[Veritas-bu] SAN backups using fibre-channel tape robots, etc?

We're currently running NB-3.2 on Solaris servers, attached to ATL tape 
robots.  I'm working on a plan to:

1. Upgrade my robots to ATL P3000's probably
2. Put the robot on fibre with either:
    A. Compaq tape scsi<->fibre tape controllers
    B. Brocade/Vixel/Gadzooks/Other scsi<->fibre bridges
    C. ATL's scsi<->fibre bridge you can get with the P3000.
3. Get some/all of the following being backed up using the shared storage 
option
    A. Solaris-2.7 sparc
    B. WinNT 4.0 Intel
    C. SGI IRIX-6.5.x
    D. Digital Unix 4.0D
    E. Network Appliance
    F. HPUX-10.20 and 11.0

Compaq sells their own version of the ATL P3000 which they say they've 
modified and tested with NB to make sure it works. Many other people resell 
the ATL robots, but I'm finding it very difficult to get exact details from 
anyone about what has been tested, demonstrated to work, etc.  Its sort of 
like when ATM first came on the scene. You could connect a Fore switch to a 
newbridge, and you could get parts of it to work, but the spec was flaky, and 
neither one wanted to "certify" a cross-platform configuration.

Veritas hasn't been able to give me much help, nor have Sun, SGI, or Network 
Appliance.

Anyone else got some/all of this working and could comment on whether you just 
had to work through it and test your own configuration, or whether you were 
able to get statements of support from vendors?  I'm a little paranoid since 
we had a fibre-channel card from a vendor where their driver was completely 
unstable under load under Solaris-2.7 in 64bit mode.  Makes me worry how well 
some of the more complicated fibre-channel configurations work.

Comments, pointers, or recommendations?  

Thanks.


-- 
Andy Steingruebl              | e-mail: steingra AT pprd.abbott DOT com         
 
Unix Systems Admin/Programmer | phone:  (847) 935-4728                    
Unix/Network Security         | fax:    (847) 935-0142                    
Abbott Laboratories, PPDR&D   | post:   100 Abbott Park Road, D472 - AP9A
                              |         Abbott Park, IL 60064-6115