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swati99's avatar
swati99
Level 3
10 years ago
Solved

Netbackup SAP DB backup requirement

All,

We're setting up new environment to backup SAP servers , data size is around 25 TB. Single server as Netbackup master/media .We're planning to have SAS LTO6 Tape library with 4 drives (Infact 2 libraries with 2 drives each , will be connected to single master) . As Traditional speed for SAS tapedrive is 80mbps/sec, we're expecting wth 4 drives, we can backup the data in 30 hrs approximately. But being database backups and lan network, how its going to effect the backups is what we want to know..can you please share your inputs..never worked with sap db before..

 

Thanks.....

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  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    10 years ago

    SAP is a complex topic.

    First - ensure SAP DBA's install kernel libraries compatible to the brtool version required.

    What are the RPO requirements - instead of backup of  the full range of SAP databases every, can you spread them out during the week ?

    Personal I would recommend the Netbackup Fibre Transport option for backup of large databases. But there are some strict requirement for the OS and the fibre channel adapters on build yore own device. If you go that way consider a Veritas Appliance for easy of mind.

    4 tape drives would be aggregated bandwidth of no less than 320MB/sec, but as tape drives will compress data you should multiply this value by 1.5 to 2. 600MB/sec is more than you can squeeze out of one 10G Ethernet connection. Consider 1 master with two tape drives and one media server also with two drives.

    You need to have relation with the SAP DBA's, espcially Brttools using RMAN are complex because of misc settings. Our SAP DBA has a precheck list of 50 steps before starting a restore. If one of the 50 steps are overlooked and misconfigured, the restore wont't work.

    Brbackup using backint (old classic begin backup/end backup) is much simpler.

  • sdo's avatar
    sdo
    10 years ago

    Sounds like your bottleneck is the single 1Gb NIC... which will never achieve more than 112MB/s.  Do you not have the option of bonding at client, and bonding at backup server?  If yes, then you may be able to get greater than 1Gb/s if you choose the appropriate balancing algorithm on the LAN switch (i.e. whichever of these six algorithms results in the best distribution of TCP point-to-point conversations, i.e. one of these:  src-mac, src-ip, src-dst-mac, src-dst-ip, dst-mac, dst-ip). 

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  • Michal_Mikulik1's avatar
    Michal_Mikulik1
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Hello,

     

    data volume and LAN backup are important factors, not if it is a SAP DB or not. Better design would be to connect library directly to the SAP DB server - is it possible or not? Then you will not stress LAN and you will likely achieve obviously bette throughputs.

    Michal

  • swati99's avatar
    swati99
    Level 3
    10 years ago

    Thanks michael for reply.

    We have 7 sap servers to backup and total data size expected is 24 TB . Not single sap server to connect it directly to tape library to work as san media server .

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    SAP is a complex topic.

    First - ensure SAP DBA's install kernel libraries compatible to the brtool version required.

    What are the RPO requirements - instead of backup of  the full range of SAP databases every, can you spread them out during the week ?

    Personal I would recommend the Netbackup Fibre Transport option for backup of large databases. But there are some strict requirement for the OS and the fibre channel adapters on build yore own device. If you go that way consider a Veritas Appliance for easy of mind.

    4 tape drives would be aggregated bandwidth of no less than 320MB/sec, but as tape drives will compress data you should multiply this value by 1.5 to 2. 600MB/sec is more than you can squeeze out of one 10G Ethernet connection. Consider 1 master with two tape drives and one media server also with two drives.

    You need to have relation with the SAP DBA's, espcially Brttools using RMAN are complex because of misc settings. Our SAP DBA has a precheck list of 50 steps before starting a restore. If one of the 50 steps are overlooked and misconfigured, the restore wont't work.

    Brbackup using backint (old classic begin backup/end backup) is much simpler.

  • swati99's avatar
    swati99
    Level 3
    10 years ago

    Nicolai,Thank you

    We have FC network available at site, But we cannot go with Appliance as Tape out solution is mandatory and also cost constraints.As 2 SAS tape libraries are already purchased , we would like to know if those 4 tape drives can cover such large databases on 1GB LAN pipe....practical ratios seem quite compromising as 24Tb can take max of 30 hrs with 80mb/sec.... if not we may think of FC tape library . Requirement is to do weekly full backup on fridays and sap team used brtools with old backup solution .hope its not RMAN :(

     

  • sdo's avatar
    sdo
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Sounds like your bottleneck is the single 1Gb NIC... which will never achieve more than 112MB/s.  Do you not have the option of bonding at client, and bonding at backup server?  If yes, then you may be able to get greater than 1Gb/s if you choose the appropriate balancing algorithm on the LAN switch (i.e. whichever of these six algorithms results in the best distribution of TCP point-to-point conversations, i.e. one of these:  src-mac, src-ip, src-dst-mac, src-dst-ip, dst-mac, dst-ip). 

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Few comments:

    Making the SAP server SAN client also have a impact on license cost - make sure you do the math on all open options.

    I am absolout with SDO - 1G network bandwith is what ONE tape drive can consume.

     

  • swati99's avatar
    swati99
    Level 3
    10 years ago

    Yes , its only 1 gbps nic on backup master server , parallely if we run 7 client backups that may effect the throughput..At this moment only option seems to be is to have FC tape library instead of sas one and make use of FC network to run backups.Can you suggest what're all stpes we need to follow for bakcup traffic to follow FC network .I got below :

    1)Enterprise SAN client license

    2)drives,master server and 7 clients should be zoned on san switch 

    3)do we need SSO license to share tape drives between san clients ?

    4)as we have only one server which acts as both master and media , do we foresee any problems

    Thanks

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Using Fibre Transport you can use SAS drives as it is the media server that will write data to drives, but data will travel over SAN. Beaware of Fibre Transport SAN HBA requirements

    Using SAN media server

    1: Yes

    2: yes

    3: Optional - but yes. That would improve soloution

    4: You are the expert here :-)

    Carefull consider if the cost of 10G Ethernet is lower !!

  • swati99's avatar
    swati99
    Level 3
    10 years ago

    There is no seperate mediaserver for us Nicolai.How can we connect SAS tapedrives to SAN network without FC HBA for tape library ;

  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Two different options - in short:

    FT media server :  FT media (solaris and Linux only) server emulate a tape drives client send data to - media server writes data to tape drives (FC or SAS does not matter)

    SAN media server: Client send data direct to a tape drives without passing a media server  - both robot and tape drives must be fibre channel enabled.

    A SAS enabled tape is no good for SAN media server - so yore point is correct if looking at SAN media server