Appliances in Real World
Not sure if this is the right place for this, if not can the Mods please move it.
Our current set up is as follows:
Site1
1x RHEL Master Server, 2x RHEL Media Servers & HP B6200 StoreOnce
Site2
1x RHEL Master Server & HP B6200 StoreOnce
NBU7.7.1 but will be upgradng to 8 shortly, data is replicated to both sites using AIR and we have a mix of VM, HyperV, Unix and Windows fileshares, we currently get 8:1 deduplication on the data.
We are looking to replace the B6200's as they are out of waranty soon, the Veritas Appliance is on our radar and we have met with Veritas to have an overview of them but would like to get the real world view of the appliances, are they as good as the sales people say they are? are there any issues to look out for with the appliances? just wonder if people recommend them?
We have Hitachi sniffing around and we would probably have HP asking about replacing the kit but from what we have seen the Appliances seem to be a good way forward.
Thanks
Kev
I have also been working with NetBackup for about 10 years - the last 6 or so almost exclusively with the appliances (5220-5240, 5330). There definitely were some challenges when they were "young", but they have made significant strides since the early days.
Rehydration (to tape) was a significant challenge until 7.6.x came out. VMware VADP backups have gotten MUCH better as well.
The biggest advantages for me:
- Single point of contact for issues. Historically (with a "roll-your-own" environment) if you contacted Symantec on a tough performance issue, you would end up having to involve all sorts of parties. For example, the OS vendor (Sun Micro), the fibrechannel vendor (EMC), the storage vendor (Hitachi) and they would spend inordinate amounts of time pointing fingers.
- DEAD SIMPLE UPGRADES - download the upgrade package, find a maintenance window of 4-6 hours, and run "INSTALL <upgrade package>" - keep in mind this often includes BIOS upgrades, PCI card firmware updates, OS updates, storage updates, disk firmware updates, etc. Most admins I know would fight with all these aspects of system upgrades.
- DEAD SIMPLE REPLICATION - bring up the remote appliance, point SLPs at it, call it good.
Veritas has done a very good job with these appliances, IMO.