Re: [Veritas-bu] Backup Application Comparisons

I think everyone is just trying to do due diligence in case anyone questions why we use NetBackup. I recently had to restore a single volume, 2.5TB of millions of small files. The restore kept timing out until I bumped up the timeout to something like 18 hours and drilled down to sub folders. I had to restore in chunks instead of the entire volume at once. One particular subfolder really took a long time after I submitted the job. Literally half a day later, the queued job finally went active.

I’m fortunate in that this was probably the largest restore I’ve had to do thus far. But it’s unfortunate that I didn’t know about this drawback until now. That was one single volume. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to try to recover 600 clients from a real disaster. I knew NetBackup didn’t like backing up a Windows file structure like that, but I didn’t know about the restore issues. I would have to start restoring sub-sub-sub-sub folders, one at a time, to get the jobs to not timeout.

That’s what caused my boss to start asking about other backup applications. Do they have the same limitation? The other major influence is the maintenance renewal check we’re having to pay each year. Money is the big motivator for comparison shopping but I’m also looking at functionality.

Thanks,

Randy

From: Hall, Christian N. [mailto:HallC AT SEC DOT GOV]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:38 AM
To: Randy Samora; VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Backup Application Comparisons

Randy,

What questions are you trying to answer, what are your requirements, and are you currently meeting them?

Thanks,

Chris Hall

From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Randy Samora
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 12:21 PM
To: VERITAS-BU AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Backup Application Comparisons

Has anyone done any type of comparisons between NetBackup, HP Data Protector, and/or Microsoft DPM? We have new people coming in with new ideas questioning whether or not we are using the best application for the job. I think so and I’m looking for documented ammunition. The cost of ripping out NetBackup and replacing it with something else obviously isn’t deterring anyone from going down this road so I need something else. I’m all for finding the best solution; I’m just of the opinion that we’re already running the best solution.

Anyone?

Thanks,

Randy

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