SAN Backup and Zoning

[goppi]

Hi.

We are designing a new infrastructure, where the following question arose:

When using SAN based backup via vStorage I assume the backup server (physical machine with

fc controller) needs to share a fc zone with the storage device where the datastores are located?

What about lun mapping - does the backup server need the datatore luns to be

mapped for access (I assume yes)? Will read only access work here?

Do the ESXi hosts or the VCenter need to share a fc zone with the backup server (I assume no)?

Anything else we have to be aware of?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Cheers.

[idle-jam]

yes, the backup server must be able to see (but not touch) all the vmfs datastore that the backup VM resides. from backup server you will need to automount disable from the diskpart so that it does not mount the VMFS and overwrite the partition header with VMFS. normally you backup software will provide such installation steps ..

[goppi]

Thanks for the automount tip.

[goppi]

If anyone else is searching for some insight, the following link show some details how SAN based backup works for BackupExec.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH155831&cat=SYMANTEC_PRODUCTS&actp...

Cheers.