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ATTO Technology, Inc. ATTO FibreBridge Installation & Operation Manual
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ATTO Technology, Inc.
Chapter 8: Serverless Backup Support
What is Serverless Backup?
Serverless Backup is an application that allows data to be copied between two storage devices (Fibre
Channel disks, SCSI disks and SCSI tapes) with minimal to no intervention from a server.
As the volume of data on a network grows, the resources required to back up this data also grow. Data
protection requires that large volumes of data be copied from on-line storage devices to dedicated archive
devices. This places a very heavy load on the host processors, I/O busses, memory busses, and front-
end network, thus reducing the server’s ability to “serve” its clients, as well as a general reduction in
performance.
Serverless Backup utilizes the T10/99-143r1 Extended Copy command to allow a “copy manager” (the
FibreBridge) to execute the entire read and write operations necessary to move the data. Blocks of data
are moved directly from the Fibre Channel storage through the bridge to SCSI tape or from SCSI storage
through the bridge to the SCSI tape, all at Fibre Channel and SCSI speeds (as compared to moving data
across the Ethernet network). A copy “agent” is still required to execute on the server in order to provide
a user interface to initiate a backup or restore operation as well as manage and synchronize the
movement of data sets. This copy agent is either included, or available as an add-on with many of the
high-end tape backup software applications on the market.
ATTO
Figure 8.1 Serverless Backup