Backup-to-Disk-to-Tape strategies

[Ken_Onwere]

I'm seeking to leverage my investment in Backup Exec 10.0 by switching to B2D with duplication to tape. I just acquire a large capacity disk array and LTO3 tape autoloader. Are there any read-made policy templates or whitepapers that I can adapt to my needs? I will be backing up two win2k3 files servers, one exchange server 2000, and about a 100 windows and macintosh desktops. The disk array and LTO3 autoloader are directly attached via SCSI U320 to my backup server (a Win2k3 dual Xeon CPU with mirrored SATA drives for the boot and system partitions.

I would appreciate comments based on BENT 10.0 (I've got two base licenses each with the AOFO and IDR options.) I will be using the RANT32 and Mac agents for remote clients I've looked at BENT 10d and I cannot justify the upgrade cost.

ThanksMessage was edited by:
Ken Onwere

[Brian_Long]

I can not point you in the direction of a good strategy, but I can tell you that I have been on the receiving end of a bad one. By default B2D chunks your jobs into 1GB files, which can be changed to a significantly higher value. In this case, they were 1GB files.

The largest problems:
The array became very fragmented and could not be cleaned up unless all backup services were taken offline for an extended period of time (days).
The B2D files were backed up to tape, making the restore of purged or overwritten B2D files a two step processes (restore B2D file, then restore from B2D file).
Added confusion to log management.

Now I suspect the process could have been done better, but given the inherited frustration I trashed the B2D2Tape and am now using CPS, then backing up CPS job data to tape. System state is also pulled again when creating tapes (sent directly to tape).

Just one experience.

[Ken_Onwere]

Thanks for the feedback. I will be running my first tests tonite, using a 100GB B2D file size. I don't have the tape drive ready as such I will be duplicating to another array. I was under the impression that I could restore directly from the duplicates.

Regarding CPS, I'd love to go that route but that requires additional server hardware (in my setup), plus I still have to accomodate users who insist on storing data on their local machines.

[Amruta_Bhide]

Hello Ken,

We apologise for the belated Reply. Could you let us know what the latest State of the Problem is?

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Thanks.

[Peter_Ludwig]

Ken wrote:
> I was under the impression that I could restore directly from the duplicates.

Yes, you can. If you copy a jobyou will have two entries in the catalogs afterwards (because you have two sources to restore from).

greetings
Peter

[Ken_Putnam]

if you do a COPY job to tape , you will need to restore the BKF files ti disk before you can restore data

if you do a DUPLICATE job to tape, you can restore data directly from tape.Message was edited by:
Ken Putnam

[Michael_Pietrza]

Brian, Ken, or anyone,

When performing backups to disk, what are the 'best practices" for backup file size? Am I going to get any benefit from a file size larger than 1 gig (the default).

Thanks in advanced if anyone has any thoughts.

Michael in San Diego

[Ken_Onwere]

> Hello Ken,
>
> We apologise for the belated Reply. Could you let us
> know what the latest State of the Problem is?

I had requested suggestions for creating a D2D2T backup regime using BENT 10 (wwithout CPS.) I have the AOFO and IDR options and I will be backing up windows file servers, workstaations and Macs. I have pretty muched pieced together a setup that incorporates Synthetic Backups. I am still looking for informating about disk grooming of backups that have been synthesized into a full backup. Unfortunately Synthetic backups do not support Macs (the very reason why I choose not to get the DLO option.)

[Deepali_Badave]

Hello,

Please elaborate your setup configuration to troubleshoot this issue.

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