DSU vs VTL with NetBackup 6.5.x and OSO

[dukbtr]

Disk based storage for backups

Current Environment:

NetBackup 6.0 MP4

Master - HPUX 11.i

3 Media - HPUX 11.i

L700 w/ 10 LTO3 (fiber) direct attached to media servers

NDMP

Near Future:

NetBackup 6.5.x

Master - HPUX Itanium 11.23 +

1-2 Media servers

Disk based storage of some kind

L700w/10 LTO3 (TAN)

We are shopping around for a disk based solution for our backup NetBackup environment.  The goal is to shorten backup windows and get tapes duplicated and ready for offsite within 24hours.  Currently our offsite movements are about 3-4 days behind the primary backup being done.

The players in the field have been narrowed down to:

• EMC VTL w/ data dedupe
• Quantum VTL w/ data dedupe
• Sun/STK VTL (dedupe available 1st quarter 2009)
• NetApp VTL w/ data dedupe

There is an argument though as to whether VTL or Disk Storage Unit would be better.  With some of the DSU appliances speed was the issue.  As in the case of Data Domain, the appliance uses CIFS, NFS, or other network protocols for transfers.  To get any performance gains or to just expand you need to add more heads and trays. 

With 6.5 and some of the advanced disk options, is it viable to just add a lot of disk to the SAN? We would then use NetBackup Vault or Storage Lifecycle Policies to dupe to tape.  This does rely on the media servers as is currently done now. In the future when the time comes for replication, just look at whatever 3rd party vendor has the software/hardware to do it.  What would be the advantages/disadvantages to doing it this way?

Whatever solution we pick it will hold a months worth of Fulls and Incrementals.  We would then duplicate the fulls to tape for offsite purposes.  In the 2-3 year time span we plan on adding a second unit to our own offsite location for replication off data backed up.

We are not looking for a client side Dedupe solution like Puredisk or Avamar.  Some of our Systems are pretty well maxed out on CPU/IO and that might be the factor to push it over the edge.

Any thoughts on the subject are welcome and appreciated.

[dukbtr]

/bump

surely you guys/gals have some input:smiley

wink:

[J_H_Is_gone]

I am doing the same research now ( meetings with vendors for the last month).

We have not come to a conclusion yet.

[dukbtr]

If possible, do you mind listing the vendors you've met with and some pros/cons for each of them?

[spaigejr]

Old thread, but what did you guys do here?

[jpackett]

I've met with Data Domain, Quantum, and ProtecTier (IBM). Quantum is more post process deduping. It is much more reasonably priced though. ProtecTier and Data Domain were close in price in the end so we are testing both to see which meets our needs better and also factoring in that we will want to replicate later. Trying to get more numbers now for growing their boxes and also trying to get them to commit on price lock for when we buy the box that we will replicate to.

I'd be very interested to know how the rest of you made out and what solution you chose. Are you happy with the solution you chose?

[RonCaplinger]

We are in almost the exact same boat, and I'm leaning more towards DSU's/DSSU's, versus VTL.  But I don't see a clear path or argument for or against either one.