Encryption and Compression

When you do encryption of the stream, it is already "compressed" - encrypted streams compress as much as zipping zip archive would compress.

My experience has been quite different...

This is using Networker to encrypt and nothing else,

Oracle reserves way more space that is currently used so the below is typical

Before encryption a 200GB Oracle database would only use 120GB of space on tape

After encryption the same database used the entire 200GB of tape

Compression/encryption of windows machines yielded simular results as do the AIX servers although not that extreme

Hello,

expected behaviour.

Since you want to encrypt data, Networker encrypts the whole file (even blanks/null, because it does not matter that the database file is not full), so every byte is encrypted and cannot be compressed in an effective way, leading to a size almost equal to the original file. (AES have a 'linear transformation' in order to strew bits to have a better 'statistic distribution').

So, if you want to have both, you have to give Networker compressed files (but still not sure)...

And also, don't remember that you have hardware drive compression.

Is it possible to get a compressed backup to a hard drive, from Networker and then encrypt the backup as it is sent to tape?

I am only worried about the tape being encrypted because it may have to leave the site at some time and all communication between servers is with ssh.

I have 1 server dedicated to backup/recovery that has more than enough space to cover a few days worth of backups that could be then sent to tape and removed from the server. Only thing is that I have not set it up to do that and do not really know how to do it in Networker.

Thanks

Thanks, I am able to run the wizard...

Looks like I need a new license for that.

Once I get that the plan will be to compress onto disk and then encrypt to tape

Looks like I may need to create all new Pools, Groups and so on or nodify the ones I have and creates new ones for the tape backup.

I will let you know how it goes after I obtain a new license

Is it possible to get a compressed backup to a hard drive, from Networker and then encrypt the backup as it is sent to tape?

Of course !

You can tell Networker to process a script before a save (e.g : compressing huge data into files) with the savepnpc command, then saving data with compression.

I am only worried about the tape being encrypted because it may have to leave the site at some time and all communication between servers is with ssh.

So, what is the problem ?

You can always recover encrypted data, even on an another Networker server, since you provide the pass-phrase.

I have 1 server dedicated to backup/recovery that has more than enough space to cover a few days worth of backups that could be then sent to tape and removed from the server. Only thing is that I have not set it up to do that and do not really know how to do it in Networker.

Try to use 'file' devices or 'adv_file' devices (licensed feature), then stage data on tape after a period.

I am trying to backup 3 directories on another AIX client.

It is saved to a pool on disk

I have obtained the proper license and most of my backups work (still have some things to learn) but I have run into this error:

save: Unable to write data into multiple buffers
for save-set ID '3092349938': File too large (errno=27)

I have set all the limits on the storage node to -1 for root but still get this error (AIX 7.1 /etc/security/limits)

Is there something else that can be set, maybe in Networker, that could resolve this?

Thanks

Please explain what you've done and when you get this message.

Is root the user that runs the backups?

I am making that assumption but I think I saw something else somewhere

Can your filesystem (acting as a pool) host big files (>2 GB) ?

Last questions were about the JFS you've created in order to store data from the clients. These FS are acting as 'pool' because they are accessed by Networker in the same way that other 'storage medias'.

So, you've created a FS, then created a new device pointing to this new FS. After that, you've created (or updated) a pool in which this new drive if selected. Is that correct ?

After that you've issued an error when saving data to this pool ?

Can you have clues about the file size to be saved or things about the max size of file you can create under this FS ?

You assumptions are correct, mostly.

They are exported nfs file systems because that is the way I read the set up (has to be nfs)

I did a du -g on the directory/mount point and no single file was over 1GB

Not sure if it looks at the whole mount point as one file because it seems to be doing the backups in 1GB blocks or at least it runs 1GB at a time and start another one. Maybe it is just a retry.