Networker

Re: [Networker] Very large filesystems backup

2008-11-10 10:19:46
Subject: Re: [Networker] Very large filesystems backup
From: Matthew Huff <mhuff AT OX DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:19:28 -0500
I'd recommend a solution based on option #2. Use a perl or other scripting 
language to create a mountpoint/directory list as the saveset list and pipe it 
into nsradmin in a job that runs before backups. This gives you the advantage 
of having something like a saveset of ALL so that you won't miss new structures 
that get created, and yet it will create parallel saveset streams.



-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On 
Behalf Of Oscar Olsson
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 10:13 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] Very large filesystems backup

On 2008-11-10 15:54, Browning, David revealed:

BD> Just curious as to what everyone else does out their for their VERY
BD> large filesystem backups.
BD> 
BD> Our document imaging file server has gradually been increasing in size
BD> over the past year, and is now up to 21+ million files.   Data size is
BD> under 1TB, so size isn't an issue, it's simply the 21 million files - it
BD> takes 48 hours to backup.
BD> 
BD> We have a couple of other file servers that are large (3 - 5 million),
BD> but nothing this size.
BD> 
BD> Are people using some kind of snapshot system, or something else?

Well, in essence, there is really no good way to handle this with 
networker. We have used two approaches in the past:

1. Take a snapshot of the filesystem using savepnpc. This requires some 
scripting and its hard to manage errors and ensure that the correct data 
does get backed up in case of hidden failures.
2. Specify several directories. This approach has the drawback that the 
"All" saveset can't be used, which can create troubles later when 
paths/file systems get added/removed/changed, since data in new paths 
doesn't get backed up.

Or, there's our current approach... We recently migrated from Networker to 
Commvault Simpana, and in essence the difference is in the magniture 
between DDR and West Germany in 1985 (to commvaults favour). Commvault 
allows you to use several data readers in the same mount point, which 
really makes things faster for larger file systems. Except for that, there 
are like a million other reasons to switch, but that's outside the scope 
of this list.

//Oscar - has seen the light.

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