Backing up Netapp Snapshots - without NDMP (Backup Exec 12)

[NickS]

I have an IBM N5200 (which I believe is actually a Netapp FAS3020). I want to back it up using Backup exec 12 running on windows 2003, which currently uses an SAS IBM tape library.  This tape library cannot be directly connected to the filer, so I can't use NDMP (please correct me if I'm wrong!).

How can I back up snapshots? 

I have manged to do it thus far by adding a user defined selection to my selection list, and then manually changing the 'selection details' to add "\~snaphot\hourly.0" to the path.

This method does actually manage to back the data up, but I get untidy errors in the job log:

"Backup- servername - The media server was unable to connect to the Remote Agent on machine servername.

The media server will use the local agent to try to complete the operation.

Unable to initialize Remote Agent

Backup- \servername\path pathname 

Unable to initialize Remote Agent"

I'm also not able to restore data directly back to the filer because it's trying to write to the "hourly.0" snapshot which of course it can't, so a restore has to be 'staged' onto a local server first, which is not ideal, and may require a lot of disk space...

Any suggestions welcomed!

[Matthias_H_]

Nick,

with BackupExec 12.5 you are able to use NDMP Backup and Restore to Tape Libraries attached to the BE media server (feature is called "remote NDMP"). Accessing snapshots is then no longer a problem.

Regards

Matthias

[NickS]

Matthias,

Thanks for your reply :)

Is remote NDMP an add-in option that I have to buy?

If so, is it called "remote NDMP" by Symantec?

If not, where do I find it in BE 12.5?

Many thanks for your help,

Happy New Year,

Nick

[Matthias_H_]

Nick,

just thought "better late than no reply" ;)

Remote NDMP is enabled by the "NDMP Option", which you have to buy. I'd suggest you to do a test installation of 12.5 on a new machine and try the feature. You get all features enabled for 60 days by simply not entering any licensing codes during the installation (ok, you surely did already know that). :)

In gigabit LAN environments you should get a performance >50MB/sec - at least this is what I got at different customer sites and, as I think, is pretty good.

Hope that helps a bit.

Happy New Year!

Matthias