06-16-2015 03:15 AM
Hi there!
I'm working on a solution where a customer will be wanting to backup a Netapp storage appliance to tape, so I'm evaluating the NDMP option with Backup Exec 2014/15.
NDMP is able to deliver both 'dump' backups of data volumes (rather crude) but also as an extention of NDMP the 'SMTape' style of backup allows some more sophisticated choices, including incremental and differential style backups.
Does anyone know if Backup Exec 2014/15 with the NDMP option fully supports SMTape?
For reference we'd be looking at a Netapp FAS2552 with Data OnTape 8.3 in cDOT configuration.
Many thanks!
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Mark Lomas
06-16-2015 03:40 AM
I believe BE uses only the traditional "dump" method for NetApp, however various backup levels such as level 1, level 2 are available (levels indicate the changes to backed up i.e. incremental).
Also, found this article which outlines the differences between the backup methods - https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMP1368865/html/GUID-705FF1CF-399E-4239-88B4-18DDEA9C1D56.html
06-16-2015 05:14 AM
Be vary careful to understand what type of data will be stored on the NetApp as in a number of real world cases customers and partners have not understood that it is not just that the data is stored on a NetApp that should be the deciding factor on using the NDMP Option.
Bascially if the NetApp is holding any form of LUN or Database Techology (Exchange etc) then the NDMP Option will not give any form of GRT restore and severly limit your restore capabilities
Please take a look at:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/lan-free-including-san-backup-configurations-backup-exec
which tries to explain when the NDMP optipn might not be appropriate
06-16-2015 05:33 AM
Oh and I think that currently CDOT / Clustering of NetApps still provides problems (ever since NetApp made changes that affected Backup Exec). I am not sure these have been fixed as I believe we were awaiting NetApp making further changes before we could follow up ourselves.
06-16-2015 05:43 AM
More info: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH222991
06-16-2015 06:26 AM
Yeah, learning more about this as I note that in particular with LUNs, incremental / differential would be useless as the system would view the LUN as a 'file' which of course would always be different so the entire thing would always get backed up. Not sure if SMTape would have helped with this, but since it looks like it's not supported in BE anyway that's irrelevant.