DDBoost and Solaris

Question

Does anyone know if a Solaris (SPARC) storage node should be able to successfully use DDBoost or if there are any known issues?  (It is in the SCG but our UNIX team has reported they saw issues with it).

coganb · Accepted Answer

Hi David,

Yes, it should work but there may be performance issues. If you have access to the Data Domain support portal, you can find details in Document 73199: 'Solaris SPARC Backup Server Performance with DD Boost'. This details that 'Backups with Solaris Sparc T1000 and T2000 media servers with distributed segment processing are very slow' with the following solution:

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SOLUTION

The following are the recommendations for SPARC backup servers used for DD Boost deployments:

UltraSPARC T2, UltraSPARC T2+ and UltraSPARC T3 based backup servers running Solaris 10 (e.g., T52xx) are the highly recommended for backup servers.
Legacy UltraSPARC IIIi, IV, IV+, based backup servers provide acceptable performance, but are not highly recommended.
UltraSPARC T1 based backup servers are discouraged in all but the smallest configurations.
We do not have firm recommendation on Sparc64 VII based backup servers at this time due to the lack of information. We expect them to perform on par or better with UltraSPARC IIIi based systems.

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This is only a performance issue though, all operations should work.

-Bobby

DavidHampson-rY · Answer

Bobby

We are using NW7.6.2 currently (and thus DDBoost 2.3.1.12), would the same document apply to this config. or are there enhancements in the newer version that may alter the situation?

Regards

David

coganb · Answer

David,

I spoke to one of my DD colleagues about this and he says that their testing shows no real improvement in the different DDBoost versions, so you should not expect any performance improvement in a later version. It's the version of the SPARC processor that will make the difference, not the DDBoost version.

-Bobby

DavidHampson-rY · Answer

Thanks Bobby, that looks like what I am looking for!

DavidHampson-rY · Answer

Thanks once again!

DavidHampson-rY · Answer

We have an M3000 with one SPARC64 VII+ dual-core or quad-core SPARC V9 Architecture; is EMC expecting to publish any specific recommendations in the near future?

coganb · Answer

I've asked and there are no plans to publish any specific recommendations in relation to this at this time. -Bobby

nicbone · Answer

Just reading between the lines here from knowing the Oracle/Sun servers involved quite well ,but it would appear that the chip architecture is the point here.

The T series (coolthreads) architecture is highly multithreaded with increasingly more threads (CPU's to the OS) as you move up the T range T1 -> T4. I'm guessing without knowing too much about the DD boost itself that its reliant on a large thread count to perform well

The SPARC VII range and more suited to single threaded performance.

I believe the latest T4 have great single and multithreaded performance now as Oracle have modified the chipset over its life to reduce the workload "specificness" of the chip. The publicity indicates that but havent had one in for any testing.

DavidHampson-rY · Answer

Thanks Nick, that would fit in with the technote that states that dedupe is only efficient with more than 8 concurrent jobs.

NetWorker

DDBoost and Solaris

SOLUTION

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