Improved
Storage Management for Central Servers - Backup Solution
By
John Chan
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Last issue, we mentioned the
acquisition of the Network Storage System (NSS) as the standard platform
for central storage, and the Storage Area Network (SAN) is chosen as
the NSS architecture for deployment. This issue, we will focus on the
acquisition of a centralised backup solution (CBS) as another part of
the storage management improvement.
Benefits of CBS
Traditional backup methods using local
devices attached to each machine have many drawbacks. With the introduction
of the CBS, many of the deficiencies that were traditionally very difficult
to resolve can be eliminated. These include the following:
- With the increase in the sizing of each
data volume, in particular, with the adoption of SAN,backing up such
a large volume by each system would be very time consuming and require
extremely fast and high capacity tape drives. Using a CBS, the backup
time can be trimmed down and the resources can be shared more efficiently.
- There are numerous different servers
being installed centrally for providing various kinds of services for
the whole campus. Traditional backup methods require an enormous amount
of time and a lot of operational intervention while a CBS can reduce
the manual intervention on backup and restore, hence saving manpower
on operation and support and avoiding possible human errors.
- Using a CBS, all backup and restore procedures
can be standardised for the many different platforms that have been
installed centrally. Again, this can save operational manpower and support,
thus reducing possible human errors.
- Traditionally, it is very difficult to
duplicate backup tapes. This means there is always a high risk that
data cannot be restored when required due to a defected backup tape.
With a CBS, tape duplication becomes an easy job.
- Since resources can be allocated more
effectively with the setup of a CBS, the time required for the restoration
of data can be greatly reduced, thus minimising the amount of interruption
to users or services.
- Since a CBS manages all resources centrally,
the scalability of resources can be greatly increased in cases where
extra capacity is required for additional systems or for the change
in backup scheduling.
- The CBS has its own hardware and software.
This means that all backup traffic can be converged, in most cases,
to its private connection between the CBS and the central storage such
as SAN. In other words, the network traffic, the SAN traffic, and the
host resources would be greatly reduced during the backup process. This
can hardly be achieved using traditional backup methods.
The Solution
The solution proposed by the EMC Computer
Systems Ltd. was recommended and acquired by the Computing Services
Centre (CSC) in June 2001. By August, all the necessary hardware and
software were delivered, and the CSC and the EMC have been working together
since then on the implementation of the solution.
The EMC solution consists of an EDM server together with an ATL P3000
tape library to form the main framework of the CBS. Initially, the P3000
allows 12 DLT tape drives to be operating concurrently and 326 tape
slots to be filled up with tapes for operation readiness. The EDM is
the only product on the market that can support true server-less backup
solution. This means the EDM can be directly attached to the SAN using
a private connection, thereby totally reducing the network traffic,
the SAN traffic, and the resource requirements on each individual system
during the backup process. By adopting this setup, all of the abovementioned
benefits will be fully accomplished.
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