Best Practices for Backup in SAN/NAS Environments

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Best Practices for Backup in SAN/NAS Environments

• Jeff Wells

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Why networked storage?

• Sharing and Centralization/Consolidation
• Operating efficiency
• Fewer resources used more often
• All in a single location
• Capital efficiency
• Amortize the cost of resource across multiple
  projects or departments
• Data integrity
• Management controls

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Networking Storage Reduces TCO
Excluding People Cost
0.44
0.31
DAS
NAS
cost per megabyte of user data
Storage
Network
Based on a 3-Year total cost of ownership
Source McKinsey Company, Merrill Lynch June
19, 2001
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Networking Storage Reduces TCO
0.84
Including People Cost
0.38
DAS
SAN
NAS
cost per megabyte of user data
Storage
Network
Based on a 3-Year total cost of ownership
Source McKinsey Company, Merrill Lynch June
19, 2001
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Fewer people for networked storage

• Study by Working Group For Chief Information
  Officers reports that SAN customers managed 6 to
  12 times as much capacity compared with DAS.
  Resulting in an 83 to 92 reduction in people
  cost.
• Gartner Group analysis discovered a 66 reduction
  in people cost of NAS compared to DAS.
• Enterprise Storage Group found that the average
  SAN customer had a 3.75 times increase in
  efficiency over DAS or a 73 reduction in people
  cost.

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NAS
Clients
Filers
LAN
Servers
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Method 1 Direct Attach
Tape Library
Clients
NDMP
Filers
Backup Server
Servers
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Method 2 FC Attach
Tape Library
FC Switch
NDMP
Filers
Backup Server
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SNIA TB/hr
10/100 Ethernet
Master Server
Media Server
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SNIA TB/hr Configuration and Results

• 4 NetApp F880 Filers w/ 2 FC ports per Filer
• Brocade Silkworm 2800
• Veritas NetBackup 4.5
• Spectra 64000 with 8 AIT-3 tape drives
• Backed and restored 1TB of data in just over 53
  minutes

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Method 3 NDMP Server
Clients
Filers
NDMP
Tape Library w/NDMP Server
Backup Server
Servers
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Method 4 Disk-to-Disk
Tape Library
Clients
NDMP
Filers
Backup Server
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NAS Tips

• Jumbo Frames less overhead equals faster
  performance. Switch and NICs must support
• Native GigE solution
• VLAN for data movement
• TCP Offload Engines (TOEs)
• Scalability dont get boxed in with backup
  solution
• Disaster Recovery - How are going to backup the
  backup server?

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SAN
Clients
LAN
Servers
FC Switch
SAN
RAID
Tape Library
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Server-less Backup
Clients
LAN
Backup Server
SAN
FC Switch
X-Copy
RAID
Tape Library
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Real World Example

• Large Nationwide Telecom
• Storage Consolidation
• Resource Sharing
• Scalability

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Backup LAN
Backup Server
Brocade 16 Port Switch
Spectra 64000
SAN
Tape Libraries
Primary Storage
BCV
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SAN Tips

• Third-party or Serverless Backup support verify
  restore
• 2Gb FC
• Bridge vs. Native FC (cost, port count)
• FC over IP (FCIP or iFCP) to tie SAN Islands
  together

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Which one? SAN or NAS

• NAS Advantages
• File based, no block x-fer (iSCSI)
• Utilizes existing infrastructure (training)
• SAN Advantages
• Block based for maximum performance/application
  support

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Things to keep in mind

• Backing up the Backup Server
• This server has the DB containing media and what
  is on each media and is critical for Disaster
  Recovery.
• Library Partitioning
• It maybe advantageous to create separate physical
  partitions to accommodate different data. How
  does this factor into TCO?
• Support for Multiple Interfaces
• Some library vendors support SCSI, GigE and FC
  connectivity simultaneously. This can make
  migrating from one environment to another very
  easy and free from stress.

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Best Practices for Backup in a SAN/NAS
EnvironmentThe collaboration of SAN and NAS
architectures now allows users to access data
through NAS appliances and efficiently back them
up to the tape storage device utilizing a SAN.
The advent of this SAN and NAS architecture
enables the ability to remove data traffic and
backup operations from critical servers, which
are now new options for today's end users.
Discussion will focus on best practices,
including throughput, connectivity, capacity,
network considerations, and overall optimal
implementations using SCSI, Fibre, IP and GigE
based automated tape libraries in a SAN/NAS
environment