Iintegration of NetBackup,Isilon direct NDMP to a Datadomain as VTL

[effiko]

I seek references and information regarding integration of NetBackup,Isilon NDMP to a Datadomain as VTL andtapeout for long term.

THe suggested configuration is to backup an isilon with 100 TB of data (50 milion files ) via direct NDMP to a datadomain VTL.

tapeout weekly retention 3 month, quarterly 1 year, yearly retention 7 years.

On the Isilon, there will be a backup accelerator that is able to connect to the datadomain VTL.

I'll appreciate any input from any body with experience of this size and technology.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika · Accepted solution]

According to Hardware Compatibility List, Direct NDMP on Isilon is supported. NetBackup supports Data Domain VTL as well. I have no doubt on use of DD VTL with Isilon in Direct NDMP.

Be sure to check OS version of Isilon and DD is supported, and DD VTL os configured well so that SCSI Inquiry string of robot and drive match those  listed in HCL.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH76495

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

Although HCL does not clearly mention to Isilon Backup Accelerator, several EMC docs state that  it is supported. Maximun throughput per Isilon Backup Accelerator is 1.7TB/s, so you may need to deploy several Backup Accelerators in your site.

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/specification-sheet/h10791-isilon-backup-accelerator-ss.pdf

[effiko]

Thanks for your comments. I have read the documentation and also confirmed with local Symantec SE that it should work.

I will be glad to share experience with one that had it done.

[SplashMasterson]

I think you mean 1.7TB/hour ;)

[Skeader]

Hi there.

Did you ever get Isilon to VTL up and running?  We've always combined our SQL backups and NAS backups under one umbrella.  It seems when you move to Boost for SQL you need to stay with a VTL based sollution on the DataDomain side for NAS data. (or just write direct to physical tape if that is an option too)

[effiko]

Hi Everybody and thank you for sharing your knowledge.

We have implemented direct NDMP to 3 LTO 5 tape drives and achieved about 400 MB/sec total throughput which makes it about 1.37 TB/hour.

I believe that 1.7 TB/hour is achieveable with more tape drives.

using VTL will make the VTL the week link and may reduce the throughput.

[SplashMasterson]

effiko, did you have any luck with more than 3 LTO-5 drives?

The last time I talked to the Isilon engineers they wouldn't give me a direct answer but their reccomendation was to only use 3 LTO-5 drives per BA. I cannot find any documentation that mentions LTO-5, the only document I could find is for OneFS v5.0

Achieving Peak Performance 
General recommendations to achieve peak performance using the Backup Accelerator are: 
 I-Series: 5 nodes for each Backup Accelerator 
 X-Series: 3 nodes for each Backup Accelerator 
 NL-Series: 3 nodes for each Backup Accelerator 
 S-Series: 2 nodes for each Backup Accelerator 
 LTO-4: 4 Tape devices per Backup Accelerator 
 LTO-3: 8 Tape devices per Backup Accelerator 
Note: It is recommended to limit the number of concurrent backup/restore sessions to eight per Backup Accelerator. 

My peak direct NDMP performance with 4 LTO-4 drives was almost 500MB/s using large, compressible files, but we typically saw an average around 400MB/s. (100MB/s per drive, not great, but better than having NFS mounts on the Media Servers)

If anyone has a link to a OneFS v7 NDMP with NetBackup document I would love to take a look at it.

[effiko]

In our case, we  could not connect to more than 3 drives because of switch limitations. Once We'll be able to do so, I'll post results.