) that they'd take the NDMP support from Budtool and drop the rest.
Thanks for the detailed review. It sounds like we're in the same boat - 2 filers, 2 juke boxes and many sun boxes (we had 2 4700 drives but are waiting for the Overland Data 810's [have 1 of 2]). Currently, we are backing up with budtool but are using snapshots, not NDMP.
Have you heard definitely that Legato is going to discard Budtool? I know it's been rumored... I share your concern for standard tar backups - one always have to consider worse case scenario (i.e. backup server dies). That's been my fear about having to switch over to Legato (that and if they're going to charge to convert budtool users to legato).
Also, from what I gather the previous admin here went with snapshot backups instead of NDMP because it used to be that there was problems with the robustness of NDMP. I haven't been keeping up on things as good as I should, but is it now that you can backup a netapp box and restore it on a different file system? For instance, we use Clearcase and store vobs on a netapp. If there was a file from a destroyed VOB we needed to recover, could we just restore the one file to a Solaris file system or would we have to restore the whole VOB to a netapp filer?
----------- Jay Orr Systems Administrator Fujitsu Nexion Inc. St. Louis, MO
On Mon, 14 Feb 2000, Lisa Paton wrote:
I was impressed that Jim Ward (President of Workstation Solutions) came out to meet with me personally, AND could answer technical questions that the Veritas SE couldn't answer.
I was similarly impressed in my dealings with them. They may not have the market clout of a Veritas or a Legato, but I got the warm fuzzies when I first read about QuickRestore and visited WS' web site, when I talked to their sales rep (who got Jim Ward involved with my technical questions), and when I poked around the eval copy they sent us. No warm fuzzies when Veritas and Legato sent in their account reps and SE's to make their pitch to us, I'm afraid. ;-)
The software has the feel of a product written for, and by techies. It's highly customizable, but also fairly easy to mess up.
I don't get the feeling that QR is some huge, unwieldly monolithic piece of software that tries to do everything anyone could possibly want, but fails to really excel in any of them. It definitely has that "geek appeal" factor, whereas other vendors try to make up for it with a long-winded feature checklist in a marketing glossy. It doesn't pretend to hand-hold you through every step, obscuring real functionality with a GUI or some browser interface. Even the name "QuickRestore" tells me they understand that the *real* selling point of backup software is not how quickly it backs up your data, but how easily it can restore your data. ;-)
And since it costs less than half what Veritas costs, it's worth a little hassle with the interface. Like most backup software I don't expect to mess with it that much once things are stable.
It is about the third the cost of Networker, for our particular configuration (including maintenance contracts).
If you have any questions about my experience with QR, please feel free to drop me a line. I hope this helps any of you working on this issue.
Are you using QR on those ~50 workstations that used to be handled by Budtool? Do you see any inherent design limits that would prevent QR from handling all 200 workstations?
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Brian Tao -
Derek Kelly -
Jay Orr -
Jerald Tillery -
Kelly Wyatt -
Lisa Paton