Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] Is there an official document of client and server N ICand switch settings

2004-03-18 12:00:17
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Is there an official document of client and server N ICand switch settings
From: cheryl.king AT intrado DOT com (King, Cheryl)
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 10:00:17 -0700
Thank you all for your help and comments, and for feeling my pain.  I will 
compile my own official document from the information in these emails and from 
experience.  I'm still wondering why we have all HPs set to half duplex.  I was 
told this was the recommendation from the vendor, I think HP, but I'll bring 
this up again.  

Are other people successfully running NBU 4.5 with HP-UX 10.20 and HP-UX 11.00 
clients set for Full Duplex?  If so, I'll test one and see how it goes. 

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-admin AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu]On Behalf Of Paul
Boatman
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 6:33 AM
To: Dwayne.Brzozowski AT mail.va DOT gov; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT 
edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Is there an official document of client and
server N ICand switch settings


I work at the 6th largest university in the country.  About 1 year ago,
the entire university was required to switch to AUTO-AUTO across ALL
platforms because of  network infrastructure changes ("eek !").  The
impact on Veritas Netbackup has been ridiculous.  Our drives are sitting
here getting 10%-20% thruput, and our capacity is maxed out when it
shouldn't be.  Tape management and load balancing between 2 robots (1 of
which is maxed out tape-wise, the other is maxed out drive-wise)  is a
nightmare.  Upper management is blaming the software, scheduler, and
drive technology claiming that they are not sufficient.

Is anyone else in a similar situation ?

What are the "settings that work" Dwayne ?  I am very interested. 
Maybe we could present this info to our Network / Telecom guys.  By the
way Dwayne, I am a veteran so I sure do appreciate you guys in the VA.

Thanks,

Paul

>>> "Biller, Tim" <Tim.Biller AT uk.experian DOT com> 3/18/2004 02:55:30 >>>
Hi Cheryl,

Have the Network Admins lock the switch port speed to 100Mbit and Full
Duplex and make sure the client NIC is set exactly the same on ALL the
servers.  The Unix boxes will need setting explicitly as Mark says, and
a
file added to ensure they stay that way after a reboot.  (Your
sysadmins
should know this....)

Most network switches always auto-negotiate to the lowest possible
speed so
it's essential to lock this down.  Any decent network admin should
know
this....

Are you running on a dedicated backup LAN? If there's no impact on
other
systems there's absolutely no reason not to max out the ports and NICs.
 

I'm not aware of any specific documentation that states that 100/Full
should
be used but if performance sucks under autoneg and it flies under
100/Full
then there's your argument.  What tape drives are you using?  Are you
using
SSO?

Cheers - Tim


Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 12:03:10 -0700
From: "King, Cheryl" <cheryl.king AT intrado DOT com>
To: "Veritas-Bu \(E-mail\)" <veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Is there an official document of client and
server NIC
and switch settings

Over and over again we have problems with poor performance with new
client
backups and restores.  Is there a document that says what the NIC
settings
should be for each client type?  For example we have highest speed
possible
for all of them, half duplex for HP, and full duplex for everything
else, I
think (I haven't checked every system and wasn't here when some were
implemented).  Setting Auto detect on the switch seems to not work
correctly
(causes slow performance).   I think the switches are set to match the
server, but have no way to verify that.  I'd like to be able to present
an
official document to the System Administrators and the Network
Engineers
that states the correct configuration requirements.  Does Veritas have
such
a document or statement?

Is this a problem in other environments?  Is this just an issue in
Veritas
Backup environments?  Are my SAs and Network Engineers not following
some
industry, standard, best-practices?    I've been in IT for many years
but
working with Veritas NBU for 1 year.  I don't recall ever having
network
issues like this before.

NBU 4.5 FP5 Solaris 8 Master/Media
Clients OSF1_V5, HP-UX 11.00, HP-UX10.20, Windows2000, WindowsNT,
RedHat2.4,
RedHat 2.2, Solaris8, Solaris7.

Thanks in advance.

Cheryl King


From: "Donaldson, Mark" <Mark.Donaldson AT experianems DOT com>
To: "'King, Cheryl'" <cheryl.king AT intrado DOT com>,
   "Veritas-Bu (E-mail)"
         <veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Is there an official document of client and
serv
        er NIC and switch settings
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 12:31:48 -0700

The network settings are outside Netbackup control.  

You should always set to your highest possible speeds.  For many
server/switch combinations, auto-negotiation fails to negotiate the
highest
settings and they must often be forced to the best setting using ndd
or
similar utilities.

Half-duplex performance stinks - are you sure that's what only what HP
can
do?

Your network person should be able to query a smart-enough switch for
the
switch port settings, the SA should be able to query the ethernet port
for
the same settings.  


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