Question for tape backup

[Bohmer, Andre ten]

Hi,

SNIP
> 1. hardware: recommended hardware/types of tape etc
Very good results (and reliable) with HP Ultrium scsi tape units.

> 2. software : recommended software [I only know akeia, but is it good 
> enough ?]
Definitely to check out is Bakbone Netvault, feature rich and much better priced!

> 3. backup strategy: we consolidated mirrored files onto three 
> machines 
> now, but was it a good idea since disk space to backup is 
> quite large ?
> 4. workload : should I expect how many hours of work required 
> every day 
> or per month related to tape backup ?
Depends on restore requests ;-) But in general very little effort if you size your environment right (no need to change tapes etc). Make a good plan, check user needs(really need to backup everything?) and determine RTO (Recovery Time Objective, e.g. how fast to restore) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective, e.g. how long do you keep backups), and so on ...

> 5. are there any issues I should be aware of ?
> 6. any issues in installation/setup/maintenance related to 
> recommended 
> framework above?
SCSI software agents running on the backup servers, please do disable them to prevent problems. An other tip is to check for the right block size when configuring the tape device, this really makes a difference in performance in writing to tape. And please check if you're really able to restore what you want to restore, you wont be the first to only check if the backup works and bang your head when the day arrives to restore something.
 
Just my 2 cents.
Good luck!
André

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