BACKING UP DISTRIBUTED COMPUTERS WITH THE MICROSOFT BACKUP APPLICATION AND SPECTRA LOGIC SPECTRA 2K iSCSI LIBRARY

BACKING UP DISTRIBUTED COMPUTERS WITH THE MICROSOFT BACKUP APPLICATION AND SPECTRA 2K iSCSI LIBRARY

Most small businesses have a small computing environment and limited expertise in computing and networking. Nonetheless, they have critical data that must be protected. They want a low cost backup solution that works in their existing environment and is easy to operate.

The Spectra Logic 2K Ethernet library is one of the solutions. The library has a built-in iSCSI to SCSI translation engine. It uses Ethernet to connect to the PC. This networking capability allows the user to share the library among PCs on an IP network .

Ethernet is a mature technology familiar to many organizations. Ethernet uses RJ45 connectors similar to RJ21 connectors on telephones. Connecting an Ethernet cable is as simple as hooking up a phone jack.

Sharing the tape library takes three steps. First, the user installs the Microsoft iSCSI driver and RSM on the PCs. Second, the user allocates media to the PCs. In the Microsoft backup application, the user moves the tapes from the unrecognized media pool to the free media pool. Make sure that no two PCs use the same tape. Lastly, the user divides the backup window among the PCs and schedules the PCs to run backup in each of the time slot. If a PC is trying to access a library that is in use, the PC will get a busy signal and will retry. The user can set a value for the number of retries.

Below is a sample configuration.