Well, our AS/400 is about 8 years old, and our AS/400 consultants have advised that the only way, currently to back up the AS/400 to the SAN would be to back it up to disk (on the 400) and then FTP that up to the windows side of things, and we currently don’t have sufficient disk space to do that. That means that, for now at least, there’s no way to include the 400 in the equation. If we upgrade at some point (which is a distinct possibility considering that this 400 is just about at the end of the support life) that becomes an option, but for now, I’m going to leave that out of the equation.
I am currently looking at our options to get a consultant in here to help us determine what our needs are and help us design a D/R strategy. John-AldrichTile-Tools From: Christopher Bodnar [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 12:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SAN question John, The others have given some great advice, especially the need to get business requirements first. then tailor the solution to meet those needs. I've been in a similar position to what you describe, including the AS/400 environment. What are the plans for the AS/400? I know you have mentioned that you would like to backup the AS/400 to whatever you decide to implement (SAN, appliance, etc...), but how do you expect to get it up and running without another AS/400 in the DR site? Since that is the software that runs the business (ERP package? ), I would expect the business requirements would need that to be at the highest level, e-mail probably being a close second. There are numerous vendors out there that will give you any combination of what you need to do this, all of which are pretty costly for the scenario you are describing. Chris Bodnar, MCSE Systems Engineer Distributed Systems Service Delivery - Intel Services Guardian Life Insurance Company of America Email: [email protected] Phone: 610-807-6459 Fax: 610-807-6003 From: "John Aldrich" <[email protected]> To: "NT System Admin Issues" <[email protected]> Date: 04/06/2010 10:29 AM Subject: RE: SAN question _____ No, I have not narrowed it down. I initially hoped to get the project done this year, but the economic downturn has hurt our cash flow such that we are in a “holding pattern” on any “discretionary” spending and the SAN project certainly falls into that category. You bring up a good point about what happens if you only have one SAN and it goes down. That’s one reason I was thinking about having a “D/R” SAN at a remote location. We do have a remote location about 30 minutes away. Another option would be to co-lo the D/R SAN with someone. I just got off the phone with a Global Crossing rep who wanted to talk to me about things they could do for me, especially in the way of conferencing, etc. We got to talking about the IT priorities for the next couple years and I mentioned the SAN project and asked if they provided online backup services. She said that the only thing they could offer would be co-lo space and that got me to thinking that maybe that might be the best of both worlds… co-lo the D/R SAN at a professional co-lo facility. John-AldrichTile-Tools From: Martin Blackstone [ <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 10:14 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SAN question If you are just backing up to tape and your SAN goes down, where will you restore too? Do you have a spare disk pool to use? If it was “me”, I would be looking at a SAN solution that offers its own proven DR solution. Since I only know NetApp, they have a tool called SnapMirror that is built into the OS. You pay for the license and plug in the serial. Then setup your DR targets and let it rip. If your primary SAN goes down, you can do some clicks and bring the system online with all your data ready to access. But you seem to be talking about a lot of things you want. You want DR, you want clustering. If you cluster, maybe you only need to backup to tape. Unless you want to buy a clustered SAN and a DR SAN. Of course if you are going to have a DR SAN, I assume you have a DR location? I mean if the building burns to the ground do you have a location with the resources needed to keep the company running? Not just hold the data? Have you narrowed this down to 3 vendors yet? From: John Aldrich [ <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 6:52 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: SAN question Guys, I’m still working on my storage needs, as the project I’ve been working on probably won’t get approved until early next year at the earliest. I was talking to a D/R consultant recommended by one of the folks on this list. Unfortunately, he does not work with SMB clients, only large clients such as Coca Cola, etc. I had been thinking of getting two SANs and having one replicate to the other for D/R purposes. Most of our operations run off the AS/400 so that would not be much affected (except if we are able to some how back up to the SAN, which is unlikely with our current AS/400, due to disk space limitations on the 400) one way or the other by the SAN project. The aforementioned consultant suggested that we look into getting just one SAN and a tape backup for it or online backup service instead of doing two SANs. Most of the data on the Windows side of things would be hard to replace if it died, so while it’s not “critical” to our operations, it’s still highly important. What do you guys think of that suggestion? Would any of you guys do something like that? Why or why not? Also, anyone know any D/R consultants in the North Georgia area who work with SMB clients? John-AldrichTile-Tools ----------------------------------------- This message, and any attachments to it, may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, copying, or communication of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete the message and any attachments. 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