Veritas-bu

Re: [Veritas-bu] Some odd Netbackup Questions.

2009-11-05 02:23:13
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Some odd Netbackup Questions.
From: "WEAVER, Simon \(external\)" <simon.weaver AT astrium.eads DOT net>
To: "Dean" <dean.deano AT gmail DOT com>, "Johan Redelinghuys" <johan.redelinghuys AT stg.co DOT za>, <Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 07:19:51 -0000
I have to agree with Dean here, especially on point 3.
 
As I mentioned in my reply, not every setting I use, will be suitable to each environemnt I look after.
 
Simon


From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Dean
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 8:06 PM
To: Johan Redelinghuys; Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Some odd Netbackup Questions.


On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Johan Redelinghuys <johan.redelinghuys AT stg.co DOT za> wrote:

1.       Storage Units:

Yeah, this depends on the environment totally. But if you only have one STU defined, all backups will have to go to that STU. If you have it defined to use both drives, and have multiplexing enabled, then.... well, assuming your policies allow it, both drives would "fill up" with as many streams as the STU allows. But how fast can your media server suck in data? There are so many variables in this equation it's too hard to say what is best without spending a bit of time looking at the overall setup.

2.       Multiplexing:

Again, it depends on the environment. Is the media server actually capable of pushing a drive up to these speeds? If so, then it depends on how fast your clients can send data to the media server. I have found most clients, even on Gigabit ethernet, can't do much better than about 50 MB/sec. The place I currently work for uses IBM 3592, which are theoretically capable of something like 240 MB/sec. I think we have multiplexing set at about 6 per drive, but then... we only have 2 Gb/sec network bandwith into the media server, so are never going to get the drives up to their maximum rate. Luckily the 3592 drives are pretty good at throttling themselves to avoid "shoe shining".

On the other hand, I have SAN Media Servers (Enterprise Clients, in the newer terminology), that can really pump those drives, so multiplexing on their STUs is set to 1, and the policies don't multistream, and just pump one big chunk of data at the tape drive at very impressive speeds.

Answering the 2 questions above is very difficult without spending some time analysing the environment. Being able to do that is what makes you a decent "NBU expert". It's a bit like "how long is a piece of string"? It depends on where it starts, where it ends, and how many loops and knots there are along the way.

The following question is a lot easier to answer :

3.       VSP:

Don't use VSP. It annoys me that the NBU Windows client install still installs VSP by default. Don't do that. Use VSS. If you still have clients running Win2K ... well, my practice is if the server is unimportant enough that it can run an out of date, unsupported OS, it's unimportant enough that I can turn off that "backup open files" option entirely. VSP is a pain in the posterior, and I get the impression that Symantec have given up on it in favour of Microsoft's VSS, which completely makes sense, so why should I have to deal with it? Say "NO!" to VSP!
 
Cheers
Dean

This email (including any attachments) may contain confidential
and/or privileged information or information otherwise protected
from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please
notify the sender immediately, do not copy this message or any
attachments and do not use it for any purpose or disclose its
content to any person, but delete this message and any attachments
from your system. Astrium disclaims any and all liability if this
email transmission was virus corrupted, altered or falsified.
-o-
Astrium Limited, Registered in England and Wales No. 2449259
Registered Office:
Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2AS, England
_______________________________________________
Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>