VTL/DSU storage devices w/ NetBackup 2

[dukbtr]

We are shopping around for a VTL or DSU. Just wanted to get an idea of what some of you are using, why you picked the product your using, and are you satisfied with it.

Our environment is:

-NetBackup 6.0 MP4 -> we will be upgrading to 6.5.2A after the new year
-1 Master, 3 media servers all running HP-UX 11.i
-NDMP
-MSSQL Server and Oracle

The likely candidates so far are:

-Data Domain
-EMC
-Sun/STK
-Quantum

We backup around 60TB data a week, includes fulls and incrementals. Retentions are 30 days for fulls and Incrementals and 2 weeks for offsite.

Any input would be great.

Thanks

 

[SANEngInCO]

Personally, I am a fan of DSU's instead of the VTL. Plus I'm a huge fan of HDS first, SUN/STK second for disk storage of any type.

With DSU's, the backup creates a large image file of the backup directly to disk during the night (or whenever your backup windows are). Then during the "quiet" time on your library, you can stream all large image files created that night at super high speeds to tape (single large image file will run many times faster than the individual files themselves).

You're also managing a file system on your servers compared to an actual specialized product like a VTL which requires a lot more design, installation and maintenance time.

I had a STK VTL2000 in my old environment along with SATA-based DSU's. The VTL was nice, but I just felt the DSU's are more practical and require less admin time.

My $0.02.

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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein

 

[RustyMajor]

How about we backup a bit and find out what you are trying to achieve? Do you just need disk storage for DSSU's, or are you trying to get dedupe as well?

I agree with SANEngInCO. I do not like VTLs with NBU. I don't think most environments need them, and if they do, they are probably band-aiding another problem. The way NBU works with Disk Staging Storage Units eliminates the need for a VTL. This is just added administrative overhead, and on some VTLs, it does things with your 'tapes' and images that NBU doesn't ever know about. I do not feel comfortable with this.

If you're just looking for disk, I agree that HDS storage is very good. BTW you'll only need SATA. I do not recommend an EVA with FATA drives for disk backups as the leveling it does whenever a drive dies or is added takes a VERY long time on large disk groups. It seems to perform fine, but this leveling time is atrocious. I digress.

If you want to look into dedupe, there is also Symantec PureDisk that I'd add to your list, and I've heard good things about FalconStor. If you have the time to do it, I would narrow it down to a couple of vendors and then get them both to demo their product in your environment. That's the only way you're going to know how it really works for you.

You can do some cool things with NBU SharedDisk, AdvancedDisk, and/or OpenStorage. I recommend you read about AdvancedDisk in Admin Guide I, and also take a look at the SharedStorage Guide here ftp://exftpp.symantec.com/pub/support/products/NetBackup_Enterprise_Server/293321.pdf

BTW, 6.5.3 is supposed to be out at the end of November and will add additional functionality for Open Storage, AdvancedDisk, and SharedDisk options. If it is received well, might be a good thing for you.

 

[dukbtr]

Thx for the replies.

So far it looks as though the bossman has narrowed it down to EMC VTL w/ Dedupe, NetApp, and Sun/STK VTL. Personally I liked the idea of Netapps appliance. The use the OSO api w/ NetBackup. If I had my way I would pick a DSU vs a VTL, but in the end I don't make the final decision.

As far as the goal for this appliance. It would hold a months worth of onsite backups (fulls and incrementals). We would still dupe to tape for the near future. We would like to move to some sort of replication to an offsite DR site that is being built.

Of the 3 vendors mentioned above, are there any things in particular that anyone can input, good or bad?

Thanks

 

[SANEngInCO]

If you are talking about needed to replicate this data to a secondary site, I think you really need to go back to your boss and talk about DSU's again. You basically can use whatever replication software that the storage system offers to replicate that data and it would be simpler to manage than a VTL. Most VTL's offer a replication option, but from my experience it has generally been more complex and just more to manage. I also look at DSU's from a usefullness point of view whereas you can use it also for storage in your environment and not just backups. VTL's can't do that. So flexibility is yet another benefit to going the DSSU/DSU route.

