Server-free backup/restore

Backup and restore are one of the major headaches for most IS departments today. Constantly increasing storage and network bandwidth requirements result in increases in backup time that often exceed the capability of systems to move critical data to backup devices. In the event of data loss, restoring data from system backup can be a major issue, due not only to the excessive time to restore data, but also due to the compromises made in backup that can result in inconsistent or incomplete file sets. With the advent of Fibre Channel SANs, new methods of managing data are possible. LAN-free backup allows multiple servers to directly access and share multiple tape libraries without transporting data over the LAN. This dramatically decreases server and network loads and can greatly increase device utilization of backup storage devices.