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Moving Backups from SCSI to SAN: Big Planet's Effective Solution

Learn about how Big Planet, a network marketing company, successfully moved their backups from SCSI to SAN using VERITAS NetBackup v3.2 and ADIC Scalar 1000. This solution improved reliability, reduced manual backup time, increased availability, and simplified management.

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Moving Backups from SCSI to SAN: Big Planet's Effective Solution

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  1. Moving Backups from SCSI to SAN John Koyle Big Planet, Inc. Jkoyle@bigplanet.net

  2. Who is Big Planet? • Network Marketing/MLM Company • Subsidiary of NuSkin Enterprises • Device/Connection/Destination • Located in Provo, UT.

  3. Environment • Primarily Sun systems (E4500, E450, E250) • Solaris v2.6, HP-UX, AIX, Linux, NT, 95, 98 • 64 Machines (58 servers) • Average nightly backups: 100-150 GB • Web, Mail, Oracle, DB2

  4. Current Configuration

  5. Current Configuration Cont. • NT/PC backups go to 218. • Unix Systems/NT servers go to 458. • DB Backup to their respective drives. • Backups at night, duplications during day. • User Directed backups during the day. • Duplications done on the slave with robotic control and two drives.

  6. Current Problems • Not Utilizing all DLT drives. • Backup window would lapse, yet drives connected to DB servers are idle much of the night. • Mail/Web backups run all night. • Storage Unit does not hold enough media. • Tape duplication for offsite storage doesn’t run.

  7. An Effective Solution • VERITAS NetBackup v3.2 • ADIC Scalar 1000 • Fiber SAN • VERITAS SSO for NetBackup • VERITAS FlashBackup for NetBackup

  8. NetBackup v3.2 • Already using v3.1.1 installed • Linux support • More readable logging to /var/adm/messages • Java Gui & NT Admin Gui • Documentation for many of the command line tools. Man pages too! • Bug fixes (NB v3.2 patch)

  9. ADIC Scalar 1000 • Currently using ADIC tape libraries. • Highly scalable. Initial cabinet can house 12 DLT drives, and 118 tape slots. It can have 3 expansion cabinets and provide a total of 748 DLT tape slots! (In a 12 drive configuration). • Uses a single robot/axis. Can mount media in < 6 sec. • ADIC Engineers are proficient with SAN installations.

  10. Fiber SAN Implementation • We are no longer constrained by SCSI connections and Ethernet. • A SAN allows for easy expansion.

  11. SAN FCR-200 Configuration • Fiber Channel Configuration (1000): • Hard ALPA Value: 0x000000EF • Fiber Channel to SCSI Mapping Table • FC_LUN BUS TGT LUN • 0x00  0 0 0  Robotic Control • 0x01  0 1 0  Drive 0 • 0x02  0 2 0  Drive 1 • 0x03  1 3 0  Drive 2 • 0x04  1 4 0  Drive 3

  12. SAN FCR-200 Configuration cont. • Fiber Channel Configuration (218): • Hard ALPA Value: 0x000000E8 • Fiber Channel to SCSI Mapping Table • FC_LUN BUS TGT LUN • 0x00  0 1 0  Robotic Control • 0x01  0 4 0  Drive 0 • 0x02  1 4 0  Drive 1

  13. SAN FCR-200 Configuration cont. • st.conf – sg.conf - sgscan:

  14. VERITAS SSO • Allow us to utilize all drives. All hosts in the SAN can use all the drives. • Duplication process runs fine now, the dupe machine can utilize all the drives.

  15. VERITAS FlashBackup • Excels on systems with many small files. • When partition is modified, previous contents of file stored in separate caching partition (raw) for backup. • Backups include: file system map data blocks, bit map data blocks, and raw-partition data blocks. • Sample file list configuration: • Slashed backup times from 14 hours to < 2 with 14GB of data.

  16. Benefits • Everything works! • All backups and duplicates run smoothly. • My time spent managing backups has dramatically decreased. • Availability. Restores can be done, even while duplicates are running. • Stability. No longer tied directly to a machine via SCSI.

  17. Caveats and tips: • Lost all past history/listing of expired media in media manager. • If you change storage units move all media associated with that unit to NONE (not robotic). • mediaDB files: • Commands bpmedia –movedb and bpmedialist –mlist • Restores will fail if mediaDB files are incorrect. • Solaris OpenBoot prom upgrade to get Emulex LP8000 FC working on our Ultra 5 backup master. • Involve VERITAS support. Call and work with them on exactly what you are planning to do.

  18. Plans for the Future • Move 1 drive from ADIC 218 to 1000. Move 218 unit offsite to a different building. • We have 2 SBUS JNI FC cards for our DB servers. They will become part of the SAN.

  19. Summary • Improved Reliability - > 98% success rate for backups and duplicates. • Reduced Time – Less time spent doing manual backups, etc. • Increased Availability – Drives are always available for restoring data. • Enhanced Expansion – A SAN can easily be expanded by chaining FC HUBS/Switches. ADIC 1000 is very expandable. • Simplified Management – Everything is easily managed through a single NetBackup Gui.

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