But if your boss insists in not listening to their technical experts (sorry, too many bad experiences with those types of bosses), I would go with SUN/STK or NetApp long before I would even think about EMC. Too many bad experiences with EMC along with too many other people with bad experiences.

Good luck.

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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein

 

[dukbtr]

To better understand the situation I have reworded things a bit, I appreciate all the answers so far.

Current Environment:

NetBackup 6.0 MP4
Master – HPUX 11.i
3 Media – HPUX 11.i
L700 w/ 10 LTO3 (fiber) direct attached to media servers
NDMP

Near Future:

NetBackup 6.5.x
Master – HPUX Itanium 11.23 +
1-2 Media servers
Disk based storage of some kind
L700w/10 LTO3 (TAN)

We are shopping around for a disk based solution for our backup NetBackup environment. The goal is to shorten backup windows and get tapes duplicated and ready for offsite within 24hours. Currently our offsite movements are about 3-4 days behind the primary backup being done.

The players in the field have been narrowed down to:

• EMC VTL w/ data dedupe
• Quantum VTL w/ data dedupe
• Sun/STK VTL (dedupe available 1st quarter 2009)
• NetApp VTL w/ data dedupe

There is an argument though as to whether VTL or Disk Storage Unit would be better. With some of the DSU appliances speed was the issue. As in the case of Data Domain, the appliance uses CIFS, NFS, or other network protocols for transfers. To get any performance gains or to just expand you need to add more heads and trays.

With 6.5 and some of the advanced disk options, is it viable to just add a lot of disk to the SAN? We would then use NetBackup Vault or Storage Lifecycle Policies to dupe to tape. This does rely on the media servers as is currently done now. In the future when the time comes for replication, just look at whatever 3rd party vendor has the software/hardware to do it. What would be the advantages/disadvantages to doing it this way?

Whatever solution we pick it will hold a months worth of Fulls and Incrementals. We would then duplicate the fulls to tape for offsite purposes. In the 2-3 year time span we plan on adding a second unit to our own offsite location for replication off data backed up.

We are not looking for a client side Dedupe solution like Puredisk or Avamar. Some of our Systems are pretty well maxed out on CPU/IO and that might be the factor to push it over the edge.

Any thoughts on the subject are welcome and appreciated.

 

[SANEngInCO]

From my experience with both a STK VTL and EMC SATA disks in a DSU, the DSU was faster and had more control over what was done. As you stated, we used Vault with our NBU environment to duplicate the images from disk to tape in order to offsite that day. We backed up about 6TB per day during the week for our diff incrementals and any system on the DSU tended to get better throughput. Then the streaming of the DSU image to tape was a screamer, due to it being one large image file that just ran sequentially. Our VTL was nice in that it was like managing another tape library, but the duplication speeds were not near as impressive since it was moving all of the individual files that were backed up initially. Hopefully I explained that well enough.

If you wanted to look at a DSU instead (as I would), I would make is simply a LUN or group of LUNs from the SAN attached to the master or media servers and made into a filesystem. You can then put them into NBU as a target to backup to. Using Vault, you can schedule the duplication to physical tape which can then be sent offsite. It is really that simple. There are obvious tweaks you can do with the filesystems, NBU and storage arrays that can help make things run faster. But the long and short of it is that you control the entire DSU. It is a filesystem just like anything else you have in your enviornment. A VTL is an appliance that has special software that you cannot control, just allow to do it's thing. Yet another reason I prefer the DSU - simplicity in spades.

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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein

 

[dukbtr]

Thanks for the input.

I just took the 6.5 class 3 weeks ago and with all the advanced disk options and all the other new disk options in general, I could see doing our own in house DSU attached to the SAN. I spoke to the boos about it today and he is open to any ideas still, as long as they meet our speeds and RTO/RPO objectives.

As far as Puredisk or other client side based Data-Dedupe solutions, I would be open to that as would the boss, after today's talk, if there was a very minimal impact on the servers. Any ideas as to how much extra load Puredisk puts on a server?