NDMP backup of filer does not make use of multi-plexing?

[afacey]

Hello,

Attemping to backup a couple netapp filers via Remote NDMP with data totaling ~14TB. The drives are NOT directly connected to the filers.
The filers were previously backed up by mounting each volume/qtree as NFS on the master server (solaris 10 T2000 NBU 6.5.4). Using NFS allowed us to spawn or split big volumes into several jobs, making use of multi-plexing, spreading across 8 drives. Since turning NDMP on, and using the same type of method, I'm finding that if I have 8 NDMP jobs, I need 8 drives. what good is NDMP? I know it is somewhat faster, but there is no way I can get all my volumes done 8 at a time.. Also the data is not supplied fast enough to LTO2 & LTO3 drives at only ones job per drive. Hopefully I'm missing something.

Any comments appreciated.

[Bill_Johnson1]

You are not missing anything. Multiplexing is not supported with NDMP. You might get a little more speed using NDMP over NFS shares, but it should be nominal. NDMP shows its true colors when you have the drives directly attached to the filer. I have seen some incredible throughputs that way. You can share the drives between the filer and the media server(s) if you have the SSO license.

This is a feature that is being worked on in a future release of NetBackup for remote NDMP.

Bill

[afacey]

Thanks for confirming,,, what a bummer. I do have a couple extra LTO3 HP drives. IS there a doc floating around on how to direct connect drives to Netapps? Any additional licenses required?

[Marianne]

Have a look at these 2 docs:

ftp://exftpp.symantec.com/pub/support/products/NetBackup_Enterprise_Server/267773.pdf
ftp://exftpp.symantec.com/pub/support/products/NetBackup_Enterprise_Server/290205.pdf

As far as licensing is concerned, this is the information that I have (please confirm with you reseller):
NetBackup for NDMP licensing is per NDMP NAS (host) regardless of the configuration (local, 3-way, or Remote NDMP).

[Bill_Johnson1]

That's correct. You will need to install the license on each media server that will using NDMP as well. Usually this is only the master server in a local NDMP configuration. Also, with UNIX/Linux master/media servers, there is an addition install and update for the NDMP option. Windows master/media servers have the NDMP option installed by default.