HP Surestore NAS - Manual (Page 68)

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Backup
Backup Overview
Backup of NAS devices has traditionally been difficult and time consuming. Technologies such
as NDMP have been developed to improve this. However, NDMP is still slower and less reliable
than integrating with the native agents that most backup vendors provide. The NAS operating
system used in the NAS VA is based on HP-UX. This allows backup servers and agents to be
run natively on the NAS head. This provides the best performance and compatibility available
today. The NAS VA supports backup via three methods:
1. SCSI/Fibre Channel connection to a tape device. The NAS head provides both an external
SCSI connection and connection via the fibre channel hub or switch to a SCSI or fibre channel
based tape drive or library. Backup can be performed either through local tools such as tar, or by
integrating a Backup application on the NAS head. This backup option offers maximum
performance, however it often requires dedicated tape resources and additional management
overhead. HP OmniBack II and other leading backup software products are supported. If a non
HP backup application is used, the customer is required to support the application unless a
service agreement with Hewlett-Packard is written to cover the solution.
2. Network backup of the NFS/CIFS share(s). This is one of the most common ways to backup
some NAS devices due to the limitations of NDMP. This is accomplished by mounting the NFS or
CIFS share and backing up the mountpoint. This protects the data on the NAS device, however
the configuration on the NAS device is usually not protected. Additionally, if the share is both
NFS and CIFS, file attributes can be lost. This is not a preferred backup method for HP NAS
VA. You should use either method 1 or method 3.
3. Backup through a backup application agent. This option utilizes the agents provided by
backup vendors to protect the system. Unlike the first options, this allows the NAS device to be
integrated into the existing backup scheme as any other server. It also typically provides the
highest reliability and performance. Backup can either be accomplished by backing up across the
IP network, the fibre channel network or to a locally attached tape device. The management
console of the local backup solution handles management of the backup. Typical applications
that support this backup methodology are HP OmniBack II and other leading backup software
products.