NDMP

NDMP is a data management protocol designed to move data from primary to backup servers without putting load on the management client.

Following are some of the NDMP interfaces that the servers implement:

• Connect interface—for authentication and versioning

• Configure interface—for discovery of server configuration parameters

• Data interface—for initiating backups and restores

• Tape interface—for controlling tape drives

• SCSI interface—for controlling jukeboxes

Following are some of the NDMP interfaces that the backup software applications implement:

• Notify interface—to provide callbacks from the servers being controlled

• File history interface—to provide backup history that you can use in later retrieval

• Logging interface—to monitor progress and diagnose problems

Actual data copying happens between servers. Later versions of NDMP have support for advanced features, which allow backup to multiple tapes and so on.

NDMP is the only protocol supported by NetApp for writing backup applications (there are no ONTAPI interfaces for performing backup tasks currently in the SDK). The ndmpcopy program, available in source format from www.ndmp.org, makes use of NetApp-specific extensions to copy data directly from one storage system to another.

NDMP was originally developed by NetApp and Legato Corporation. Numerous other vendors now offer NDMP support.