Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] designing a separate backup network.

2002-04-02 12:08:37
Subject: [Veritas-bu] designing a separate backup network.
From: jlkennedy AT amcc DOT com (Jeff Kennedy)
Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 09:08:37 -0800
For a completely dedicated backup LAN you need additional nic's in every
client as well as the media/master servers.  You also need dedicated
hardware in between those machines, ie. switches and/or routers that are
only used for backup traffic.

Performance should be good unless your clients are taxed to begin with,
in which case running 2 nic's will be even more overhead.  This setup
would have nothing to do with a SAN since you're talking *network*
backup.  If you want to setup a TAN (tape area network) via fcal then
that would be a whole different animal.

You would want to figure out whether or not you really need a dedicated
backup network.  How much data are you backing up?  How often?  What
levels and which days?  Existing data traffic vs. backup traffic. 
Things of that nature.  You may be going down a path that is unnecessary
because someone heard about a cool concept.

Just for rumination:

I backup about 700gb's over the network.  2 fulls a week and cumulative
incrementals otherwise, all gigabit.  I want to move to fcal for a
couple of the Novell servers (the 2 of them equal about 450gb's) but it
isn't completely necessary at this point.

~JK

Dave Brown wrote:
> 
> I'm not really sure how to even ask this question, but I'll give it a try 
> anyway.
> 
> Our management had a meeting yesterday and after it was all said and done, 
> they had a few questions for me regarding moving all of our Veritas Netbackup 
> functions off the main LAN and utilizing a separate and dedicated backup 
> network. (BAN?)
> 
> My understanding is that everything will have its own dedicated network 
> cards, fibre cabling and server connections.  I don't think that would be a 
> problem, but they asked a few questions about going through a router off of 
> the SAN and will the backups still run correctly through the router and what 
> kind of performance issues might we deal with.
> 
> I honestly don't really know what it is they are asking or to answer these 
> concerns so I was hoping this little bit of information I have might jog 
> someone on here to make sense and give me some feedback to pass on to 
> management about a strategy or if it is even a good idea.
> 
> Sorry that it is rather vague, but I'm just in the initial stages here myself 
> and was hoping for some outside input.
> 
> Thanks all,
> Dave
> 
> David Brown
> 
> Open Systems Administrator
> email: dbrown AT gfs DOT com
> phone:  616-530-7000 ext. 6155
> pager:  1-888-614-6762
> 
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-- 
=====================
Jeff Kennedy
Unix Administrator
AMCC
jlkennedy AT amcc DOT com