Networker

Re: [Networker] Compare Netoworker to other backup products

2005-10-29 05:29:17
Subject: Re: [Networker] Compare Netoworker to other backup products
From: Oscar Olsson <spam1 AT QBRANCH DOT SE>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 11:26:05 +0200
On Sat, 29 Oct 2005, Davina Treiber wrote:

DT> Oscar Olsson wrote:
DT> > On Fri, 28 Oct 2005, Ty Young wrote:
DT> > 
DT> > TY> I would say 98% is quite good.
DT> > TY> TY> In my experience the Windows clients talk very nicely with Windows
DT> > or UNIX
DT> > TY> backup servers (NetWorker) and the failures I've seen with clients are
DT> > TY> usually due to
DT> > TY> TY> (a) client NICs left at auto-negotiate instead of being forced
DT> > 100/full
DT> > 
DT> > Say what? Using anything else than auto-negotiation is stupid. Auto
DT> > negotiation has been a non-issue since the late 90s. However, I have seen
DT> > plenty of examples where a clueless administrator has turned off
DT> > auto-negotiation on the client, but left auto negotiation on on the
DT> > switch. This ofcourse results in that the switch will regard the port as
DT> > being in 100mbit/hdx mode, which will result in plenty of late collisions
DT> > and really poor performance.
DT> > 
DT> > Please make yourself and the systems users a favour by using autoneg
DT> > everywhere.
DT> I beg to differ. I find it much more reliable to force everything to 100/FD.
DT> Auto-neg settings are the number one cause of slow and intermttently failing
DT> backups in most of the environments I have worked in, especially for Windows
DT> clients.

OK, you are the second one who tells me this. But I still claim that I 
have seen several cases of poor performance in different brand 
environments where speed and duplex has been set inconsistently. This 
includes Cisco, HP and D-link switches.

Ofcourse there isn't a problem if one really sets both ends to 100/fdx, 
but that generates some administrative work, and is likely to generate 
errors at a later stage where one party gets replaced and the setting 
isn't updated.

//Oscar

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