We have an application that relies on Windows Shares.  The
shares hold millions and millions of  files.  The shares
used to be standard Windows servers with shares, but
difficulties with TSM backups (and other reasons)
required us to come up with a different architecture
that did not use TSM.

We now use NetApp equipment (IBM NSeries) that provides
all backups via snapshots, snapmirror and snapvault.

We have a Primary site with a production filer and a DR
site with a DR filer.  Each site also has a smaller
filer which are dedicated snapvaults targets for the
 the onsite bigger system.
We rely on snapshots, snapmirror and snapvault for all backups.
It looks like this:

Pri_site: prod_netapp --sv-> prod_snapvault_netapp
            |
           sm
            |
            v
Dr_site:  dr_netapp   --sv-> dr_snapvault_netapp

         (sm = snapmirror, sv = snapvault)

It works very well and has been very reliable.
It preforms snapsnots/snapmirror/snapvault operations
every 6 hours (4 times per day).

Now, I must say, we rarely have to do any restores,
whether that's doing a snap restore of a volume, or a snavault
restore of some kind.

Yes, we are trusting completely in NetApp technologies for
this system, and I do trust it.  You have to monitor and test
just like any system. It has it's own problems and issues.
But for us this has been great solution.

Rick








From:   Christian Svensson <Christian.Svensson AT CRISTIE DOT SE>
To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Date:   11/11/2013 11:05 AM
Subject:        Re: Can you abandon conventional NDMP backups for
SnapVault?
Sent by:        "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>



Hi Nora,
We are leaving NetApp because of this. NetApp cost way too much and there
is so many other vendors that does everything much better and more and for
less $$$$.

But have you look at SnapDiff? That is an alternative for you.

Thanks
Christian Svensson

-----Original Message-----
From: Nora [mailto:tsm-forum AT BACKUPCENTRAL DOT COM]
Sent: den 11 november 2013 13:09
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Can you abandon conventional NDMP backups for SnapVault?

Hello,

We have a lot of trouble with the conventional NDMP backup of our NetApp
system with TSM. So we are considering alternatives.
We currently have snapshots enabled on our NetApp, but I was wondering
whether it is realistic to completely depend on NetApp SnapVault for
backup of the data on our NAS (in 10s of TBs) and completely abandon
traditional NDMP backup? Has anyone tried this? Is it reliable to depend
on SnapVault only, what are the problems / risks associated with that?
I would appreciate some insight.

Thanks,
Nora

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