Best way to back up to SAN?

[ouzojd]

Hi, I've been using 11d to backup approx 20 Windows servers inc Exchange,SQL and Sharepoint to an LTO2 autoloader and an lto3 library - total of approx 1TB.

I've just put in a SAN and will be purchasing the SAN addon for Backup exec. I've never used B2D before so I was just wondering what would the best basic process be? I'm not sure how to go about it.

I wouldnt mind doing a full backup to disk once a week and then create synthetic fulls everyday after that. I would then want to backup that synthetic full to tape so it can go offsite.

I really dont know where to start:

Do I need to create multiple b2d folders?
Should I be using the continuos backup?

Sorry I've only ever used tape and there's so many whitepapers - I dont know which ones I should even read.

Any help appreciated

 

[Trevoke]

Is bandwidth an issue? Will you be using fiber, regular ethernet?
What's your time window for the backups?
How sensitive is the data, does it justify the continuous backup?

Tao Te Ching Discussions : Chapter 9 (includes links to previous chapters)
What is the nature of conflict?

 

[ouzojd]

Bandwidth isnt an issue, they are all on the same subnet however I would like to backup over the san fabric. Using fibre for the san, 1Gbps ethernet for network. Backup window is currently at its limit backing when backing up to to tape - have about 14 hr backup window.

Most data isnt too critical, exchange and a couple of dbs are but the agreement with thte business is that in a dr situation we should be able to recover to the previous night.

Thanks.

 

[manic47]

I'm 100% sure the SAN option only allows you to attach a library to the SAN, and then mount it onto various Backup Exec media servers, thats all.

As far as I know, if you just present disk storage to a media server, it can do D2D backups onto it.


It wont allow you to backup directly from SAN to SAN, you'd need NetBackup or similar.

 

[mofusjtf]

What type of SAN did you put in place? Typically a SAN can provide a high availablitlty mode where two SAN's replicate eachother essentially providing a basic backup. YOu then need to attach an auto-loader to the secondary SAN. Some SAN's provide the ability to manage the backup to the Autoloader from the SAN with no need for Backup-Exec. Cybernetincs has all these capabilities built-in to their devices. And the cost is great compared to EquiLogic or EMC.

 

[ouzojd]

I put in an hp eva4400 and can connect my libray and autoloader to the fabrics router. Im not trying to do san to san. Just b2d (on a lun on the san) to library / auoloader. What I have read says the SAN option removes using network bandwidth as it all goes through the san fabric instead? Maybe I misunderstood, I'll see if I can find the page on the symantec site I'm referring to.

Thanks