Make sure you can support NAS backup

Make sure you can support NAS backup

Make sure you can support NAS backup
Rick Cook

Incompatible software and hardware can reduce you to running separate, time-consuming backups on the NAS devices.

When you consider purchasing NAS devices (also known as 'filers' or appliances) you should consider how the equipment would fit into your backup scheme. That includes paying special attention to the compatibility between your backup software and the NAS device. Increasingly, makers of backup software such as

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Legato Systems Inc., Veritas Software Corp. and Syncsort Inc. are taking the needs of NAS users into account, but this still isn't universal among makers of backup software. Sometimes you must use software designed or certified especially for the NAS device in question. Alternately, you may have to add a module to your backup software to support NAS devices.

The appliance design of NAS equipment can also contribute to the problem. Many NAS filers are not expandable to allow for backups -- or much of anything else, for that matter. For example some of them have or can add SCSI or Fibre Channel ports to attach backup devices directly to the NAS device. This helps keep NAS appliances cheap and simple, but it can work against you if you want to attach a backup device directly instead of backing up over the network.

Although the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) provides a standard interface between storage devices of all kinds and backup software, not all the hardware and software available is NDMP-aware.

Rick Cook has been writing about mass storage since the days when the term meant an 80K floppy disk. The computers he learned on used ferrite cores and magnetic drums. For the last twenty years he has been a freelance writer specializing in storage and other computer issues.

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Related Book

Information Storage and Retrieval Systems Theory and Implementation, Second Edition
Author : Gerald J. Kowalski and Mark T. Maybury
Publisher : Kluwer Academic Publishing
ISBN/CODE : 0792379241
Cover Type : Hard Cover
Pages : 336
Published : Sep 2000
Summary :
This book provides a theoretical and practical explanation of the latest advancements in information retrieval and their application to existing systems. It takes a system approach, discussing all aspects of an Information Retrieval System.


This was first published in March 2001

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