Hello,
I am a relatively new CommVault customer and relatively new to "enterprise" backups in general. I'm looking at getting a new tape library, and I was hoping someone could give me some help with understanding iSCSI libraries..
I'm looking at the Dell TL4000 which now has iSCSI support. Am I correct in my understanding that the way this works is that you would install an iSCSI initiator on your source servers and they would mount the library directly. Then CommVault would do backups directly from the source to the library without having to first pass through a Media Agent? Or am I way off base here?
If I'm correct, then what does this mean for throughput? What I've been told is that you don't really want to have any more than 2 LTO-4 drives tied to one Media Agent because it is unable to push enough bandwidth to make enough use for it. But if I go the iSCSI route could I throw 4 LTO-4 drives into the library with only one Media Agent and still have good utilization since the Media Agent doesn't actually touch the data?
And lastly, can someone help me with the minefield that is CommVault licensing? I know there is a Shared Storage License that is required if you have multiple media agents talking to a SAN library, but are there any special licensing considerations if you have one Media Agent talking to a SAN library that is using iSCSI?
I apologize if these questions are overly basic or have been covered before. I'm having a devil of a time finding any good information on the Internet about this setup. Thanks a bunch!
I am a relatively new CommVault customer and relatively new to "enterprise" backups in general. I'm looking at getting a new tape library, and I was hoping someone could give me some help with understanding iSCSI libraries..
I'm looking at the Dell TL4000 which now has iSCSI support. Am I correct in my understanding that the way this works is that you would install an iSCSI initiator on your source servers and they would mount the library directly. Then CommVault would do backups directly from the source to the library without having to first pass through a Media Agent? Or am I way off base here?
If I'm correct, then what does this mean for throughput? What I've been told is that you don't really want to have any more than 2 LTO-4 drives tied to one Media Agent because it is unable to push enough bandwidth to make enough use for it. But if I go the iSCSI route could I throw 4 LTO-4 drives into the library with only one Media Agent and still have good utilization since the Media Agent doesn't actually touch the data?
And lastly, can someone help me with the minefield that is CommVault licensing? I know there is a Shared Storage License that is required if you have multiple media agents talking to a SAN library, but are there any special licensing considerations if you have one Media Agent talking to a SAN library that is using iSCSI?
I apologize if these questions are overly basic or have been covered before. I'm having a devil of a time finding any good information on the Internet about this setup. Thanks a bunch!