Veritas-bu

Re: [Veritas-bu] Nic Utilization

2010-04-08 18:57:37
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Nic Utilization
From: Jeff Cleverley <jeff.cleverley AT avagotech DOT com>
To: Heathe Kyle Yeakley <hkyeakley AT gmail DOT com>
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2010 16:57:29 -0600
Heathe,

I'm guessing many people use some level of port aggregation on their servers.  The methods to do this vary based on the OS of your servers and the model of switches you have.  Linux often goes under the name "Channel Bonding" while HPUX calls it "Port Aggregation". 

Basically the switch and the server group connections together into one logical link.  You will still have one host name and won't need to fool with anything else.

You'll need to do some research on how to do it with your OS and make sure your switches are set to the proper setting.  We trashed our network pretty badly one time when things were not set correctly (older switches looping) so make sure you do it right :-)

Jeff

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:33 PM, Heathe Kyle Yeakley <hkyeakley AT gmail DOT com> wrote:
I had a question about how everyone else utilizes the NICs inside your
master and media servers.

I have 1 master and 2 media. Like most systems these days, I have 3-4
NICs in each one. The administrator that setup our existing environment
plumbed 1 NIC per machine, and the other NICs sit there, completely
unused. At night, when our backup are running, it isn't unheard of for
the NICs on all three machine to reach a high utilization level.

This got me to thinking. I've read that you can set an option in the
bp.conf file and have various clients backup to different interfaces on
the same physical master and/or media server, but I've never actually
deployed that feature. I've also heard of a technology called Link
Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) that allows you to tie multiple NICs
together to increase the total bandwidth into your server.

Does anyone else employ these technologies?
Does everyone else just plumb one NIC and let the backups trickle in as
fast as the LAN allows?
Is there other aggregation technology out there that folks are using to
utilize and squeeze more bandwidth out of those unused NICs?

Thanks.

- Heathe Kyle Yeakley

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--
Jeff Cleverley
Unix Systems Administrator
4380 Ziegler Road
Fort Collins, Colorado 80525
970-288-4611

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