Tape library sharing between NetApp NAS and media server

I just check this KB http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO73998. It said that:

1. You can back up data from a NAS device to the following locations:

•A shared tape device or backup-to-disk folder that is connected to a SAN with Backup Exec servers

"You can share tape devices between single or multiple Backup Exec servers and NAS devices by using the Backup Exec Enterprise Server Option."

So the sharing of tape devices between NAS and BE server is supported, and such connectionn cand be LAN-free.

Can anyone confirm it?

Thanks,

Henry

As far as I know you only need SSO if you have multiple media servers, (at least this was the information given by one of our Principal Technology Specialists in year 2011/BE 2010 timeframe) as such you can share a Fiber Channel library betwen a NetApp using the NDMP Option and a single media server.

Best advice is zone everything in the library to both filer and BE media server and then let BE handle any contention issues. If harwdare parttioning is going to be used the the library MUST be capable of presenting a 'virtual' robotic arm to both media server and Netapp as we drive teh robotic commands via teh connectiopn being used for the backup - so NDMP data woudl be the filer moving the arm and Windows data would be the media server moving the arm.

BTW I know Hyper-V was mentioned and we have already said that the Hyper-V agent does not support SAN backups. However if you have Hyper-V in LUN's on the Netapp then you can backup the LUNs using the NDMP option but this is not recommended as you get no GRT cabability at all, which reduces you to a complete restore of the LUN only.

EDIT1: with regards the techniote informnation containing this text statuing "A library should not be shared between a filer and a Media Server, because the machine that accesses the library first will have ownership of it, and the other machine won't have access."

I am going to check but I believe this was an 11d  statement (in effect version 1 of our NDMP option) and later versions of Backup Exec do not have this restriction. If I get confirmation of this I will get the tech artticle edited.
 

EDIT2: Our original release material for BackuP Exec 12.5 shows that we brought in library sharing between NDMP devices and media servers with this release. Please review the readme / release notes for 12.5 at

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH63281
 

Hi Sasha,

If you're going to copy directly from official Symantec material, PLEASE post the links...otherwise you're passing off someone else's material as your own...

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH48957

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH175582

Thanks!

This can be possible if the hardware supports so, A library cannot be shared between a filer and a Media Server. The machine that accesses the library first will have ownership of it, and the other machine won't have access

so to work around this, we need to have SSO option.

Having said that, the Library partitioning or "Hard Partitioning" for sharing Libraries between applications,  is hardware specific feature available in certain library storage systems.

Using this hardware feature with Backup Exec for Windows Servers are supported, but due the variations in design and implementation, technical support is provided in a "best effort" basis only.

This means that Symantec Technical Support will work with you to resolve issues associated only with the Backup Exec portion of the shared configurations, and any issues that cannot be duplicated outside of the shared environment will be the responsibility of the OEM hardware vendor to support.

Regards,

S

Thanks S,

I know we can backup the NAS via NDMP to tape library LAN-free using fiber. But can the same tape library be used by the media server for other backup job? We don't want to use two tape libraries, one for the NDMP tape out, one for regular backup. Also do I need a license for SSO?

Thanks,

Henry

Hello Henry,

It is possible to add the NetAPP as a NDMP server, and use the tape library connected to it as a destination.

So in this case you can very well take the NDMP NAS backup (which is a NDMP source)--> NETAPP tape library.(Which is a NDMP destination.)

This will need a NDMP license.

I doubt if we have any LAN free backup methodology for hyper-V, at least with BE.

Regards,

S

Unfortunately, Backup Exec cannot backup VMs from Hyper-V over the SAN using the Hyper-V agent. The option to use SAN transport is only available for VMWare.