What are the benefits of NDMP vs. Traditional Backup methods

[trevoryhap]

I'm researching the advantages of using backup software that supports NDMP vs traditional backup methods (agents). I understand it allows backups/restores of heterogeneous filers. With this I won't need to map a drive drive on Windows/UNIX servers and then backup. So a benefit is less administrative tasks. Also, if the backup device is attached to a filer backing up from the filer to the device is quicker because data doesn't have to go through the backup client first. I'm interested in understanding performance benefits when other types of configurations are in play. For example, what if I'm doing a disk to disk backup. Is there really a performance improvement (network & server) with NDMP vs. mounting to the Windows/UNIX server first and then backing up to another disk? Also, I'm guessing, another benefit is full filer backup/restore is a lot easier with NDMP when there are multiple file systems on the filer.

Your input is appreciated.

 

[chad_small]

File level restores for NDMP are a pain, but hopefully you utilize the snapshots for restore of files and not TSM (we have customers who didn't want to waste the space and have NO snapshot space, what a pain). To save your DB from exploding in size I would stick with NDMP backups. They are faster and actually less of a headache than mounting them to an alternate server and backing them up.

 

[trevoryhap]

Thanks Chad. From your experience how much faster is an NDMP backup vs. mounting to an alternate server.