Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] Backup NetApp With Win2K NBU Server

2003-03-18 16:46:41
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Backup NetApp With Win2K NBU Server
From: ron AT linux DOT ca (Ron Lyman)
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 16:46:41 -0500 (EST)
Thanks to Chris Madden and Andreas Hohmann who sent me something very
obvious to try... just use the UNC!  Duh, why didn't *I* think of that?  
:)  That was the trick to get backing up.

To recap in case anyone else needs to do this and doesn't know if it can
be done or how to do it:

Master/Media server: Win2K Server, NetBackup BusinesServer 3.4.1.  Compaq 
DL580 with attached SDLT 110/220 drive

Goal: backup CIFS share on Network Appliance NetApp F810.

Problem: NBU Client cannot be installed on NetApp

Solution: Set the NBU policy to backup UNC share with the server set as
the client.  In this case, our path directive is
\\netapp-bkup\snapshot$\nightly.0\DirToBackup

It's working rather well, backup speeds are the same over Gig-E as backing
up the local RAID5 array on the Compaq DL580.  I will start tweaking the
buffer settings as I did last year for local backups and see if any more
throughput is possible.  We are currently around 4000-5000 KB/Sec for 65
Gigs of data with 256 buffers @ 32k.  I seem to recall the 32k size a
limit for the SDLT drive and have set the NET_BUFFER_SZ the same for now.  
I'll make small adjustments over the next week or two and see what the
impact is.

In hindsight, this was really simple, but I was thrown off with physical
tape drive problems, bad media, and issues around installing a second NIC
in the server causing NBU to not launch the backup.  Not to mention lack
of experience, and conflicting information.  :)  Oh, and not a single
person could tell me that this had been done before.  I can't be the first
to backup this way, can I?  The only potential issue is licensing.  We do
have an available client license, and of course it wasn't installed
anywhere.  I suppose this may be why Veritas doesn't have instructions
readily available.

Thanks again to you all for your input.  Now I can work on migrating over
the rest of the data, *whee*!

Ron Lyman
Network Support
Moen Incorporated
(905) 829-3400 x 253