72TB Backup proposal possible?

[mk128935]

Hi, I know there's a lot of details missing but I'd appreciate some assumptions made here. Our local Dell EMC is proposing a backup proposal (see attached diagram) where they want to backup 72TB of data on Dell EMC Unity 600 to a Data Domain 6300 (using DDBoost). They also want to do a 3-way NDMP where the backup from the Dell EMC Unity 600 is also taken to another Unity 600 unit at a remote site. Assume the network is 10GbE. There's no explanation on what the backup time requirement is. My question is for this kind of large capacity backup requirement, is Backup Exec appropriate? Assuming the backup time requirement is rather loose (say it's okay to take a day or two), if we prepare multiple Backup Exec servers, can we fulfill this requirement? For this kind of large capacity deal, should we direct them to consider NetBackup instead? I'm not quite sure where to draw the line between Backup Exec and NetBackup for this kind of large proposal. I appreciate the advice.

[Colin_Weaver]

I would say that you (or the local Dell team) need to setup a proof of concept environment (which can be smaller) and see this type of operation for yourself (especially performance of this config for a full weekly backup and for restores) . Obviously you may need to do this with both NetBackup and Backup Exec

Historically that amount of data would not usually have been considered as suitable for Backup Exec, but as data sizes have increased, techonology has moved on (for both software and hardware) so whether or not Backup Exec can handle it may depend more on 3rd party factors more than Backup Exec itself. 

I am also concerned about how the 3-way NDMP comment matches with the diagram you supplied.

The way Backup Exec usually operates as a 3-way is that a backup Storage Device is connected to one of the disk array devices and Backup Exec sends NDMP backup requests to that disk array to write data directly to the backup storage device. There is then another disk array that also needs backing up (so not a DR storage device) where Backup Exec instructs that second disk array to connect via the first disk array to the backup storage device so that the second disk array can do a backup to a backup storage device that is not connected to it. Other than when doing a redirected restore , we do NOT write the 3-way data copy onto a disk array in a way that is a replica of the original file system.

[mk128935]

Thanks. I don't know where this came from but they told me that in the past, Backup Exec was only able to handle up to 25TB of data. I'm not sure where this is coming from. I don't see such a guideline these days so I think today, Backup Exec can handle this kind of capacity.

I understand your point about the PoC but we don't have the environment nor the time...

Thanks for the input on 3-way NDMP. Yes, I'm also confused by this diagram and what they want to accomplish. I'll try to get this clarified.