I was passed a job to get Netbackup 6.5 to do a SAN based backup. There are three ways to perform a backup of server/s data from a dedicated server, LAN, backup LAN and lastly SAN.
LAN backup is the most common method used. This the simplest and cheapest method. Backup LAN involves setting up an additional LAN and playing with another set of IP address. SAN based backup is costly as it involves Fibre Channel (FC) connection.
The power of Netbackup comes from the ability do the job across a wide range of different operating systems, Novell, Windows and different flavours of Unix.
SAN based backup requires the tape library to be SAN enabled, that is connecting it directly to the SAN via FC HBAs or through a SCSI - FC bridge. On the SAN, in addition to production zones, zones containing only the Netbackup clients and tape library need to be created. In each of the client, the operating system should be able to detect the media changer and tape drive, with the proper drivers installed. Later with the Netbackup software, the client will copy data from its drives (local and/or SAN) and write to the tape library.
Once the zoning is done, the clients can be installed with the appropriate Netbackup software. In Netbackup parlance, the server that controls everything is the master server. The server that can write data to tape is the media server.
This means that to do a SAN based backup, the client server needs to be installed as a media server.
To setup a media server is straight forward, pop in the CD, click on the custom, enter the license key and select Media Server. When the installer completes, you will need to add the the license key for the Share Storage Option (SSO). Note the license key screen only shows keys on the master server. Failure to install the SSO key will result in the Media Server unable to detect the tape library. You can add the SSO key manually in the Administrator Console.
On the master server, run the Device Configuration Wizard to create a storage group for each media server. Create a backup policy to use the storage unit with the respective media server. Note if the backup policy were to use master server storage unit, backup via LAN will be performed. The data will flow from the media server across the LAN to the master server and write to the tape library.
This is now complete and done without SAN client or FT Media. See part II for details on the above terminology.