"Melvin, Grant" wrote:
> 
> Hi Jeff,
> 
> > Wondering if anyone is using or is thinking of using IP over
> > their SAN to do network based backups?
> 
>         If you look at:
> 
> http://www.netapp.com/osn/info/config.html
> 
>         You will see a network based backup configuration that
>         sends the backup data over a dedicated IP network
>         or IP SAN. The storage is accessed from clients via
>         NAS protocols (NFS & CIFS) and not via a FC SAN. The
>         first solution available is the ATL (http://www.atlp.com)
>         P3000 with a 100bT connection supporting DLT 7000 tape
>         devices.
> 
>         In a recent InfoStor article:
> 
> http://is.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=23&ARTICLE_ID=98555
> 
>         they mention that they are working on their next
>         generation which will also support SDLT & LTO.
> 
>         "This amounts to converting its libraries from 100BaseT
>         Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet to match the performance
>         requirements of this new class of drives."
> 
> > Seems like you could get some good throughput without buying a
> > SAN media server license and SSO...
> 
>         The ATL library has an NDMP (http://www.ndmp.org) tape server
>         built in which provide tape device contention management/
>         allocation so there is no need for SSO when using this
>         network resource for backups.
> 
> Cheers,
>         Grant
> 
> =========== grant AT netapp DOT com  ========== Grant Melvin
> ===                                  === Software Development Manager
> ===                                  === Data Availability & Management
> === |\  |  __ ___  /\    __   __     === Network Appliance
> === | \ | |__  |  /__\  |__| |__|    === 475 East Java Drive
> === |  \| |__  | /    \ |    |   (R) === Sunnyvale
> ===                                  === California, 94089
> ===                                  === Tel:(408)822-6761
> =========== Network Appliance ========== Fax:(408)822-4578
> _______________________________________________
> Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
> http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu

Sure,

The biggest problem is if your hardware is configured to do it.  In
other words,
do all the components (especially the switches) support IP (fabric).  If
you purchased
the SAN pre-packaged with switches and all, chances can be high that
whomever
you got it from only certified the switch running SCSI over FC.  Who
knows, maybe you'll
get lucky.  As far as other requirements, make sure your bp.conf file
(or registry)
have the required interface set for the FC NIC.  Also, if you are
running NT, you can
not (unless something has changed) run both SCSI and IP on the same
HBAs.  So you'll
have to add them for the FC network.  Otherwise, I've found the
performance to be not too
bad, obviously depending on the concurrent use of that HBA for SCSI. 
Maybe some day
FC will reach the maturity of ethernet from all the different vendors.

Thanks
Peter