Both products are very good.
1. What incremental backup for Oracle 7 and Sybase 11 is available with
Netbackup vs. ADSM? If you are referring to block level incremental, you
must host database volumes IN Veritas filesystems. Hope Veritas FS works
like you think (we've had a few problems which caused loss of filesystems -
I think most of the bug items were worked out). At this point none of our
databases use filesystems.
2. Can't speak to that.
3. Throughput may indeed be higher with Netbackup. We will be testing
that in the near future - although our testing focus has shifted to what
each product will do with SAN. I believe a better term might be better
utilization of existing tape devices (multi-streaming). An example here
would be: we have an E10K and I can read around 7.5MB/sec off of a RSM
controller. If I could multi-stream to one 3590, I could push it as fast
as it could go, but I can't (although I'm not that far off). So, I could
use 24 streams (2 per device) rather than 12. We chose Spectralogic's
Alexandria for that application initially (it does NOT multistream either).
I have not seen a product which is as well engineered as Alexandria. The
machine yawns as you pump data through. The same cannot be said of the
other products. Make sure the RESTORE times are acceptable with
multi-streaming.
4. Here are some thoughts on the two products:
a. I like Netbackup's service port use - no messy daemon to run in the
background.
b. Both have good device support, install easily, and are fairly easy to
understand. You will probably have a higher learning curve with ADSM. (a
small note though - ADSM uses the OS install facilities - Netbackup uses
very little of these).
c. ADSM has a robust DB vs Netbackup.
d. You can launch a client session from the ADMIN interface with Netbackup
(X-windows). You'll be able to do this with ADSM early next year, but more
importantly, it will be WEB based (important to us). Netbackup has a Java
interface, but it must run on Sun - since we have 3 machine flavors, we
cannot be limited. This helps operations administer and monitor backups.
e. You make a good point about incremental only. Netbackup slave servers
and ability to redirect data there helps the scalability of the product,
i.e., having to do periodic fulls (and you will with those databases too!)
can flood the network and cause major scheduling headaches if not done
correctly. ADSM 3.1.2 with the enterprise items, almost duplicates that
paradigm completely. The difference is, with ADSM you normally send a
small amount of data from each server (besides database data), because you
already HAVE the data protected on the ADSM server. This helps
scalability.
f. We ran into an issue with scheduling high availability clients with
Autosys (our scheduler) using Netbackup. The G-F-S paradigm and their
implementation would cause us to track and store much more daily data than
we would want because of the clustering environment and not using the
Netbackup scheduler. This was not a problem with ADSM. When we complete
our testing of Netbackup, this will be an important item for us, since we
have many clusters.
g. What does each product have planned for TRUE SAN environments, e.g.,
device 2 device backup with minimal server/client interaction or data
exchange?
I don't think you'd go wrong choosing either product. I think they are the
best the market has to offer right now. If you choose ADSM, make sure you
can get buy in for the incremental forever approach. Sometimes that ONE
thing causes headaches (but never a loss of data - at least not
intentionally!).
Thanks,
David Hendrix
dmhendri AT fedex DOT com
"Hough, Peter" <peter.hough AT GUARDIANDR.CO DOT UK> on 11/09/98 01:51:53 AM
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc: (bcc: DAVID HENDRIX/216832/ITD/FEDEX)
Subject: ADSM or Veritas
I have a very short timescale in which to recommend one of these
products. I won't have the chance to test. I have a couple of
questions I would appreciate feedback on.
1. The incremental only aspect of ADSM is extremely attractive.
However, large databases are a significant part of the data to be
backed up and Netbackup's incremental only backup of these databases
is also very attractive. Are there any plans for IBM to develop
incremental backups of databases? (I don't count backing up the logs
as incremental backup)
2. When I was previously involved with ADSM encryption was something
discussed on occasions, but never made it into any IBM plans. Does
encryption now figure in any plans for future releases?
3. I have been given the impression that throughput on Netbackup is
superior to that of ADSM. Has anyone had real life experience of the
relative performance of Netbackup and ADSM?
4. Are there any other key differences to look out for?
Any feedback much appreciated.
Peter Hough
Head of IT
Data Management Division
Guardian iT
LONDON
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