RE: [Bacula-devel] NDMP Support

[David B. <db...@si...>]

> I just started to work through the NDMP specs, and I've=20
> allready got some remarks.

Me too.=20

I think the most useful elements of NDMP support are in the data access
and the tape access components. I would envision treating NDMP stores as
a specific type of client, and creating a specialized client to backup
and restore data to them.=20

The other thing would be to create a variation on Device =3D File to =
allow
the existing SD code to store and retrieve data from NDMP-accessible
tape (essentially providing a network-based link between the SD and the
device). Adam and I did something similar to this in our mainframe tape
support daemon, but doing it with a standardized protocol (particularly
one that provides a reference programmatic emulation of SCSI tape that
could be translated to other device types) would be interesting.=20

I guess my only open question is: how is NDMP better than iSCSI (other
than NDMP is turned on by default in most of the boxes)? Most of the
boxes I'm aware of that do NDMP also do iSCSI, or could be made to do so
with a little thought. In that scenario, Bacula already does just fine
with iSCSI-connected disk.