Duplication to tape via BYO media server opinion.

[chris86]

Hi

I have a 5250 appliance that backs up enterprise vault data with the help of a BYO media server that has 4 connected tape drives that i have dedicated just for the EV backup workload. I have the SLP duplication operation to write this EV data to tape via the BYO media server tape drives and i find that the performance is not great e.g. doesnt use all drives for duplication job.

I have another set of 4 tape drives connected to the 5250 direct using all the FC ports on the unit dedicated for other workloads so i am unable to connect the 4 drives that are connected to media server.

Have I architected this wrong? Any thoughts, opinions or even solutions would be greatly appriciated.

[kiyan]

for the first part of your question, when you are saying the performance is not great, was is better before or you are assuming it should be better, I suggest you go through netbackup performance guide (SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS)  , there is a section for NDMP, but If you have active support from Veritas, I suggest you involve them, as it makes your life much easier when it comes to fine-tuning.

for the second part of  your question,I did not get it , if you are able to connect it or not, if you are not able to do that,is that because there is no free FC port?if yes, is it possible to keep two ports for workload and two for library?

[chris86]

here is a diagram with physical of our backup infrastructure hopefully clears up my explaination.

[davidmoline]

Hi @chris86 

The challenge you have is duplication jobs (controlled by SLP) are single task (so no possibility of multiplexing the duplication job). Secondly, depending on the amount of data you have to duplicate, the EV duplication job may only generate one SLP job. 

This is where you may be able to tweak the SLP parameters in particular the maximum size per duplication job so that the workload you generate for EV will split between the 4 drives (you will need more than 4 backups to duplicate for this to work). The downside (minor) is that these parameters are global for the domain, so will affect the jobs from the appliance as well. 

A bit of tweaking may be required.

David