Re: Large DLT tape backup system...

I'll leave in the original article for background data if my newsreader lets me.

In article <4oiuve$82o_at_solaris.cc.vt.edu>, Ed Schwab <eschwab_at_giv.com> wrote:
>We are in the process of evaluating DLT-based backup solutions from two
>vendors, EMC and Andataco. In a nutshell, our requirements include:
>
> - Client support for HPUX, NT and Novell
> - Integration with Oracle Enterprise Backup Mgr/Parallel Backup Mgr
> * Two databases, 250 (OLAP) and 20 (OLTP) Gb each
> - 1 - 1.5 Tb total online capacity, relatively small number of clients
> - 25-40 Gb/hour sustained throughput
>
>We would use Legato Networker with the Andataco products:
>
> - Rapid-Tape 6700 (5 drive 7-cartridge DLT stacker system with a RAID
> controller)
> or
> - ACL DLT 4000 w/ 4 drives and 52 cartridge jukebox
>
>Or EMC's pricier but beefier EDM2 E332..
>
>I have a few questions:
>
> * Having purchased a very large drive from EMC, we are impressed with
> their support.. For those of you who have dealt with Andataco,
> what is your impression of the company and how seamless is the
> integration between their support channels?
>
> * Can anyone with firsthand experience using the EDM machine give your
> overall impression of the product? Is the added complexity well
> managed/designed? Given the necessary hardware (dedicated FDDI,
> multiple f/w SCSI adapters) are the performance claims accurate?

My company has used Andataco very much prior to my starting a year ago. Andataco is just a couple of miles from us. I have not had much experience with their service yet, but we are going away from 3rd party peripherals with critical systems.

We recently purchased the low end EDM system (SPARC 20, 2 7-tape DLT (SPARC 20, 2 7-tape DLT 4700 changers) for our business systems backups. We are very pleased with the performance of it. We are even more pleased with the support, which is second to none in my experience. The integrated status checking box that dials up EMC and reports any hardware failure including CPU hang 24 hours a day is also very impressive. The backup and restore software is very good IMHO, though my only other experience with backup software has been with fairly low functionality products. Just today I configured backups for a FDDI attached HP-UX system to our FDDI attached EDM system and in my brief test before our network administrator told me to knock it off the backup used up about 30% of the FDDI bandwidth. A quick calculation of the backup rate/second gives me about 9GB per hour using only one tape drive. Other systems are restrained by the 10baseT network connections. If you give it a big enough straw to suck data through it would probably meet their performance claims and your requirements.

I went through their factory before purchasing it and asked them the question about performance claims. They said they are conservative on their estimates and claim about a 20% margin less than their real-life tests. It is very complex as you say, and has a steep learning curve, but the on-site installation of the server and a few client configuration EMC does as well as spending an additional day training you, plus the included 3 (4?) day class back in Boston should help you come up to speed.

We currently back up HP-UX and Novell as well as the Solaris EDM system itself. Data is all interleaved from multiple clients onto one tape concurrently, all very configurable. Desktop PC's can be backed up through the Novell server, but that is very slow. They say the NT client will be available "real soon now" if it's not already. Also, reliable tape-to-tape duplication is supposed to be available soon. Restores are very fast for both UNIX and Novell and are also very flexible.

We are soon moving to an Oracle database system, but do not currently back it up. EDM supports both their own and Oracle's obackup.

If the EDM2 E332 is the SPARC 1000 with 4/52 DLT cabinet it would be a much more impressive system than what we got.

BTW, I have no connection with EMC other than being a satisfied customer.

Boyd

-- 
===== Boyd Johnson boydj_at_brooktree.com  Brooktree, Corp, San Diego, Ca. =====