Networker

[Networker] Inquiry about upgrading NetWorker server

2007-04-27 11:39:23
Subject: [Networker] Inquiry about upgrading NetWorker server
From: Stan Horwitz <stan AT TEMPLE DOT EDU>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:36:05 -0400
We are poised to make some major improvements to our NetWorker environment this spring. In addition to the changes for which I have already received funding, I recently found out that I might also be able to get funding to replace our aging NetWorker server.

Our NetWorker environment consists of one NetWorker 7.2.1 Power Edition server running on a Sun Fire V480R with 8GB of RAM and two dual core 1GHz processors with Solaris 9. We use this server across our enterprise to back up several TB of data nightly (mostly email and web content). We are backing up around 300 clients nightly and we plans to add more servers onto the nightly backup schedule. This V480R has one 1GB network line into it for most of our servers that sits on our DMZ, but it also has a separate 1GB line going to it that's on the same side as our firewall.

Our V480R is connected via fibre to a Sony PetaSite which has 14 S- AIT tape drives.. Alll tape drives are attached via a Qlogic 5200 SAN switch. One of my primary goals is to push data at our tape drives much faster because we are significantly underutilizing our Sony tape drives' throughput.

We also have a Sun Enterprise 450 with Solaris 9 doing duty as a storage node. The E450 is connected to a Qualstar tape library, which is in another building separate from our NetWorker server and our Sony PetaSite. This storage node and tape library sit on the secure side of our firewall and are used exclusively to back up confidential medial and business data. The metadata for these confidential backups gets sent to our V480R via its network drop within the firewall's secure zone. Both the E450 and the Qualstar tape library are due to be replaced in the next month or two. We will replace this storage node with a Dell rack mount server running Red Hat Linux. The Dell server has already been delivered; the tape library is still out to bid.

In another month or two, we'll also add a new Sun X4500 running Red Hat Linux as a storage node, sharing our Sony PetaSite. The X4500 is here already. We plan to use machine partially for file-level disk-to- disk-to-tape backups and to take some of the load off our V480R. We are also hoping to use our X4500 for disk-to-disk-to-tape NDMP backups to four of the PetaSite's tape drives that are reserved only for NDMP.

What I am finding is that our server is heavily overloaded a good deal of the time and I believe its posing a significant bottleneck for our NDMP backups. We use NDMP to back up Mirapoint email servers. Although I am sure the X4500 will take some of the processor load and free up some network bandwidth, off our NetWorker server, I am unclear on how much relief we will get.

With that in mind, I want to replace it with a more powerful server, although I am unclear on the availability of funds for this project. Management offered to provide funds to replace our V480R last year, but I declined. Now I am ready to move forward with that move. My preferred option is to get a Sun Fire V490 to replace the V480R; however, I am hesitant to request a V490 because of its high price tag. For this reason, I am looking at a less expensive T2000 with 16GB of RAM and a 1.2GHz SPARC II processor. I figure that we could replace our NetWorker server (V480R) with a T2000 and then demote the V480R to a storage node. I have plenty of ports on my SAN switch to do this.

What I am wondering is if this is a good idea or not or if anyone on this list can suggest a better option to upgrade our V480R with a more potent server.

After I finish all these server changes, I intend to upgrade to the latest NetWorker version, but I figure I might as well concentrate my effort on the hardware upgrades/additions first while waiting for EMC to come out with NetWorker 7.3.3 or 4.

If anyone has any comments, please let me know.

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