Veritas-bu

Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup protecting 30TB - 60TB NetApp over NDMP.

2008-04-24 01:27:58
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup protecting 30TB - 60TB NetApp over NDMP.
From: "Mellor, Adam A." <Adam.Mellor AT woodside.com DOT au>
To: "Iverson, Jerald" <Jerald.Iverson AT invesco DOT com>, <veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:13:34 +0800
Jerald,

Thank you, I had been puzzled by that behaviour in our environment, just
never knew it was a "feature". Guess I should read MORE manuals.

We currenly back up 70-80TB between two heads, for the moment we are
happy with NDMP, however we have limited aggregates to 5TB, so backup's
take no longer that 12 hours each. (well close, we get 5TB in about 14
hours, we aimed for 12.)

Our business is pushing for 16TB filesystems, and with this we are
investigating snapmirror to a box at the DR site.

I'm hoping to squeeze some more out of the NDMP solution, however not
yet able to get more than 100MB/s to tape.

Adam.

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Iverson,
Jerald
Sent: Thursday, 24 April 2008 4:11 AM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup protecting 30TB - 60TB NetApp over
NDMP.

if you choose your restore files correctly, backups can be very fast.
DAR (direct access restore (i think)) has been available since netbackup
4.5 (maybe fp3).  read the rules for using it, and restores "can" speed
up significantly.  you can't choose directories, only files, and are
limited to 1024 or so.  we had an admin click on a directory to restore
and it took 6 hours to complete as it had to go through several entire
tapes (sdlt at the time).  then in the restore gui i went down into the
directory and manually selected the 25 files that were there and the
restore took 15 minutes.  99% of our ndmp restores are for files.  for
us if someone screws up a directory, the ~snapshot is there.  your
mileage may vary.

jerald

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Staub,
Doug
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 2:37 PM
To: Raymond Wong; Tharp, Trey; Jim Hall;
veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup protecting 30TB - 60TB NetApp over
NDMP.

Yes, the restore process of NDMP is definitely slower, but for us the
choice was simple.  Many of our larger 2-3 TB NetApp volumes were being
backed up via CIFS through a Windows media server, which 1) took days to
backup and 2) placed a heavy CPU load on the media server.  IF those
volumes were successful, then the restores would take minutes.  With
NDMP, the restores ARE successful, they just happen to take 2-3
hours....never experienced an NDMP restore to take days...

Our users are much happier to get back data and wait a few hours (some
would be willing to wait days), rather than the alternative of nothing
to restore.

Again, my experience is limited to version 5.1 MP6, so I have not seen
this play in 6.5 (yet).

-Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Raymond Wong [mailto:Raymond.Wong AT efi DOT com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 10:22 AM
To: Staub, Doug; Tharp, Trey; Jim Hall;
veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup protecting 30TB - 60TB NetApp over
NDMP.

Another problem I run into using NDMP backups is the restores.

You cannot restore a single folder without the restore job reading
through the entire backup image.
For example, I backup my filers by running a backup stream for each
volumes.
So if the volume is 2TB and I try to restore a single 20MB folder in
this volume, the restore job needs to reads through the entire 2TB
backup image before it can successfully recover that 20MB folder.
This means a 20MB restore job can take days to complete.

I think this problem is resolved in NBU 6.5 but I haven't tried it yet.
I'm currently running NBU 6.0MP6

-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Staub,
Doug
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 8:18 AM
To: Tharp, Trey; Jim Hall; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] NetBackup protecting 30TB - 60TB NetApp over
NDMP.

NDMP is not "horrible", but I would agree that SnapMirror is the best
alternative at these sizes.  We have 2 GB FC connects to VTLs enabled
with NDMP drives for filers and we have seen 3 TB volumes backup in
hours via NDMP compared to 4-5 days via CIFS...now that is a horrible
protocol...

The one caveot with NDMP is you are limited to 16 or so concurrent
sessions (ONTap version specific) and can severely impact the filer
(which is why Trey's suggestion of SnapMirror is a good one because you
won't degrade your source filer trying to back it up.).

-Doug
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