Whether this helps or not, on testing the backups of Oracle databases to TSM
we found it far quicker to set a max filesize (1GB is what we use) on the
disk pool and let the big DB files got straight to tape. Your bottleneck is
then with the setup of your tape drives. We don't backup a given DB of your
sort of size but we do back up numerous large databases of approaching 100GB
in size. Our config is a P660 6M1 with 2 CPU's and 1GB memory. with four
directly attached LTO HVD drives (each on their own bus) and four SAN
attached LTO drives (with Four FC adapters in the server).

With regards to whether a P690 is a better way to go... I would say probably
not. The only advantage of the P690 over a P660 in I/O throughput is if you
need shed loads of I/O adapters to support your tape drives and disks.

Cheers

Andy Wilcox
Midrange Services
Aquila Networks Services Ltd

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dearman, Richard [SMTP:rdearm1 AT UIC DOT EDU]
> Sent: 21 February 2003 14:34
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      Anyone doing 1TB+ Backup Nightly
>
> I do 1TB+ backups nightly which run for about 8 hours.  A large part of
> our
> backup is a 500GB Oracle database backup to TSM.  The database backups up
> over a private 1Gb connection to a AIX P660-6h1 server with 2GB of RAM and
> 4
> processors.   The data then goes to nine 2disk stripe sets, over a 1Gb SAN
> connection (I went with stripe sets because RAID5 was just to slow).  I'm
> getting high iowat times on my AIX TSM server.  I'm having a hard time
> pinpointing exactly where the bottleneck is at.  Currently it takes 51/2
> hours to backup 500GB but I know it can be better.
>
> My question is are any of you that are moving this amount of data faster
> than me using a more powerful server like a IBM 690.
>
> THanks
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