There is a setting that you can throttle your bandwidth usage to prevent
this from happening and still having them set to FULL.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Eisenhardt" <Mark.Eisenhardt AT hughessupply DOT com>
To: "King, Cheryl" <cheryl.king AT intrado DOT com>;
<veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 11:21 AM
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Is there an official document of client and server
N ICand switch settings


> Yes our HP lan backup environment has approximately 47 servers running a
> mix of 10.20, 11.00 and 11.11.
> When first moving from EDM to NetBackup these servers were set at HALF
> duplex, by changing all to FULL duplex, on servers and switches, we more
> than doubled our throughput.
> One reason I can think of for not going to FULL is that you can saturate
> the pipe, during backups, leaving little or no bandwidth left for others
> to use. So if using a multiple purpose lan it could cause performance
> issues somewhere else.
> We use dedicated subnets, that our users do not access, for backups.
>
> HTH
> Mark Eisenhardt
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: King, Cheryl [mailto:cheryl.king AT intrado DOT com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 12:00 PM
> To: 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
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> This e-mail has come from Experian International: winner of the UK's
> National Business of the Year Award 2003.
>
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