Slow LAN Backups with Spanning Tree on Cisco 7k
Hi,
We have recently moved from our own datacentre which used a three layer network using Cisco 5k switches to a CoLo with a single layer network using Cisco 7k switches, we are running NBU8 using two media servers and one master server each have a10Gb FoE connection and the backups are going to a B6200 StoreOnce which has a dual bonded 10Gb data interface.
Since the move we have seen a reduction in backup speeds from certain clients of upto 500% the network team have spent a while lookimg into this along with Cisco, we did try changing to Jumbo Frames as we thought that was the issue but we ran into issues with getting the Jumb Frames from end to end.
The newtwork engineer has found that if we switch off spanning tree on the ports of the servers that are having issues they then increase the backup speed to what they were prior to the move.
Are there any douments available that detail the do's and dont's with regards to using spanning tree with Netbackup or has anyone else had issues like this and found a way around this and still used spanning tree.
I am in no was a network person so dont know too much about the product or the set up :-)
Kev
Spanning tree is probably running on the majority of all network in the world.
Don't think spanning tree is the root cause, more likely someone incorrectly configured the network. According to the Cisco article below there are plenty of possibilities to do that :
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/lan-switching/spanning-tree-protocol/10556-16.html
