January 5, 2009 at 4:05 am
HNY to all...
Does anyone these days back up their databases to tape?
If so - what kind of throughput are you getting?
What kind of tapes do you use?
Would you prefer an alternative - have you moved to an alternative?
I ask, because I am wondering whether tape would be more efficient for the TB+ db I need to backup. The write rates they claim for lto4 seem to be pretty good - better than many disk solutions I have seen.
Any ideas?
Rich
January 5, 2009 at 5:45 am
Hello Rechard,
You can also think about the new feature of SQL Server 2008 "Compress Backup" to save disk space & time.
Also if you are not using 2008 than you can go for third party backup tool like ligthspeed etc. which has capability to compress your backup upto 80-90% in less time.
Redgate is also having such product:
http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql_backup/index_2.htm
One positive thing about the Tape is you can keep backup for more days i.e. 15 days or 30 days or for a few months depend on your company policy.
Cheers!!!
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"Thare are only 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary, and those who don't."
January 5, 2009 at 6:39 am
You also have to bear in mind with any tape backup the transfer method to the tape.
If you are connecting directly to the SAN and backing up the tape over fiber then LT4 is great (provided of course you get the right drive).
If you are backing up over the network then it might not be the right choice. The problem is that you can't get the throughput to the tape backup unit that it really needs to run well. As such you will end up "shining" the tapes. Essentially the tape has to move back and forth as it goes, then has to wait for data, backtracks while it waits for more etc, literally shining the tape itself.
This is far less of an issue for direct attached storage, however you would have to perform tests as to whether your disk subsystem can keep up.
Absolutely use one of the backup compression utilities out there, there's too many to mention, but they will provide a much smaller dump of the data, and can also include encryption for extra security.
January 5, 2009 at 7:28 am
Hi there and HNY back.
I dont use this feature currently and havent since LTO1 so cant really help, but have used tape backups in the past based on multiplel technologies (including TSM).
I would suggest that your throughput would be largely based on where the LTO4 interfaced (the route between the SQL server and database to LTO4 drive).
Also what sort of drive is it? SCSI, Fibre? Is there a network between your drive and database server, in which case what is it, what latency, how heavily used are the switches? Is it part of a library, peer-attached...?
Adam Zacks-------------------------------------------Be Nice, Or Leave
January 5, 2009 at 9:51 am
As your DBs get larger, this gets to be more of an issue. Lots of larger systems just SNAP on the SAN and then they might stream to multiple tape drives to get a backup using something like a TSM system.
You have to grow your tape system as data sizes grow as well. Or you can use disk backup and have less versions or days of backups. It's a balancing act.
January 5, 2009 at 9:55 am
Thanks for the replies - the shining was especially interesting.
Dont currently have a tape drive, But I assume direct attach either fibre or scsi would be possible.
Are tape drives clusterable - or would it need to attach to the 'san' (really what I would consider fibre DAS...)
I think we probably will have to end up on the lightspeed backups - though we have been looking at running to a virtual backup device using gzip which seems pretty good.
Anyone know how lightspeed delivers stability wise as opposed to rolling your own vbd?
January 5, 2009 at 10:02 am
Litespeed is a very good product, but WAY expensive. There are a great many alternatives out there for a fraction of the cost, for example RedGates SQL Backup or Hyperbac. Try and avoid VDI backup solutions if you can.
You can perform clusterable backups, however I would try and avoid anything other than a RAID1 to mirror what you are backing up. Anything else and you run into the problem of losing your data should one drive fail (for example you have a 3 drive set that you spread the data over, 1 fails and you've lost the lot).
If you can attach to the SAN, that's the best solution, especially performing as Steve mentions some kind of SNAP utility with the sotrage vendor, that you could then offload to tape without any production server impact.
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