have you considered using a nsapshot and backing up the raw device
associated with the filesystem?  Should be much faster.

George

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Ennis" <jim AT pegasus.cc.ucf DOT edu>
To: <veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 1:31 PM
Subject: [Veritas-bu] extremely large number of files backup problem (time)


> Hello,
>
> We are running Netbackup 3.2 on an E450 as the master server.  We use
> DLT7000 drives on a Sun L1800 tape library for backup media and the backup
> client in question is connected via private gigabit ethernet.
>
> We are using webct for a large number of classes and the package produces
> millions of little (<2K for the most part) files in one filesystems
> (Solaris 7, UFS, Veritas Volume Manage, Sun A5200 for storage).
>
> A full backup runs close to 30 hours and the main
> bottleneck seems to be the sheer volume of files (total disk space is
> about 30GB, number of files is 6.2 million).
>
> I am looking at three options to handle this better (cut down the backup
> window and have less user impact due to I/O performance):
>
> 1) Change the backup schedule to do differential backups on a daily basis,
> culmative backup on weekly basis and the full backup only once a month
> (currently the full backup runs weekly).  This would add recovery time but
> decrease the backup windows to hopefully run between 1am and 7am.
>
> 2) Look at using Veritas Flashback or Sun's Instant Image to capture a
> snapshot of the system and then backup the associated backup image data
> which would not impact the end-users significantly and cut the 'backup'
> time to minutes.  I am not sure how file level restores work with these
> products.
>
> 3) Split the current 2-way mirror to a 3-way mirror and take one of the
> mirrors offline so that I can back it up (use the pre and post script
> abilities of postscript to control this).  This should work, but needs
> testing on my end.
>
> Any comments or recommendations about which way to go.  We are trying to
> get the Sun Instant Image software onsite for testing and I am trying to
> check with Veritas about Flashback.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
> Jim Ennis                        | jim AT pegasus.cc.ucf DOT edu
> Systems Administrator            | (407) 823-1701  |  Fax: (407) 823-5476
> University of Central Florida    | Murphy's paradox:
>                                  | Doing it the hard way is always easier.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
> http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
>
>