Responses inline below... On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 00:57, Edward Ned Harvey <solar...@nedharvey.com>wrote:
> > 1. NDMP for putting "zfs send" streams on tape over the network. So > > Tell me if I missed something here. I don't think I did. I think this > sounds like crazy talk. > > I used NDMP up till November, when we replaced our NetApp with a Solaris > Sun > box. In NDMP, to choose the source files, we had the ability to browse the > fileserver, select files, and specify file matching patterns. My point is: > NDMP is file based. It doesn't allow you to spawn a process and backup a > data stream. > > Unless I missed something. Which I doubt. ;-) > > You clearly know more about NDMP than I do. I'm still learning. I forgot that you previously mentioned the file-based nature of NDMP. I'm still wondering about that in the longer term, but yeah, this is my mistake. I'll end up doing some deeper diving on this topic, I can see. But this was just me seeking clarity. Maybe Fishworks appliances would benefit from the presence of NDMP but if you're using a standard server running (Open)Solaris, it looks like a non-starter. > > > To Ed Harvey: > > > > Some questions about your use of NetBackup on your secondary server: > > > > 1. Do you successfully backup ZVOLs? We know NetBackup should be able > > to capture datasets (ZFS file systems) using straight POSIX semantics. > > I wonder if I'm confused by that question. "backup zvols" to me, would > imply something at a lower level than the filesystem. No, we're not doing > that. We just specify "backup the following directory and all of its > subdirectories." Just like any other typical backup tool. > > The reason we bought NetBackup is because it intelligently supports all the > permissions, ACL's, weird (non-file) file types, and so on. And it > officially supports ZFS, and you can pay for an enterprise support > contract. > > Basically, I consider the purchase cost of NetBackup to be insurance. > Although I never plan to actually use it for anything, because all our > bases > are covered by "zfs send" to hard disks and tapes. I actually trust the > "zfs send" solution more, but I can't claim that I, or anything I've ever > done, is 100% infallible. So I need a commercial solution too, just so I > can point my finger somewhere if needed. > Yeah, I get all the reasons you state for using NetBackup. Makes total sense. And I asked this question to be clear about support for backing up ZVOLs outside if ZFS-specific tools e.g. zfs(1M). I didn't actually think NetBackup could capture ZVOLs, for the reasons you listed, but I wanted to be absolutely clear. Asking the wrong questions is the leading cause of wrong answers, as a former boss of mine used to say. > > > > 2. What version of NetBackup are you using? > > I could look it up, but I'd have to VPN in and open up a console, etc etc. > We bought it in November, so it's whatever was current 4-5 months ago. > > Ok. Thanks. > > > 3. You simply run the NetBackup agent locally on the (Open)Solaris > > server? > > Yup. We're doing no rocket science with it. Ours is the absolute most > basic NetBackup setup you could possibly have. We're not using 90% of the > features of NetBackup. It's installed on a Solaris 10 server, with locally > attached tape library, and it does backups directly from local disk to > local > tape. > > This is an advantage of Solaris being a 1st class citizen in the NetBackup world. For a Unified Storage appliance, however, NDMP for file level backup may be a reasonable choice (as Darren postulated earlier). But if you just buy a server and install Solaris, then the NetBackup Solaris agent is the easiest route, as you've shown. Thanks again, Ed, for your time and generosity. And thank you to all contributors to this thread for indulging my curiosity. -- "You can choose your friends, you can choose the deals." - Equity Private "If Linux is faster, it's a Solaris bug." - Phil Harman Blog - http://whatderass.blogspot.com/ Twitter - @khyron4eva
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