Fibre attached tape drives

[Willybobs27]

If I attach a FC tape drive to controller A and use it for NDMP backups, can I use the same tape drive to backup LUNs / Shares on Controller B?

i.e. will it be seen as a device by Controller B through the FC interconnect?

In this case if I am using BackupExec for example can it backup Non NetApp data such as Windows servers to the tape drive through the NetApp

[aborzenkov]

Data will never be sent over interconnect. There are two possibilities

1. Use NDMP three way backup. Data will be sent from controller B via LAN to controller A which writes them on tape.

2. Use drive sharing. In this case tape drive will be visible to both controllers and backup manager will "grant" permissions to use to to one or other. It may require extra licensing depending on backup application.

It is in principle possible to send NDMP stream from host to emulate 3-way backup. I knew some backup products that supported it. Whether BE can do it, is probably better asked on BE forums.

[radek_kubka]

I can't find anything in writing at the moment, but more modern versions of Backup Exec (2010 onwards?) can do NDMP backup via backup host.

Regards,

Radek