ns480 - backup NAS shares with netbackup

not sure you are going to get that much better performance doing NDMP over IP ...your IP link is going to be the bottleneck.

Sorry, but what thread do you mean? I do not see a link anywhere.

yes, you would need to attach aux ports on datamovers to your fiber channel fabric and zone tape drives directly to datamovers.  Netbackup server will need to be able to communicate with a network interface on the datamover. Take a look at this thread, specifically documentation mentioned.

Also, after reading some Symantec documentation, Symantec references this document : http://channeladvantage.bakbone.com/nam/documents/NDMP_Backups_With_Celerra.pdf, which on page 22 it mentions that when connected to a fabric switched environment (which I have), it is only going to be using 1Gb....what advantage would I have of going from LAN to SAN if it can only perform at 1Gb/sec???

Is there a more up to date document that details all commands that need to be run on the data mover?

well if I do move the SAN attached NDMP backup, what are the steps in getting that setup?

Would I have to attach the AUX LC ports to the SAN fabric and then zone the tape drives to those ports?

Would Celerra need any commands run against the data movers to be able to talk to NetBackup?

Essentially, what would be needed to get it going over the SAN?

keep in mind that another difference is that with 3-way NDMP over Ethernet you are also creating more LAN traffic and more work for your Netbackup media server.

while the Celerra does do the backup it has to send the backup stream over the LAN and the media server has to spend the CPU and I/O cycles to put it into tape.

with NDMP directly to a data mover attached FC drive the Celerra does all the work - the Netbackup server just sends the command to get the backup started and at the end gets the file history to add it to its database.

the downside is that these drives arent as flexible - unless you can do drive sharing the would be dedicated to Celerra backup only.

If you have the FC ports on the library and the switch available then I would recommend to go the FC route

Rainer

Oops ..this thread: https://community.emc.com/message/447077#447077

I have 4G fiber channel infrastructure,  my aux ports are connected to my 4g capable switch and i am streaming NDMP backups over the fabric to fiber attached CDL (disk emulation library). When i have 4 concurrent NDMP jobs running (current max per datamover), i get around 160 MB/s. I think my CDL is throttling it a bit.

with a decent 1GBit Ethernet you can still get better performance with 3-way NDMP than with client LAN based backup.

mmarzotto schrieb: Also, after reading some Symantec documentation, Symantec references this document : http://channeladvantage.bakbone.com/nam/documents/NDMP_Backups_With_Celerra.pdf, which on page 22 it mentions that when connected to a fabric switched environment (which I have), it is only going to be using 1Gb....what advantage would I have of going from LAN to SAN if it can only perform at 1Gb/sec??? Is there a more up to date document that details all commands that need to be run on the data mover?

wow - that a very very old document from a time when most FC switches were 1 GBit and 2GBit FC was just emerging.

the Celerra data mover AUX ports will of course do 4GBit when connected to a FC switch that is capable of it

the correct document is here http://powerlink.emc.com/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/Technical_Documentation/300-004-181.pdf

Rainer

P.S.: I am also astonished that Symantec would like to a document on the bakbone website since they are competitors

the reason I am thinking about NDMP is performance issues with a share I am backing up using NetBackup. I think the issue is that the share has millions of small files (jpegs, word docs, pdfs, txt, etc.), causing NetBackup to open, read, write all those files.

Would NDMP handle the backup process the same way that it is currently handling it? If so, wouldnt there still be performance issues with NDMP because of the many files it had to copy to tape?

NDMP - in and of itself - won't address the issues of millions of small files.  WIth NBU, you still have to send the metadata and data for each and ervery one of those files into the file history on the media server.  That's just the nature of backup.  However, there are a few backup techniques with the Celerra that might help.

You can read up on the Celerra NVB backup, an EMC-specific type of NDMP backup.  From the Configuring NDMP Backups on Celerra document:

Celerra NVB is an EMC-specific type of NDMP backup mechanism that backs up data blocks at a volume level, rather than at a file level. NVB reads a set of disk data blocks in an efficient manner compared to the method used for traditional, file-based backups.

This might help reduce the tape time you're currently using, but it might not be the perfect silver bullet.  As with all things, your mileage may vary.

Thanks!

Karl

is the Celerra VBB a enabler or is it already available with NDMP backups? Would the VBB work with Netbackup? Is it seamlessly integrated with NDMP?

In general, what is the deal with VBB?

yes its included with the Celerra OS at no extra charge and it does work with NetBackup

its basically a block-based backup that gives better performance for small files

take a look at the NDMP manual I linked in the previous and at this white paper - it explains it nicely

https://powerlink.emc.com/nsepn/webapps/btg548664833igtcuup4826/km/live1/en_US/Offering_Technical/White_Paper/H2151_5_5_NDMP_Features_version_ldv.pdf

Rainer

Nope - VBB was introduced with DART 5.5.  There's no enabler to activate it - it's a variable that can be called from within the backup session.  In NBU, you would create a policy that has 'VBB=y', the same way we'd set 'SNAPSURE=y' or any other environmental backup.  VBB needs to use a read-only copy of the filesystem for its source, such as a checkpoint.  If you're already doing backups with integrated checkpoints, you don't need to do much else to run the backup as VBB.  I can't find any information the indicates VBB is not supported with a  UNC-path backup.  You might be able to try it with your current setup  and see if it saves you any tape time.  Pay close attention to  start/stop times in the server_log output and match it to the logs on  your NBU server.

I do my backups with NBU via NDMP with a fabric-attached tape library, so I can only speak to my environment.  When I start NDMP backups with NBU, the master server calls the session and requests the NAS makes a checkpoint.  Once the checkpoint is created, the master server allocates media for the job and tells the NAS to use one of the drives on the SAN.  With VBB enabled, the NAS seems the history data to the master server a little faster than I've observed without VBB.

Restoring individual files from VBB, however, can often be a long operation.  You have to wait for the entire restore to complete, before you can assume files are completely restored.  VBB works at the block level - the metadata for the files that have been backed aren't guaranteed to be 'close' to the block data.

Thanks, Rainer - it figures I would miss the important points.