SAN Backup

[Shivkumar]

Hi,

I hear sometime SAN backup. What is SAN backup technology and its advantage over other technologies ?

Does this SAN technologies exist on all SAN vendors like HP, Sun and EMC's SAN products ?

Thanks,
Shiv

[marsh_1]

hi,

it is simply put backup of your networked storage from most all vendors(either over fibre channel or ip for iscsi)usually to another storage device in the san (a tape library or a disk array) using backup software like hp dataprotector ,ibm tsm, legato etc.

[Víctor Cespón]

Básically the idea is that instead of having a tape drive attached to each server and perform backup locally, you purchase a big library and connect it and the servers to a SAN switch.

Several servers can access the library and perform backup simultaneously. You can also use more or less tapes for each server without having to physically carry them to to the server.

The latest technology are the VLS, which store data on disks instead of tapes. It's faster and you can create virtual drives and cartridges as you want.

[Ralf Loehmann_2]

Hello Shiv,

you asking about SAN Backup and I do not know how much you know about it. SAN Backup is typically done in midrange or high end environment to have dedicated Storage Network. If you need information in general I would say check an Online Bookstore and check either for SAN or Storage Area Network.
Here good starts on the HP web:
http://www.hp.com/go/san
http://www.hp.com/go/ebs

EBS stands for Enterprise Backup Solution.
Happy reading,
Ralf.

[Greg Vaidman · Accepted solution]

The difference between SAN backup and typical network-based backups, which can also use much of the same technologies listed in the above replies, is that in a SAN backup environment, the data being backed up never crosses the network (other than some basic metadata that the backup applcation needs) - instead, it travels over the SAN to the backup device, which can be a fibre attached tape library or virtual tape library, or even some specialized disk device.

This requires that all your backup clients be zoned to see the backup device on the SAN, which presents other configuration issues - there's a checklist of items you'll need to verify on your server configs - see the replies in this thread: http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1235513745053+28353475&threadId=304706

[Eric de Lange (MSE)]

Shivkumar,

Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J88X_M6s0l4

hth,
-Eric