Backup to SAN

[one3cap]

I use IBM SVC (San Volume Controller) and I mapped the same vdisk or disk to my backup server and the same disk to 5 other servers. All server can see the files on the disk. I am using this disk on all server except the backup server for SQL backups. I named this the U:\ on all windows servers.

The problem is that I expect that if I create a folder on any server all the other servers should see the folder and this is not happening. I know for a FACT that this is the same disks on all servers. I would like this solution to work so I can have my SQL servers backing up over SAN to my backup server that has the same drive and just backup one drive on my backup server. Any thoughts?

[aremmes]

Windows file systems are not meant to be accessed by more than one host at a time, which prevents volumes formatted with them from being shared. What you're trying to do will result in the file system being corrupted; you''ll need to use a cluster file system to make it work.

[one3cap]

Simple. I gave 5 windows servers the same mapped SAN drive. My backup server also has the same drive. The windows server backup to this same SAN drive and then at night the backup server backs up this drive to tape. This is all LAN free. All this backup is going over FC SAN not over ethernet network.

This is what I am trying to accomplish.

I posted here because this is also my vcbproxy server and I know some of the vmware guys are also storage guys as well.

[patrickds]

it's not because it's simple to set up, that it will also work.

Windows filesystem does not support clustered use like you want it.

If you want those 5 servers to use the same disk, connect it to one of them, share it over the network and let the others use it as a network drive.

Physically attaching a volume to different Windows servers at the same time does not work like you want.

[one3cap]

Yes but sharing it from one server would cause the servers to backup to it over the tcp/ip network and not the fibre channel network

[patrickds]

If you absolutely require backing up over the fibre, than VCB is the only way.

You'll have to do backups of the 5 servers separately.

If you only want to do backup of the data for your SQL servers, i think doing it over network will be faster, since you'll have more control over what you back up.

If you're worried about backup windows, you could consider other means of backing them up, like continuous backup or replication.