NDMP or the Network Data Management Protocol can be used to secure data stored on NAS filers (such as NetApp, Hitachi HNAS, EMC Isilon, …). The protocol has been developed by NetApp, before it became an open standard maintained by Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA).
The initial goal to develop the NDMP protocol was to provide a standardized framework which can be used by any backup software, to avoid the need to deploy custom agents on the NAS filer. When no agents could be deployed – which occurred in most cases -, the backup admin was obligated to secure the data by using a proxy server which mounted the volumes by using the CIFS or NFS protocol.
In general we can say the NDMP protocol supports two data protection mechanisms: two-way – and three-way NDMP. Continue reading