TDP Exchange backups- Performance Issue

[Hema]

Hi Folks,

I have my TDP Backup for exchange which is running dead slow, it takes around 13 hours to backup around 520 GB(4-storage groups)of data.

TSM server: 5.4.2
TDP client : 5.5.1.0
Exchange server: 2003

Please can anybody help me in speeding up this TDP backup, as we are receiving severe performance issue and due to this users are severely affected as the backups are running during the production hours.

Regards,
Hema

 

[ChrisRees]

HI

We could do with a bit more info here..

is the backup running LAN-Free ?
is the backup running over a network? If so , what speed is the network?
is it a dedicated backup network or one shared with users?
is the backup going straight to tape or to a diskpool?
what sort of tape? How many sessions (tape drives) does the backup use?

what happens if you ftp a large file between the exchange server and the tsm server? how long does that take?

Thanks

 

[Jeff_Jeske]

I'm surprised your clients can tell when the backup is running. That would indicate that your exchange servers are running out of horsepower.

We are running Exchange 2007 on VMWare and have no performance issues what so ever. We did find that tweaking the exchange TDP .cfg file helped speed up the backup. In this file there is a buffer and buffersize value. I believe the default was 1 buffer with a buffer size of 1024. We changed that to 3 and 4096.

As mentioned above.... we have special configuration for exchange. First we define a new node for the TDP client "Server1-E". This node is then bound to a specific management class that sends backup data directly to tape and not a front end disk pool.

By streaming the exchange job directly to tape and fine tuning the buffers we are able to backup at 48GB per hour off of a VM.

Looking at your numbers.... they don't seem to bad if your hardware is tired. You are getting 40GB per hour which is pretty decent if network driven.

 

[chef95]

Hi Jeff_Jeske,

Are you using VSS or legacy backups? According to the documentation buffer and buffersize value are only applicable for legacy backups. We are doing VSS backups and seeing very poor performance. However, I haven't had time to do much investigation. A backup of about 130GB takes ~18 hours via VSS, including the integrity check. Our exchange servers are VMs and have a Gb connection to the VM and ESX host has 2 1Gb connections. Any idea's?

Thanks

 

[Jeff_Jeske]

We are using SNAPSHOTPROVIDERS VSS for the OS and Legacy for the TDP.

Are you seeing the same bad performance across all backups? When I say all I mean W2K3 and W2K8.

The only poor performance we are seeing is system state backups of Windows 2008. These can range from 50k files to nearly 100K files and they get backed up on a semi regular basis. Most of our 2K8 servers have higher SS occupancy than data drives.

THIS IS WHAT MY TDPEXC.CFG LOOKS LIKE:

BUFFERS 3
BUFFERSIZE 4096
LOGFILE C:\PROGRAM FILES\TIVOLI\TSM\TDPEXC.LOG
LOGPRUNE 7
MOUNTWAIT YES
TEMLOG RESTOREPATH
LASTPRUNEDATE 08/06/2010 07:37:40
LANG ENU
BACKUPMETHOD LEGACY
RETRIES 4

THIS IS WHAT MY DSM.OPT LOOKS LIKE:

LANG AMENG
COMMmethod TCPIP
TCPPort 1501
TCPServeraddress OURSERVERNAME.domain.com
*
* -------32 BIT SATA BACKUP --------
*
NODE MYNODENAME
DOMain all-local -s:
managedservices schedule webclient
txnbytelimit 25600 * Use for disk pool performance
tcpbuffsize 512
tcpwindowsize 63
tcpnodelay yes
resourceutilization 8
compression yes
compressalways no
memoryefficientbackup no
commrestartduration 480
commrestartinterval 120
SNAPSHOTPROVIDERFS VSS
MAXCMDRetries 2
CHANGINGRetries 2
SCHEDLOGRETENTION 30
ERRORLOGRETENTION 30
SCHEDMODE PROMPTED
SCHEDLOGNAME "C:\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient\dsmsched.log"
QUIET
ERRORLOGNAME "C:\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient\dsmerror.log"
PASSWORDACCESS GENERATE
INCLUDE.SYSTEMSTATE ALL
INCLUDE.SYSTEMOBJECT ALL
Include *

 

[sgabriel62]

Im in agreement with Jeff here on the config portion - I too had experienced poor performance - while at the same time - the higher version of TDP for Exchange - the more the dependency on Active Directory and the TDPs new abilities to backup individual mailboxes. I want to say this started with the version you have installed now upto and including the current release to include Exchange 2007. If this is the case - as you will notice your system will display messages related to backing up the mailbox - it may appear hung but in fact its not - its attempting to do contact and read each persons mailbox and look for inserts. Depending on how large and how many exchange server you have this can take as long as 2hrs before your backups will even start. Depending on your Exchange administrator - there is an ignore mailbox option that has to be placed in the config file. This eliminates the AD contact but it also relies on the Exchange Admin to recover the information store then recover mailboxes. Lastly keep Exchange is also moving to a new Replication Module. This Replication module will keep Exchange up and running - If Exchange is expected to run in this format - you'll need to install all Replication modules
Hiope this helps