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CraigV's avatar
CraigV
Moderator
15 years ago

Details on NetBackup 7.0

Hi Guys,

We run VERY large DBs in our SAP environment (R/3 = 4.2TB and growing).
I would like to look at NetBackup 7.0, as this will allow for deduplication, is a proper enterprise solution, and we are able to backup VMs incrementally.
What I would like to know is the following:

1. How would you guys do the backups of multiple 3TB DBs? (Dedupe to disk, and from there to tape?)
2. Anybody had a good amount of installation experience? I am quite experienced with BEWS, but not NetBackup, and would like to know if I would be able to install this in a test environment first before implementing professionally, hopefully with Symantec's help.
3. Any strategies that worked for any of you?

Thanks! I will mark as a solution the 1 that helps the most =)
7.1.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
  • Ron_Cohn's avatar
    Ron_Cohn
    15 years ago

    Craig,

    1.  Installation of NetBackup is easy.  However, you will spend a year on adjusting the configuration.

    2. Can't answer that - yet.

    3. We first backup to a VTL, then to tape.  I have one set of robotics defined for FULLs and another for DIFFs.  This way, there is no tape conflict when moving the data from the VTL to tape.

    4. NBU is infinitly configurable.  In 18 months, we went from 1TB FULLs to 15TB.  The product was able to adjust so we still met our backup windows.

    5. DB DIFFs work fine.  Once a FULL is done, unless the change rate is high, DIFFs run fast.  Also, using the "STREAMS" definitely speeds us the backup process.

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  • Anton_Panyushki's avatar
    Anton_Panyushki
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    1. About multiterabyte Oracle DBs.. We install SAN media servers on the database servers and backup DBs straight to tape drives. LTO4 drives are quite good for that. This databases they are.. too big to play with deduplication. f strategies.
    2. Is 4+ years of working expirience good enouth for you?
    3. Plenty of solutions and stategies. Please be more precise when asking.

  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    15 years ago
    Well...

    We use ARCserve 12 SP2 in our environment, backing up to multiple libraries, all SAN-attached. Our servers that run SAP are Itaniums.
    We run our R3 backups to an IBM TS3500 tape library, which has 4 LTO4 drives. DBs are all SQL 2005.
    Speed throughput at the moment, when we ramp up the settings in ARCserve itself is around 5.5GB/m on the R3 DB. When you're backing up 4.3TB of data, it takes a while.
    This is what I am looking for, and wanting to find out:

    1. What is the installation process of NetBackup 7 like? Is it complex to set up, configure and run?
    2. How valid is deduplication for this size of DB (QAS = 3.8TB; Dev = 1.5TB;BW = 3.8TB...and these are just for 1 of our clients!)? Will it offer any sort of benefits?
    3. Backing up to disk first, and then streaming off to tape; or backing up to tape only? Disk obviously offers faster backups and restores (backing up to an EVA 6000 from a DMX4)...
    4. The experience I am asking about is problems experienced, easy of installation, what to look out for etc!
    5. Incremental backups of DBs, as mentioned in numerous Microsoft articles? Is it worth doing this?

    Laters!
  • Ron_Cohn's avatar
    Ron_Cohn
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    Craig,

    When running the NBU Datapack, on a MS SQL backup initiated via *.bch file, I can specify the number of concurrent streams when backing up a database.  Does Oracle have the same capability?
  • Ron_Cohn's avatar
    Ron_Cohn
    Level 6
    15 years ago

    Craig,

    1.  Installation of NetBackup is easy.  However, you will spend a year on adjusting the configuration.

    2. Can't answer that - yet.

    3. We first backup to a VTL, then to tape.  I have one set of robotics defined for FULLs and another for DIFFs.  This way, there is no tape conflict when moving the data from the VTL to tape.

    4. NBU is infinitly configurable.  In 18 months, we went from 1TB FULLs to 15TB.  The product was able to adjust so we still met our backup windows.

    5. DB DIFFs work fine.  Once a FULL is done, unless the change rate is high, DIFFs run fast.  Also, using the "STREAMS" definitely speeds us the backup process.