Re: [Networker] Looking for large Networker environments

Hi Justin,

On 14/12/2012, at 11:23 AM, "Roberts, Justin (GE, Appl & Light)" 
<Justin.Roberts2 AT GE DOT COM> wrote:

> We switched to Networker in the last year and we've experienced a lot of 
> performance issues that we've worked through.   I keep asking EMC to get me 
> in touch with another customer with a large environment so we can talk, and 
> they keep "forgetting" to arrange it.
> 
> I'm running two Networker servers and I think I'm pushing one of them too 
> hard (although the other isn't that far behind).   Wanted to see if anyone 
> else is running a Networker server this large or if I'm just crazy for trying.
> 
> Largest Server:
> Windows 2008 R2 64bit w/ 6 CPU's and 8GB RAM
> Clients: ~2000 configured
> Groups: ~400 (ranging from every hour to once a week)
> Storage Nodes: 3+networker server itself
> Backup media:  3 Data Domain's and 4 Avamar Grids
> Backup types:    Filesystem/RMAN/SAP/MSSQL/NDMP/VADP

If that's your NetWorker server, you've got it horribly underspecced.

Your first point of call should be the NetWorker performance tuning guide, 
which clearly states a bare minimum amount of RAM for a NetWorker server these 
days should be 16GB of RAM. Further, as you increase the number of devices and 
clients, you similarly need to increase the amount of RAM. My gut feeling is 
that you need at a least a minimum of 64GB of RAM if you're pointing that many 
(or even half that many) clients at a NetWorker server.

Also, you need 500MHz of CPU power to move 100MB/s of data INTO the NetWorker 
server and then another 500MHz of CPU power to move that data OUT onto storage 
at 100MB/s - I'm guessing that 6 CPUs (if you mean cores) will also be 
insufficient there, though you may have a better CPU setup than that.

For NetWorker 8 at least, the performance tuning guide document is on PowerLink 
at part number 300-013-559 Rev A01. Make sure you download it for either 
NetWorker 8 or NetWorker 7.6 - previous versions of the document had not been 
updated.

What you're wanting to do with NetWorker is entirely plausible (though I'd also 
suggest the number of groups you have may be too high also), but you'll need to 
beef up the resources on your NetWorker server substantially.

Cheers,
Preston.

--
Preston de Guise

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