Business copy Vs netbackup

[Srinikalyan]

Hi,

Can anyone explain me the business benefits of using Business copy compared to netbackup. Currently we have both netbackup and business copy software. I need to know which is more advantegeous than other?

Thanks
Srini

[TTr · Accepted solution]

You can not really compare them. netbackup is a backup software and BC is a disk array, disk level mirroring/replication tool. Usually after you use BC, you use netbackup to backup the BC mirrors.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Business copy you can do on the EVA array by script. It is quite seamless and can be done with no loss of production functionality.

Netbackup is different technology from Veritas that works through either the network or fiber network.

Both do a job but they are radically different tools. Many shops use both technologies.

SEP

[Muthukaruppan Sp]

TTR,

Could you please tell me what will be difference if the netbackup is directly used to backup and business copy sofware is used in between before netbackup is used?

Thanks,
Muthu

[Aneesh Mohan]

Hi,

There is something called Snapshot/Snapclone/Mirrorclone available with Business copy software using thay you can create the image of your production luns and that can be mounted on other systems to take backup using backup software like Netbackup or Dataprotector.

USing the Business copy you can save the performance /down time requiremnet (Zero Downtime Backup) for backup on the production systems and also you can use the image for for restore in case of disaster (Instant Restore).


Thanks,
Aneesh

[Srinikalyan]

Hi,

Is that valid for the incremental update to the PVOLs? Initially we will do the snapshot and make the copies to the SVOL. If any change done on the PVOL, will that reflect to the SVOL by the BC script other than snapshot method?

Thanks in advance,
Srini

[Aneesh Mohan]

Hi Srini,

The Snapshot volume will not get update the changes ,you my need to take a new snap shot of the lun prior to take the backup if you want a latest one.

Thanks,
Aneesh

[TTr]

The BC and SnapshotXP are very similar. They give you a copy of your production LUNs so that you can mount them to another server and run backups. Their main difference is that BC is a full copy of the production LUNs, while SnapshotXP is a copy of only the changing areas of the production LUNs. BC uses a lot more space as much as the production LUNs are. SnapshotXP uses much less, but it depends on the activity on the LUN and the amount af changes. Taking a snapshot is equivalent to spliting the BC mirrors.

Now the snapshot has some impact on the production LUNs when you run backups. The reason is this. When you read data for the backups, if the data has not changed since the snapshot was taken, it is read from the production LUNs. It the data has changed, it is read from the snapshot. When you use BC mirrors, the data is read entirely from the mirrors.

You mount either the snapshot or the BC split mirrors to another server and run backups. This is where you use netbackup.

These topics are very broad, this was a very high level description of what is taking place. There is no way to tell you what to do without knowing your environment and what is required during backups. Typically you use BC when you have a critical database environment that you do not want to shutdown to run backups or you don't want to run backups at all on the production server because it impacts performance.

[Srinikalyan]

Thanks all.