Networker

Re: [Networker] backup mail server very slow (linux)

2004-05-17 15:53:45
Subject: Re: [Networker] backup mail server very slow (linux)
From: "Fields, David" <David.Fields AT ACS-INC DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 15:53:21 -0400
This is a bit late, and I may be wrong (if so, please correct me), but I
would think that if you have one big raid container with several partitions
defined in that container, then it could make more sense to set the
parallelism to 1 when backing up the filesystems that are in that raid
container.  Otherwise, you're going to cause the disk to do a lot of extra
seeking, and this could slow down your overall performance during the
backup.  Now, if it's a high end raid controller, with 15K rpm drives, then
it's probably not a problem, but if it's software raid or slower drives,
then this may be an issue.

Also, you should check that the network is running at full speed.  As
someone else suggested, ftp some files around, but make sure you're going
from one gigabit interface to another.

-----Original Message-----
From: Legato NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU] 
On
Behalf Of agascoyn
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 8:55 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] backup mail server very slow (linux)

If you have one large partion of 350GB then there is not much you can do
with regards to parellaisim, this will only give you an advantage if you
have multiple partitions defined ie, raid1, raid2 raid3 raid4 then with
parallalism set to 4 it would back all four up simultaneously.

However depending on the type of raid you have you may get other issues
with access speeds etc if you break it up into multiple luns.

Of course the other issues you have to contend with is that this is a
mail server so sany changes are allways going to be problamatic, it may
be a long shot but you may want to look at your network traffic, during
the backup also do you perform your virus checking, spam filtering etc
on the same server.

Feel free to email me directly if you wish as we have an extensive mail
setup here, involving 6 machines.

Andrew

David De Maeyer wrote:

> RAID is one big partition and parallelism is on 4 for the client. I
> thought increasing the parallelism on the client.
>
> David
>
> ___________________________________________________
> David De Maeyer
> Roskilde University Center, Department of Computer Science
> Box 260, Hus 42.1, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
> voice (+45) 46 74 38 29 / fax (+45) 46 74 30 72
>
>
>
>
> On 29 Apr 2004, at 14:19, agascoyn wrote:
>
>> Hi David
>>
>> How is your raid setup.
>>
>> Is it one big partition or groups of smaller partitions.
>>
>> Also what is your parellalism set to currently.
>>
>> Andrew Gascoyne
>>
>> Data Backup / Recovery Administrator
>>
>> David De Maeyer wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all!
>>>
>>> We are facing a performance issue when taking a full backup of our
>>> mail
>>> server (>7000 users, 350 GB of data, running Debian linux).
>>>
>>> The backup server has no problem with the other linux clients. It is
>>> writing at around 100 KB/s... which is far from the 2 to 8 MB/s we are
>>> used to have on the other clients.
>>>
>>> It takes forever to backup all the user directories! And we simply
>>> can't find where the bottleneck is... just that there are a lot of I/O
>>> on the RAID on which these directories are stored.
>>>
>>> Would it help to increase/decrease the parallelism for the client
>>> and/or other clients (smaller filesystems)?
>>>
>>> Does somebody on this mailing-list once faced a similar problem? Is
>>> the
>>> upgrade of the client on the mail server a must?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> David
>>>
>>> server: NetWorker 7.1.1 (running Solaris 8)
>>> client: NetWorker 6.1.1 (running Debian linux, IMAP server, 350 GB on
>>> external RAID)
>>>
>>> ___________________________________________________
>>> David De Maeyer
>>> Roskilde University Center, Department of Computer Science
>>> Box 260, Hus 42.1, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
>>> voice (+45) 46 74 38 29 / fax (+45) 46 74 30 72
>>>
>>> --
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Andrew Gascoyne
>> Unix Administrator
>> European Southern Observatory
>> Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
>> D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen
>>
>> Phone: +49 89 32006443
>> Fax  : +49 89 32006380
>> EMail: agascoyn AT eso DOT org
>>
>
> --
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--
Andrew Gascoyne
Unix Administrator
European Southern Observatory
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
D-85748 Garching bei Muenchen

Phone: +49 89 32006443
Fax  : +49 89 32006380
EMail: agascoyn AT eso DOT org

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