How do you backup a SAN?

I have some good experience supplying Arcserve. The SAN Option enables Arcserve Backup servers to share one or more tape libraries by creating a virtual ring. Any backup or restore jobs on a server that has the option installed to run as local jobs. This is achieved with Arcserve UDP Premium. I'd be happy to arrange a demo with no obligation. 

There are many ways to BAckup SAN, its all depend on your company policy and industry best practice you follow. 

1) Image copies

2) Disk-to-disk backups

3) Serverless backups

4) LAN-less backups

My recommendation is Cloudberry MSP360 because of the following features.

• Centralized management and monitoring via our web-based console


• Storage, billing, and capacity reporting
  
  


• Integration with popular RMM/PSA solutions: ConnectWise Manage, Autotask, Ninja RMM


• Simplified license management


• MSP360™ Backup Admin app for iOS devices


• APIs for custom integration


• Hybrid Backup – local and cloud in a single pass


• End-to-end encryption to secure data in transit and at rest


• Image-based backup for Windows


• SQL Server backup with full, differential or transaction log backup


• Back up your network locations including network shares, NAS devices, mapped drives, etc.

What do you mean? Do you speak about switches backup or about Luns?

For SAN Storage backup; for e.g HP MSA/P2000/HPE NIMBLE, Synology:-

• Volumes or LUN Backup/Sync/Replication can be setup & configured using the Storage WebPortal Access or by using specific HP tool like HP Mirroring tool


• 3rd party App can be used; for e.g. Veeam Backup, Veritas Backup Exec, Backup Maker.


• Or using scripting or software like Rsync

Based on my past experience, Veeam and BackupEXE are two backup application software mainly used by my customers and to date, they have not encountered any major issues while performing restoration drill.

In my view Atempo Time Navigator is the best and easy solution for SAN Backup. Most of the people might not heard about Atempo but it is a more then 20 years old company. Being as a French company they are not believe in advertising, As the product has enterprise capabilities.

The Storage Area Network (SAN) is an architecture, which aims at sharing storage resources, such as disks, drives, libraries, between several servers using a dedicated sub-network. Today SAN’s are usually built on fiber channel technology although iSCSI is becoming more and more prevalent.

Backup consists of keeping critical data safe. As such, it must be part of operational tasks using the infrastructure and tools for total network management. To achieve this, Time Navigator is capable of:

• Communicating with storage resources connected to the network


• Sharing use with other users and software


• Taking maximum advantage of the capacity of the network to transfer data rapidly and over distances up to kilometer


• Taking into account network configuration changes, which are liable to happen at any time


• The Time Navigator Library Sharing Module includes the ability to share tape drives between servers. This solution gives maximum flexibility for the backup system administrator who is able to allocate these drives dynamically to servers that need to run backups or restores, even during an active process.