Questions about SSO

[sjordet]

Hi!

We are going to install two media servers (BE 2010). We have a dedicated SAN for backup storage, a IBM DS3500. I was hoping that with the Shared SAN Option we could use the DS3500 as common storage for the backups.

But the more I read, the less I understand. For both mediaservers to access the same SAN volume, I guess I have to use a Windows Cluster? I can't seem to get the Backup Exec servers to do what I want. This means I will have to share my very big SAN volume into two LUN's instead, and map each of them to a different server?

This will of course work, but for sure one volume will get full quite fast, while the other is just half full. It's impossible for me to predict the storage utilization beforehand.

So is the SSO just for sharing tape robots with several media servers?

Regards,

Stian

[Sush--- · Accepted solution]

For both mediaservers to access the same SAN volume, I guess I have to use a Windows Cluster?

I dont think so that you will require to have cluster to share SAN Volumes. SAN volumes can still be shared without clustering.

So is the SSO just for sharing tape robots with several media servers?

Not really. Without SSO License you will still be able to share the Robotic Library if its on the Fiber switch. But SSO will help is managing the Medias used in this library by both the servers. Without SSO License there is a possibility that the tapes written by one Media server can get overwritten by jobs from other media server because they are completely unmanaged even when there is Overwrite protection on the first Media server.

So to manage the Media's Overwrite Protection and Append Period, and also to keep proper records about which tape is used by which media server, you will require SSO License.

Thanks,

-Sush...

[sjordet]

Thank you very much for your answer :)

While I haven't tried it, I have in general been taught to never mount the same LUN on two servers without a clustering filesystem... I really can't see how this is supposed to work...

So I will just mount the same LUN on both servers, and then make a seperate Backup-to-disk-folder for each mediaserver? And that should work?

Thanks again,

Stian

[CraigV]

It'll work that way, yes. But why not separate the environments completely and create 2 LUNs (split that 1 LUN you would've created into 2) and then create B2Ds on that. This also prevents someone else from deleting a B2D unnecessarily.

[sjordet]

Hi, thanks for your reply :)

I don't want to seperate it completely, because I'm afraid that I will have one LUN that is always full, and another that is only half full... But maybe it's the safest bet to seperate it completely... Hmm.

Thanks :)

Regards,

Stian