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blakmk
Starting Member
45 Posts |
 Posted - 2010-09-30 : 09:54:02
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| Now i've been an advocate of backups to disk and then to tape since the start of my career. They do give more control and possibilities when it comes to recovery.However due to budget squeezes with a Sql 2008 consolidation project its difficult to justify terrabyte disk storage (complete with all the power consumption). I have been asked to examine the possibility of using Netbackup directly to tape which will generate much needed cost savings.My concerns around this are related to backing up mirrored databases and then flipping between nodes. I can easily see examples where the log and or backup chain will get broken. Has anyone ever encountered or worked with this situation? |
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Michael Valentine Jones
Yak DBA Kernel (pronounced Colonel)
7020 Posts |
Posted - 2010-09-30 : 10:16:55
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| How big are the databases? If you are running SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, or SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard or Enterprise Edition, then you have built in backup compression available. In most situations, you will see compression in the range of 70% to 90%. Even if you are not running a SQL Server version with backup compression built-in, there are several third party backup compression utilities, like LiteSpeed or Redgate backup.You might want to read this thread for my summary of reasons why you should not backup directly to tape.http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=51150Terrabytes of disk is really not that much money, so it seems like a weak justification for doing this.I recently had a very bad experience trying to restore a master database on a cluster directly from tape. We finally got it to work after an additional 8 hours of downtime with 300 users unable to work. Not a learning experience I really wanted, and it left me hating direct to tape backups even more.CODO ERGO SUM |
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Bruce Sherwood
Starting Member
12 Posts |
Posted - 2010-10-04 : 15:34:35
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| I partially agree with the 'Backup to tape is bad' ideology.Like you, I have (and still do) native backups to local disk (SAN based storage) and move those to where I need them stored for near to long term.Consider a possible solution of using an appliance like a Data Domain for your storage of backups in place of tape. Tape can eat up your budget that you could have spent on disk instead. (of course that depends on your retention time).I myself still do native to local backups, and then copy those off to my Data Domain, every 6 hours. You can of course use Net Backup to do backup to disk in the Data Domain(and even leverage OST as well), or if people can't cope with that concept, you can use a Data Domain as a Virtual Tape Library (VTL).My Data Domain (DDR) holds 70 terabytes of backups for 30 days all within 4TB of physical disk. This constantly in rotation. Without encryption or compression, repeated SQL database backups are highly deduplicatable in a DDR. If I had to put all of that on tape, well, it would hurt. And the loss I currently experience in tapes that go off site for long term storage every month / die from over use, just makes my DDR that much better overall as an investment.-----Ummm.. Yeah.. About that... |
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russell
Pyro-ma-ni-yak
5072 Posts |
Posted - 2010-10-04 : 15:55:01
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| Can pick up a NAS dirt cheap (compared to other media) for backup storage. |
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blakmk
Starting Member
45 Posts |
Posted - 2010-10-05 : 04:49:02
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| Thanks for the advice. Im getting good compression rates out of Sql 2008 compression in the region of 75-85% for various database types. It does make it more palatable to stick with backup to disk.Part of the problem is that the client is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They dont have the money to buy tier 3 storage to attach to their san and are reliant on expensive (and limited) tier 1 SAN storage. They are reluctant to buy cheap NAS devices because they dont want to have to manage them (failure rates etc). Anyway I think of sold the argument due to a number of scenarios netbackup cant handle.Bruce, Yes I like the idea of a data domain another one of my clients uses this approach but its not suitable here. |
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Using NetBackup for direct Sql to Tape Backups