Shared Storage option (SSO)

[Calz]

Anyone using it, any pitfalls or gains that the 'sales' guys and marketing pdfs don't tell you about?

Does it allow you achieve and I'll give a scenario to refer to:-

One tape library with 4 drives configured as 2 x NDMP & 2 x Win/Unix.
2 NAS & 100 odd clients.
1 NAS is assigned as the NDMP host and directly attaches to the tape library, the other goes via a '3 way backup' across the network into the directly attached NAS to tape.
100 odd servers access the other 2 drives multiplexed or otherwise via the backup server.

We'd like to achieve:-
The NDMP servers to have access to the Win/Unix drives when not in use.
The single NAS that goes via the network to be able to directly attach to the tape library, the cablings there but not the ability.

 

[estech25]

I have been using the SSO extensively for the past few years. I have to give you some general precautions first:
1. The NDMP and other drives are absolutely separable and your NDMP host will not be able to use a non-NDMP drive and vice versa. Note that the SSO does not mean you can use drives interchangeably. It only gives you the ability to share a drive between similar-type hosts.

2. Unfortunately support of SSO features for NAS servers is very limited except for NetApp devices. There are ways of offering direct access to both NAS servers, but it is something you got to figure out for yourself. I had two Procom NetForce NAS Servers and implementing SSO was like an ad hoc experience for me.

Let me know if this helped or not

 

[Calz]

Hmm this is not what I really wanted to be honest, the windows/unix backups share drives anyway so what's the point of SSO?

We do have NetApp NAS so I'll have to investigate this route further...

Thanks for your help.

 

[Stumpr]

> the windows/unix backups share drives anyway so what's the point of SSO?

True. Without SSO you could have a media server attached to a bank of tape drives that backing up Linus, W2K, W2K3, Novell, Solaris,etc...

However,
SSO deals with media servers not platforms. It allows tape drives to be shared between media servers. with SSO you could have a windows media server with clients, 25 SAN media servers (backing themselves up), a master server doing duplications, other UNIX media servers with clients, and all of them can share the same 2 physical tape drives, albeit one at a time according to the scan host allocating the resources.



Bob Stump
Just because the VERITAS documentation states something as certain, that does not make it a fact and that is truth.

 

[Calz]

From the sales blurb "NEW—Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) support enables sharing between NAS systems and NetBackup Servers

 

[GreyWanderer]

NDMP for SSO is supported in NBU 6.
For me, having multiple NDMP hosts, I have a specific set of devices that they share only. I do not have them sharing the devices utilized by my traditional media servers, which consist of two STU groups, 3 STUs each. (My Master is the traffic cop, it performs no backups 'cept catalogs). Even though It appears to be supported to share them with the NDMP hosts as well, I like the delineation to assist with not under/over allocating tape drives.

....just my ¢¢

 

[GreyWanderer]

SSO for NDMP, rather