Theres also a good(not perfect write up on the VAN network)
http://www.veritas.com/Vrt/offer?_requestid=34252&a_id=9789&;
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Nardello,
John
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 10:42 AM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Virtual Tape Library / Drives
If you use the VTL to duplicate images to physical tape, NetBackup will have
no idea that the image has been copied. Likewise, if you expire the VTL
image and just have a physical tape copy left, in order to do a NetBackup
restore you will first have to import the tape copy - either to the VTL, or
into NetBackup, before you'll be able to proceed. Also, be aware that
NetBackup does not currently support VTLs emulating anything - our EMC CDLs
show up as "EMC CLARiiON DL DEV v1.0" for example, although they function as
STK L700s. =)
See also http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/264984.htm for the best
practices doc.
John Nardello
T-Mobile: Enterprise Systems Backup Group Technical Lead
"Your backups are only as good as your restores."
-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 8:36 PM
To: Paul Gimpelev; List Veritas List
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Virtual Tape Library / Drives
Paul,
I read about what I think you mean by "out of the back end duplication". If
I have it right, with certain subsystems you can run FC from the disk
straight to the tape library. The VTL is smart enough to know how to
duplicate images to the tapes. I guess the only thing I don't understand is
where NetBackup comes into play with that piece. Does NetBackup somehow
control the duplication process even though the data isn't going through a
media server? What I would want to avoid is using some other software
program to managed the duplication from the VTL to live tape library.
As for the separate connection to the VTL, in our Windows environment we
currently have two FC cards in each SAN attached box. We have two disk SAN's
and connect one card to each for failover (Securepath). Currently we just
allocate tape devices through these two cards. For Windows, we do not have a
separate SAN for just tape. I know this would probably be the best bet, but
with the limited number of PCI card slots in most newer servers, using 3 for
FC cards just isn't possible.
I thought of one more question. Has anyone used VTL with NT 4.0? I know it's
a dieing breed, but not everyone is up to Win2k just yet.
Thanks,
Kris
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Gimpelev [mailto:paulg AT CDCNA DOT COM]
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 9:50 PM
To: Williams, Kristopher L; List Veritas List
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Virtual Tape Library / Drives
Kris,
Your general understanding of how VTL works is pretty much correct.
There are certain advantages to VTL which you have not mentioned such as
"out of the back end duplication" but if you need to keep an image on-site
as well as physical tape off site at the same time then you got it. As far
as whether to make any SAN attached host a media server depends entirely on
your configuration and what you need to back up off of these hosts. If the
amount of data is trivial, then it may be more efficient to back them up
over the network. You also need to consider that VTL, just as a physical
tape library, would require a separate SAN
connection(s) for the tape drive(s) apart from your existing SAN connections
to the disks.
Depending on your configuration, you might consider using fewer
robotics contorol hosts (you can have different drives in a single robot
attached to multiple hosts). In our scenario it works great because we
a)use centralized duplication and b)have clusered robotics control hosts so
our chances of having a downed robot is very low.
Again, it all depends on what you are tring to do, what you
currently have and how much you are willing to spend.
paulg
Save On Jan 27, 8:33pm, Williams, Kristopher L wrote:
> Subject: [Veritas-bu] Virtual Tape Library / Drives Hello all,
>
>
> I'm trying to get my head around exactly what and how a virtual tape
> drive system works.
>
> Here is how I see it: VTL is mostly a software product that allows me
to
> create virtual libraries and tape devices. I can then present those
> devices to any host connected to the FC SAN. (I know that some offer
> iSCSI but I only want to deal with Fiber in my example). Those virtual
> tape drives get written to by NetBackup just like normal tape drives,
> but the data really is stored on a central disk subsystem. Using NB
> duplication, I can get the data off to real tapes to be vaulted for DR
> purposes.
>
> I guess the first idea that comes to mind is to place a virtual drive
on
> every SAN attached host and make them all SAN media managers (I know
> that Veritas License Cost will make this sound crazy). I could then
have
> each SAN Media server write it's own data to it's local "Virtual" tape
> drive.
>
> Can someone who has a VTL system fill in the holes for me? I'm sure
> there are many many more considerations but I'm just at the thinking
> phase.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kris
>
> _______________________________________________
> Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
>http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
>-- End of excerpt from Williams, Kristopher L
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