SAN is a general term used to denote a shared device setup. To do this you would need to use the SAN/SSO option in Backup Exec. The idea behind SAN SSO is that you share a fibre-attached storage device. It can be tape, or disk.
Installing the agent simply means your job runs over the LAN…this means you’re not taking advantage of the SAN’s speeds.
Steps to Follow:
1. Install a FULL version of Backup Exec on your server (and it also needs to be attached to the SAN!!!), with all the required agents.
2. Run the SAN SSO wizard on your primary server. This makes it discoverable to other SAN servers when you activate the option on them, and shares the tape drive/library/disk storage etc.
3. On your other SAN server, run your SAN SSO wizard, and point it to your primary SAN SSO server. It will then detect the backup device. Don’t forget that you will need to zone the second server (and subsequent servers) to see that tape drive BEFORE it will be detected in BE 2010.
Why we need to Run SAN SSO?
If Backup Exec installed on two servers, and you are backing up local data, it is dumped to the library through fiber channel, making it fast. We are considering about BE with no license. So, SAN works even if SSO license is not there. Now, when you have SSO license added to a Backup Exec server, it gives you the additional capability of centralizing the solution where you have all different Backup Exec servers managed by a central database. One of the servers where you install SSO becomes a primary server, and all other servers are secondary. Technically no difference, all are Backup Exec servers, but a server designated as primary holds the device and media information and also catalogs. The secondary servers send the information about their devices to primary server’s database and management of devices and media becomes easier.
Technology behind SAN SSO
Technology behind Symantec backup Exec SAN SSO is not released officially. Hope that Internet Storage Name System (iSNS) is used behind the screen for the discovery. Please find the link below to know more about ISNS.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4171
