> > The more "right" way could be to use SSO having a FC 
> connection from each 
> > server to your SAN switches going to your tape drives.
> > That should solve the performance problem but it comes at a price.
> 
> This is more likely, considering most of the hosts I want to 
> backup are
> also SAN attached.  I'm unfamiliar with SSO (which I assume is
> Shared Storage Option).  Where can I find more information on it's
> functionality?

If your servers are already SAN-attached, you're most of the way there. Just
make sure all the servers can "see" the tape drives. You'll need to be sure
of exactly how each server sees each tape drive, so you can correlate the
device names (e.g. the first tape drive is /dev/tape/tape1 on server a,
/dev/tape/tape12 on server b, etc...). It's vitally important to keep this
straight.

If the servers will only be backing themselves up, there's a cheaper license
than a full-blown media server license that you can use. Other than that,
you configure them as just another media server, and mark the drives as
"multi-host". Make up unique names for the tape drives and assign them
appropriately on each server. Pick one media server to control the robot.

As another post pointed out, only one media server will use a tape. So if
you have 12 servers, there'll be 12 sets of tapes in use at any one time, so
you might end up using more media.

We're using SSO here successfully sharing a Compaq TL895 library on a SAN
with a SCSI/FC router between about 4 Windows servers and a dozen or so UNIX
servers.

                                                - Bluejay Adametz

Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.