LAN-Free Backup to disk

[pianca]

Hi,

I've installed TSM 5.5 on a Linux Server and I have a Linux client.
Server and client are in a SAN enviroment, both systems are fibre channel connection with the storage device.

I've installed the Storage Agent for lan-free data movement.

The configuration look likes correct... when I backup data the client shows that the data transfer in LAN-free.
But if I controll the LAN traffic on the TSM Server with "ifconfig" I see that all the data pass through the ethernet interface!!!
If I backup 1 GByte of data... I see that the counter of the ethernet interface is incresead of about 1GByte!!

Is the SANergy software necessary to perform a lan-free backup to disk???

Someone have suggestion for me???

Thank you!!
Roberto

 

[jliehr]

Hi,

I've installed TSM 5.5 on a Linux Server and I have a Linux client.
Server and client are in a SAN enviroment, both systems are fibre channel connection with the storage device.

I've installed the Storage Agent for lan-free data movement.

The configuration look likes correct... when I backup data the client shows that the data transfer in LAN-free.
But if I controll the LAN traffic on the TSM Server with "ifconfig" I see that all the data pass through the ethernet interface!!!
If I backup 1 GByte of data... I see that the counter of the ethernet interface is incresead of about 1GByte!!

Is the SANergy software necessary to perform a lan-free backup to disk???

Someone have suggestion for me???

Thank you!!
Roberto

Yes, you will need SANergy to backup Lan-free to disk

 

[pianca]

Could you tell me where can I find information about installation and configuration of the SANergy host and MDC on a Linux system??

 

[jliehr]

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/tividd/td/SANer/GC32-0740-01/en_US/HTML/ab0etfrm.HTM

 

[angus747]

I had also difficulties with using SANenergy for backups to disk but they were due to my lack of knowledge in this special area. I did inform myself about various backup products here and tried to find one that I can use for backing up private and company data. I want a backup software that is able to backup big and small amounts of data efficiently. The price should not be too high either. Any recommendations?

 

[Eldoraan]

You can backup LAN-Free to disk storage without SANergy or anything else. The thing is the target storage pool must be sequential media. So if you use a devclass of FILE (sequential) rather than DISK (random), then you can create a storage pool using that file device class and LAN-Free backups should work to that pool. Read up on the FILE device class, it has requirements on the disk used for the files.

 

[Mita201]

Eldoraan,

I think it is not possible.
Have you ever tried to do this? Please explain it to us.

 

[Eldoraan]

Assuming lan-free client has SAN connected disk -

Define a sequential disk pool - devtype=file on SAN attached disk
Point the destination of your lan-free node to that pool on copygroup setting

Backups should go lan-free to that file based device on same fabric as client storage. I've not used this, but had to research it a few years back. I believe the TSM Admin Guide may have some details, or I found a redbook. Was awhile go so don't remember off hand where I found good info.

 

[Mita201]

This is absolutely not possible way you have explained it. You must have that SAN disk mapped to both nodes, client and server (like you have tape drive in LAN-FREE setup), and there must be some kind of locking mechanism that will not let two nodes to write to same file at the same time. You use SANergy for this, and without it, it is not possible. I am sure about that.
Other way to write LAN-FREE to disk is to buy VTL.

 

[Eldoraan]

From STA guide:

Note:

SANergy(R) is just one option for file-sharing software. IBM TotalStorage(R) SAN File System is another. For current information about supported file-sharing software, see www.ibm.com/software/sysmgmt/products/support/IBMTivoliStorageManager.html

Of course, finding that info is a task in and of itself. Like I said, I know it's possible without SANergy, but I never got far into details before project was shutdown. Sorry if I was vague, it was several years ago I looked into this.

 

[Mita201]

Ok, Eldoraan, thanks, I must admit I didn't know about IBM TotalStorage(R) SAN File System. But, as you can see, there must be something that do locking, you can't just create pool on devclass=FILE and expect that other hosts can write to pool files LAN-FREE.

 

[Mita201]

Also, never heard that anyone is using IBM TotalStorage® SAN File System or GPFS for LAN-FREE data movement to disk in Tivoli Storage Manager environmet. Does anybody knows about such case?
To be honest, do not know much successful SANergy implementations either...

 

[Eldoraan]

Ahh That was it! GPFS! haha told you it was long ago and I forgot details. We were looking at that but never got further than initial review.