SUMMARY: Backup issues

From: Jeff Kennedy (jkennedy@amcc.com)
Date: Thu Apr 13 2000 - 17:43:49 CDT


Several people spoke about EMC's disk arrays. These are way too
expensive for our needs. If we were to do that we would probably just
cluster our NetApps.

Two others mentioned STK libraries, again, way too expensive.

One person came back on Mammoth about media availablility but from over
a year ago. This is no longer a problem. Another person replied that
Mammoth was horrible.

What we have decided is to give Mammoth a trial run. We will purchase a
X80 library with 2 drives and 40 tapes. This will be connected to an NT
box with BackupExec and a 300gb array attached. If this performs well
we will expand this library to 8 drives and 80 tapes and attach it to a
SAN. We're giving this a try because of price and performance.
According to specs this drive will transfer at 12 MB/sec, faster than
the DLT 8000 or even AIT. The list price for the X80 is $32k (2
drives), $56k for SpectraLogic's AIT library (2 drives), and $72k for
STK's L180 (1 drive). Maybe the addage of "You get what you pay for
..." will apply but we'll give it a shot with a minimal config so if we
do get burned it's not too bad.

Thanks to:

Brett Collars Bruce Zimmer
Tim Evans Malahat Qureshi
Mark Neill Marc Newman
Gordon Hopper Scott Adkins

~JK

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Backup issues
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 16:12:12 -0700
From: "Jeff Kennedy" <jkennedy@amcc.com>
To: Sun-Managers List <sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu>

Given the explosion of data requirements (into the terabytes for some,
petabytes for others), the need for 7x24 uptime, and thus the shrinking
backup window, how do you do it? What backup technologies are being
used?

I am using alot of DLT. 3 7000 jukeboxes with 2 drives each and 10 or
12 slots, 1 4000 jukebox with 2 drives and 10 slots, 4 standalone
7000's, and 2 standalone 4000's. Now, my backup window for some servers
is 12 hours, just able to make it. And this is direct ultra-scsi
attached NetApps so it's not a network bottleneck. Data requirements
are doubling in the next 6 months. There goes the glass house......

I'm looking at Mammoth and AIT as a possible replacement. So far the
Mammoth is in the lead by virtue of GB's/hour. Tape capacity is close
enough for my purposes that it's less of a concern. Anyone got opinions
on this predicament?

What are other people using?

Thanks.

-- 

=================== Jeff Kennedy UNIX Administrator AMCC jkennedy@amcc.com



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