Snapmirror to Tape and EMC Networker

[brendanheading]

All,

Does anyone know if SM2T works with EMC Networker ?

Consulting google, it seems to be just about the only enterprise backup tool that doesn't say anything about supporting it.

[ekashpureff]

No, it wouldn't work with EMC Networker.

Snapmirror to tape is only for initializing a Snapmirror destination.

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene Kashpureff
NetAppU Instructor and Independent Consultant
(P.S. I appreciate points for helpful or correct answers.)

[brendanheading]

Sorry, but that's clearly incorrect. It appears to be quite  legitimate to use SM2T as a backup method, and there are six or seven  enterprise backup tools out there that do this. A simple search of the forums here, and Google, show tools such as Tivoli, Netbackup, CommVault, SyncSort etc providing direct support for SM2T.

I am aware that NetApp do not specifically recommend it (they would  much rather you purchased another filer and snapmirrored to that!), but  they draw attention to the downsides. The downsides are pretty much the  same as for any block-based backup method you would care to name (no  single file restore, no incrementals, no restore to a non-native volume,  etc).

[ekashpureff]

SnapVault will work with many applications, but the 'snapmirror store' and 'snapmirror retrieve' commands are specific to initializing a SnapMirror destination.

Some SNMP DMAs are able to trigger the Snapmirror initialization, but it is only to perform the NetApp to NetApp baseline transfer.

These tapes can be used for long term retention, but can only be restored back to a NetApp as a whole volume image.

I hope this response has been more helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene Kashpureff
NetAppU Instructor and Independent Consultant
(P.S. I appreciate points for helpful or correct answers.)

[brendanheading]

Eugine, thanks, but I'm hoping someone who might have attempted to use Snapmirror to Tape with Networker may reply. If not, I'll go figure it out and reply myself.

[scott_dugan]

Ok Guys,

Here is my view on the whole thing.

from what i understand (That's not a lot) especialy with Netapp is, Networker depending on the backup cofiguartion will have either seperate or consolidated storage nodes. If you can take a shapshot on Netapp and produce that lun to the networker storage node. then all you have to do is create a job in networker to read the data from the assigned lun on the storage node. This will then be backed up to tape.

you could create a basic script or AT job if using windows for somthing like the following

save -s "Networker Server" -c "storage Node" -N "LUN or Server Name" -e 35days -b "Networker Pool" -l full x:\

i would imagine that Netapp have a command line string that you could use to create the lun.

Sorry i could not have been more help but i have never worked on Netapp and am currently trying to implement a Vseries 3100 so i'm a total netapp noob.

Hope the command helps though.

Also if you do go with it remember you have to use the networker user interface to recover the data it will have the same listing as the "LUN or Server Name" in the above statement.

good as gold.

cheers.