BackupExec Share SAN storage option

Hi there,

The idea behind SAN SSO is that you share a fibre-attached storage device. It can be tape, or disk. But it MUST be fibre-attached.
Installing the agent simply means your job runs over the LAN...this means you're not taking advantage of the SAN's speeds.
What you need to do is the following:

1. Install a FULL version of Backup Exec on your server (and it also needs to be attached to the SAN!!!), with all the required agents.
2. Run the SAN SSO wizard on your primary server. This makes it discoverable to other SAN servers when you activate the option on them, and shares the tape drive/library/disk storage etc.
3. On your other SAN server, run your SAN SSO wizard, and point it to your primary SAN SSO server. It will then detect the backup device. Don't forget that you will need to zone the second server (and subsequent servers) to see that tape drive BEFORE it will be detected in BE 2010.

Laters

Hello Craig,

I have couple of questions here

You told to instal the full version of backup Exec i have an old version of back up exec previously so i upgraded it to 2010 version but the older version didn't had SAN licence so after upgrading my media server to 2010 version i installed the SAN licence option and rebooted the media server. I also zone the media server with tape using FC.

But my question here is I don't see SAN SSo wizard in my Media server. Can you help me finding that wizard. I have 4 test servers on SAN. I have zoned them to the tape for this operation.

When you tell me SAN server is it a client? and when you tell me SAN SSO primary server is it the media server?

I installed the remote agent on the client server which is on the SAN. Where can i find the SAN SSO wizard to run. Because when i push the agent it has no option on the remote server to start. If you have a document which guides all the steps that would be really great. Thanks for the help.

If you upgrade, you need new licenses for the new software...it doesn't automatically carry licenses across. So the reason you're not seeing that option for SAN SSO is because it isn't licensed. Backup Exec 2010 will allow a 60-day trial of SAN SSO from what I can see, which gives you a bit of headway. You can enable the trial while waiting for your proper license to come through.
The primary server will be running a full version of Backup Exec 2010. The wizard just designates it as a primary server, so it controls the sharing of SAN-attached resources. The other SAN servers are clients, but they also run full versions of BE.
It will not work by simply installing the RAWS agent...this will only allow backups via your LAN...you need a full installation of Backup Exec on EACH SAN server that you want to use SAN SSO option with.

SAN is a general term used to denote a shared device setup. So, if you have a library attached to two servers through fiber channel, we call it SAN. Now, if you have Backup Exec installed on both these servers, and you are backing up local data, it is dumped to the library through fiber channel, making it fast. Please note, we are just talking about BE with no license, here. So, SAN works even if SSO license is not there. Now, when you have SSO license added to a Backup Exec server, it gives you the additional capability of centralizing the solution where you have all different Backup Exec servers managed by a central database. So, one of the servers where you install SSO becomes a primary server, and all other servers are secondary. Technically no difference, all are Backup Exec servers, but a server designated as primary holds the device and media information and also catalogs. The secondary servers send the informaiton about their devices to primary server's database and management of devices and media becomes easier. Now, if you do a backup of a remote machine from one of these media servers, and only RAWS is installed on that target server, no BE, you dont leverage SAN then, and data flows to the media server through LAN and then media server dumps it to the device through fiber. If SAN is to be leveraged, you need to install BE on all servers and add SSO license to them, designate one as primary and rest as secondary and then run backups locally. In order to designate a server as primary or secondary, use beutility as in following document:

http://support.veritas.com/docs/300213

Some other documents for your reference:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/343614
http://support.veritas.com/docs/268678

Please also go through the administrator's guide for more information.

Please mark it a solution, if this helps.
Thanks

Hello,

I have installed Primary SAN SSO licence on one media server(primary server) and  full version of BE on  secondary server with SSO option. But on the secondary server i cannot start the backup exec services. When i look into the error message it says it failed to connect the databse of the primary server.

When i raised a call with Symatec they told me that even though i have SAN SSO licence installed on bot the primary and seconday server it will use LAN to backup. They suggested me to use Advanced Disk based option to have LAN free backups.

In order to use Advanced Disk based option i need to have Hardware snapshot provider software installed on both the primary and secondary server and a remote agent needs to be pushed to the secondary server. So when i start a job from the media server using advanced disk based options it will snap the SAN attached to the secondary server and store the backup's to the tape connected to the primary server.

So i have no idea of Hardware snap software. Can any one help me with this information. Thanks for your time.

No, they are wrong...if you have a SAN-attached tape drive/library, and that secondary server is zoned for it (and can see it), it is like it was "the only server" seeing that drive.
If you were backing up to an iSCSI target (if at all possible), THEN it would use the LAN.
But the secondary server has direct access to the tape drive. It's like saying your local backups to a fibre library also run along the LAN...they don't. They have it wrong.
I saw performance increases from 550MB/m to 2.5GB/m using SAN SSO...NOT backing up across any LAN at those speeds.

Post the steps here of how you configured it.

Hey bonnu,

This link should help you out.

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/294977.htm

Regards,
tech29

Craig,

Thank you for your time in clearing my question. I was trying to use advanced disk option to backup one of my server. I have a media server with ADOB licence installed and i pused the remote agent to the secondary server. I also did install EMC VSS ( Hardware snapshot provider) on both the servers and trying to schedule a job.....

But it keeps on failing saying below error do you have any idea on this......

Backup Exec could not locate a Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) software or hardware snapshot provider for this job. Select a valid VSS snapshot provider for the target computer.


 

V-79-10000-11225 - VSS Snapshot error. The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot provider that you selected does not support snap technology for this volume. Select another snapshot provider, and then run the job again. - ADBO: Offhost backup initialization failure on:  server name

V-79-10000-11225 - VSS Snapshot error. The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot provider that you selected does not support snap technology for this volume. Select another snapshot provider, and then run the job again.