Backing up data on MSA 1000

[BR890331]

I have 4 fibre channel attached servers on an MSA1000. I have just added a new backup server, with a SCSI attached tape ( directly to the backup server), and disk shelf. I was hoping to backup each servers SAN space directly across the SAN by the backup server to it's disk shelf ( MSA 30) then on to tape. ie Disk-Disk-Tape backup, accessing each other servers SAN space. I am told this is not possible, only one server can access it's own SAN volume. Is this correct ??
As a solution could I use HP's Storage Replicator software to do snapshots, or would I have the same problem ( ie do the snapshots remain private to each server).

thanks
Simon

[Steven Clementi]

Simon:

You can not have multiple servers accessing the same Logical Drive in a Windows environment. You will corrupt your data easily.

Using StorageWorks Virtual Replicator is not an option since snapshots are kept local to the server that it is created on.

One option would be to copy the data over a dedicated GigE LAN that you create on all the servers, if you have the available resources to do so.

Since you have direct attached SCSI tape drives, there are not many options. If you have fibre based library, you could probably take your data directly to tape from each individual server.


Another option you can use would be to use Storageworks Openvirew Storage Mirroring to replicate the data to the backup server. This way, the data will ALWAYS be up to date on the backup server and all you would need to do is run the backup schedule. It's a little costly, but may suffice.


Steven