D2D2T backup query

[afcbmark]

Good morning folks, looking for some suggestions regarding a backup to tape solution.

We're looking to virtualise 5 servers to a couple of VSphere hosts, and are looking at a StoreVirtual 4530 for storage, connected to hosts via iSCSI. So far so good.

Company DR requirements specify that we must have tape backups, so we're looking for an LTO6 tape solution.

I've seen the StoreOnce line, specifically StoreOnce D2D4112 connected to the iSCSI fabric, which can take care of D2D backups with some nice deduplication and create emulated tape backups. So I thought that would be handy to then copy those emulated tapes to actual tapes. However I read that this device does not have any direct attach to tape functionality? In an ideal world, we'd be looking for a dedicated backup product such as this, to which we could attach an LTO6 autoloader.

It just seems silly to be copying data once to disk on a D2D then then having a seperate backup to copy the same data to tape.

I hope I've articulated this ok, and really appreciate any thoughts.
 

[Emil Velez_2]

Usually your backup software has a functionality to copy backup sessions or objects from one media to another.  This does not run another backup just reads the backups on one media (virtual tape) and copying those backups to another media (real tape library tape).

This is what you would probably use.  This copying of backup jobs should be relatively fast compared to doing the initial backup since it can just copy from the tape not having to go to the different systems and data that are backed up from multiple servers in that backup job.

In addition the StoreOnce products have a replication feature where when you write a virtual tape it can replicate that virutal tape (or nas share) to another appliance down the network.  This can provide a instant off site copy of the backup tape.  If the primary storence appliance failed then you would just make the remote library visible, import the tapes and access your backed up data from the remote Storeonce system.