At present, fiber channel cards are capable of 4 Gigabit+ speeds, as opposed to the one Gb that copper ethernet is limited to (unless you work at CERN, anyway...). Additionally, many backup targets that receive a remote agent install are becoming SAN connected as the need for storage explodes. Fiber-connected backup libraries are also becoming more accessible and prevalent. However--per Symantec Support--the only way to utilize any existing fiber connections on a target server is to install another instance of Backup Exec Server with the Shared Storage option--a very expensive option indeed in both dollar cost and server resources.
Creating a fiber-aware remote agent and providing a way to leverage fabric switches for backup would be very advantageous, for several reasons:
It reduces traffic across copper ethernet for those that do not have separate backup subnets/wiring;
It helps shrink backup windows due to the faster transmit time fiber is capable of;
It provides a cost-attractive "middle option" between copper ethernet live backups, and pricey SAN vdisk cloning solutions (snap clone, etc);
As mentioned, it leverages existing hardware if you have fiber backup libraries and fabric-attached resources.
Please consider supporting this backup method.
