I have a large NetApp environment and I am looking for a new strategy for ba
cking up my filers. I am trying to decide between using SnapVault technology
 or a VTL with tape.

I am fortunate to be able to replicate all my primary filers to a remote loc
ation. From there I want to protect the data. I have a 7 year retention poli
cy for my data. I was thinking of protecting 14 days online, then only month
ly's for 7 years.

I rarely do restores and most of the data is  flat files.

With SnapVault I am able to transfer data to NearStore. It takes an initial 
baseline copy, like a full backup, then it it would only "snap" the incremen
tal changes at the block level. I am thinking that this would be very fast f
or daily backups and I coul
d eliminate tape.

The alternative would be to use my existing NetBackup software to backup eac
h filer via NDMP to a VTL. From the VTL I would apply the same retention. 14
 days in the VTL then monthly's to tape for 7 years.

I do not have to takes tape offsite since I am the primary copy is 300 miles
 away.

So.... I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this. I am concerned wi
th SnapVault since it is all disk and corruptions may happen. It also has a 
limitation of 251 snaps. That should not be a problem with my retention poli
cy, but my requirements may
change? Also what would happen if I lost the initial baseline copy, does tha
t mean that all the incremental snaps are worthless?

Unfortunately if I go with SnapVault, economically I will not be able to use
 tape or Netbackup, so at that point I would not have the security of tape.

So .

Thanks in advance for your help.

Pat

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