Well we almost signed an Avamar deal for exactly the same problem...

Avamar tape is coming/here, basically it clones to a virtual edition, shuts 
down the virtual, backs up as a standard Networker/Netbackup client, then rinse 
and repeat 2tb at a time backing up deduped data, which is fantastic...

In the end though to save costs we'll most likely upgrade to 7.5 add VMWare 
server licenses, add MS application license to Networker and backup individual 
clients...  If we move to backup every client I may be able to buy some Avamar 
storage nodes to integrate with NetWorker (as dedupe nodes) just to keep down 
I/O on the VMWare servers (or maybe just expand the VMWare farm).

Alec
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: Siobhan Ellis <siobhanellis AT HOTMAIL DOT COM>

Date:         Wed, 1 Jul 2009 18:57:16 
To: <NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU>
Subject: Re: [Networker] Avamar


It works
It's good for virtual environments
It has no tape out facility worth speaking about... so think about your
retention periods.

Siobhan Ellis

-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of Joel Fisher
Sent: Wednesday, 1 July 2009 6:54 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: [Networker] Avamar

Hey Guys,

 

We are getting ready to ink the deal on a big VMware environment, but
the outstanding issue is still... how do we back it all up.

 

To protect the VMDKs we are planning on doing snapshots and replication
within  our storage arrays.  But the problem is that we have a
requirement to provide file level restore capability, and we don't want
to spend hours of admin time mounting VMDK snapshots and restoring
individual files. 

 

Conceptually, avamar seems like the "perfect" backup solution for a
VMware environment.  Global dedup, minimize server resources used for
the backup, etc...  But I've never used it, so can someone who has had
some hands on experience give me some insight on whether it really
works, and what the draw backs are.  How well does it tie into
networker.  We are currently 7.4.4(with lots of patches)

 

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

 

As far as scale goes... we will probably top out at 600-700 guests
factoring in some creep.

 

Thanks!

Joel


To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and 
type
"signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this
list. You can access the archives at
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER

To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and 
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to 
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this 
list. You can access the archives at 
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER

To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and 
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to 
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this 
list. You can access the archives at 
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER