VTL with Netbackup

[Marco_Chiapusso]

Hi guys,
does anyone implemented a Virtual Tape Driver?
We are testing 2 type of VTL
On the comp matrix of NBU I see that some VTL are supported with inquiry string... what does it means? When a VTL emulate a tape library the software see the emulated library.... For example the Falconstor VTL it's supported with "Supported with “FALCON VTL” inquiry string and only as IBM LTO drive. Direct backups to physical tape drives not
currently supported." It's false because if I emulate a STK SL500 netbackup with the discovery see the STK library...

Help me to understand!!!

Txs

[Stumpr2]

I haven't played with it yet. But, there has been much discussion in the mail group on VTL in the last couple of months:

http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/pipermail/veritas-bu/2005-November/subject.html

http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/pipermail/veritas-bu/2005-December/subject.htmlMessage was edited by:
Bob Stump

[Aaron_Reznicek]

I am using three EMC DL700 VTL's (Falconstor with EMC disk) with Netbackup 4.5 and 5.1. I have most of them setup as some sort of STK lib. It works fine. From what I can tell Veritas is stating that they have tested one "type" of lib within in vendors VTLL. IE: for EMC they claim you can only use the EMC type lib. But they all work.

[Marco_Chiapusso]

Txs Aaron, and what about license? You still use Tape drive support and not more Shared Storage Option...

I'm even interested about Vault... You manage Vault with VTL or with Netbackup...

Txs again

[Keith_pA]

No licenses required.
You can vault either from VTL or NetBackup, your choice.

[Dan_Richison]

Marco, I just implemented an STK VTL so if you are looking at one let me know if you need info.

[Marco_Chiapusso]

Hi Dan,
thx for your reply.
I'm interested about your opinio about that VTL...
And I am also interested about the licensing with NBU...
You need to acquire only the TDS license and not other license... but I know that for the next release NBU 6.0 will be available a new license for VTL. The costs will be calculated for TB on you VTL... do you know something about that?

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

VERITAS began shiping VTL Option license prised upon VTL capacity(not number of drives) from Netbackup 5.x, I know.

[Dan_Richison]

Yas is correct on the pricing, they have the by amount of storage option and I forget the how the tiers are setup but with that you have no limit on the number of drives. What I have seen so far and this is fairly newly put in. Backups run a little bit faster, restores are much quicker, downfalls: does not allow for use of powerpath and multiple hba's which would definitely increase things, also you have to be careful about how many/little drives you add and use to get a happy medium for your environment.

[Paul_Spotts]

downfalls:
> does not allow for use of powerpath and multiple
> e hba's which would definitely increase things

Is that Powerpat on the master server? Media Server? Media Server or where?