We do this a lot and have for very many years.

Our older NetApps use SCSI robots, and just dump to them - no NetBackup at 
all.

Now we use NetBackup for NDMP (you buy one licence for each filer), and 
install it on the master server and a media server that becomes the 
'NetBackup for NDMP server'.  You can just use the Master if you prefer.

The significance of the 'NetBackup for NDMP server' is that is the box 
that talks the NDMP protocol to the filer, and it is where the filer sends 
the catalogue information during the backup.  This traffic (filer->server) 
is quite heavy stuff, and apparently can eat up /tmp space on the server. 
I'm told it builds the catalogue as ti comes in from the filer, and at the 
end of the backup job sends it on to the Master.  Of course if these are 
all the same server it happens locally, but still goes on.

Pay close attention to password length restrictions.  There is a system 
parameter on the filer that has to be set to limit the password length for 
the required ndmp account to 8 characters, otherwise the 'NetBackup for 
NDMP server' will be unable to authenticate to the filer.  NetBackup is 
strictly limited to an 8-character password at present.  set_ndmp_attr is 
you friend for testing.

You need 4.5FP3 minimum I think to make sure you have DAR - otherwise as 
someone else said any restore requires it to search the whole backup end 
to end.  We find without DAR restores take as long as the backup took. 
Read carefully about DAR!   If you ask to restore a folder, or any 
wildcard, DAR is turned off.  So it is well worthwile when a user asks for 
a restore of a folder to actually select to restore the files in the 
folder.   There is a limit (configurable) of 1024 files in a restore, 
above which...it turns off DAR.

We use SAN attached tapes, no great issue as long as you check the NetApp 
support matrix.  For some newer tapes you may have to do some extra 
configuration - all documented on the Now website.

Currently although filers can apparently share tape drives (I've not tried 
it!) you have to dedicate the drives to the filer; this is costly. Veritas 
and NetApp say they are working on this 'for a future release'.    This 
restriction even applies to 3-way backup, where you run an ndmpmoveragent 
process on the media server.  It still has to have a dedicated-for-NDMP 
tape drive.

There are many other small restrictions and warnings in the release notes, 
but in general it works well and the NetApps are a neat bit of kit.

The Veritas admin guide for the NDMP option is well written.  Also read 
their platform support guide, from their web site.

William D L Brown