If you are going to use a filer, EMC doesn't support backups of its NAS devices 
(that I have run into) except via NDMP dump.
Netapp on the other hand (or IBM-branded N-series, which is still a Netapp) 
supports the -snapdiff api.

I just helped a customer convert about 40 hours worth of NDMP dumps that 
normally took day,s to a single  2-hour -snapdiff TSM backup.  And size is down 
from Terabytes a week to a few Gigabytes a day, because the -snapdiff API lets 
you do a true incremental of the stuff living on the filer. ( See the windows 
backup client manual for the requirements, they are very minimal - essentially 
just requires 7.3 or higher of Ontap, and that's been out for a long time.  )

As far as what is good for  VM's (and I'm speaking from a backup/recovery 
perspective, I'm not a VMWare expert): no 2 filer-type devices are the same.  
As long as you are talking really low utilization, almost anything will work.
If you are talking > TB of VM's, remember that for VM's we are back in the sad 
old world of needing to full dump all the .vmdks, usually every 1-2 weeks.  So 
it's a matter have having the infrastructure IN the filer (drives, cache, 
paths) and the infrastructure TO the filer (fibre attachments or 10GigE between 
it and the TSM server) to get the throughput you need.

"Don't buy cheap, and expect to get fast.
Be most suspicious of the ones who claim it's simple."  -  me

W
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
EVILUTION
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 12:27 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] Isilon backup

This may be a bit off topic but consider this a thread bump....

We have about 25TB worth of unstructured data spread across seven windows 
servers using DFS.  We are using TSM with a monthly image backup as well as 
daily journal based backups to collect the data but I'm concerned about restore 
times.

I have convinced managment that we need a filer but they do not want to 
purchase a file JUST to for file server backup/recovery.   They now want to 
depoly test and dev VM's on the solution and possibly use the platform for 
virtual desktops (VDI) and maybe even a workstation backup solution.

I spoke with Gartner and without hesitation the recommended the ISILON over all 
other solutions.  For those of you that already have ISILON do you feel it was 
the right choice?

We are an EMC storage shop so ISILON would be easy to sell but I feel better 
about purchasing a proven solutions (NETAPP) rather than something that EMC may 
chew up and significantly change.

My primary concern is still with the backup of the data contained on the device 
along with virus protection and access control.  Please provide your feedback.

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