Backup Exec - 3600 Interfaces

[pedropony55]

Hi,

I have just installed the above appliance. I am experincing slow backup speeds (500MB/min)

I have realised the traffic is going through interface connected to LAN. (connected via 100Mb switch)

I have 2 interfaces connected direct to my GB iSCSI network (SAN/ESX etc) but even though I state which interface to use during the backup, no traffic is going via those interfaces.

This should work? Do I need to configure routing.

Thanks

[ZeRoC00L]

From the attached PDF:

LAN-based backups

—The Backup Exec 3600 Appliance does not include Fibre SAN or iSCSI SAN capability. Backups of SAN connected servers will travel over the LAN transport path. Only one Ethernet port is available for backup data transport, and as such NIC teaming is currently unsupported.

[pedropony55]

Ah, thanks. So if I get everything on GB, what sort of speeds can I expect?

[pedropony55]

Any thoughts anyone?

[CraigV]

...it really depends on a lot of things:

* Speed of the NICs on the server & appliance set to the fastest speed they can manage (1GB FULL) along with the corresponding switch ports set to the same speed;

* Time of the backup when it runs - it shouldn't clash with any maintenance tasks such as AV scans or Exchange maintenance tasks for example;

* Type of data being backed up;

* How many jobs you're running at the same time to the appliance. More jobs would get better results as you're not backing up servers sequentially for example.

* Types of switches, server hardware etc.

Does this happen for all servers, or just some of them?

[pedropony55]

Thanks for that reply.

Its all my serevrs, There must be a problem in my setup somewhere.

I really just wanted to check what sort of MB/min I should be happy with. for example If setup is perfect, roughly what should I be looking for in regards to a Windows file server?

[ZeRoC00L]

I don't have any knowledge of the Backup appliance, but can you copy some data from it to the windows file server ? (or the other way) This can give you some idea how fast you can backup data.

[BanksyMJ]

Hi Pedropony

Unfortunately copying data to and from the BackupExec Appliance is not possible. It has been locked down with Symantec's Critical System Protection (CPS). CPS ensures the appliance is secure however it also means you can't access the OS to test copying data to or from the disks.

Regards the MB/min you should be expecting, if you are getting 500MB/min over a 100Mbps network then you are doing well. Taking backup out of the equation the max theoretical data transfer you could get over a 100Mbps network is 750MB/min. In the real world you have to take network overhead into consideration along with which is going to bring the transfer rate down. Also bear in mind there will be other bottle necks in your systems then 500MB/min is good.

Upgrading to a 1Gbps network will help as would configuring a separate backup network. As most servers have multiple NICs in these days you can always configure one of the NICs on a different subnet to your corporate LAN. Add the Appliance to this subnet then configure your backups to run over this network. This way you are avoiding contention with traffic that is moving over your corporate LAN.

[pedropony55]

Thanks banksy.

I will def look at running on its own network.

 I understand there are many variables, but what speed would you be happy with over a GB network.

[cperrington]

Not knowing what your environment is like I can't give you specifics but we have GB switches and NICs and see anywhere from 4-500 MB/min to 3,000 MB/min on the various jobs we have running. It seems to vary quiet a bit between servers but each individual server seems to have its own range that is fairly consistant. 

[pedropony55]

So, after a little more testing on this, I have reaised that when I backup via agent I get far greater speeds. approx 1200 MB/min rather than the 500MB when I backup the full VM's.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[Kelvin_uk]

What kind of disks are your servers running on? What RPM and level of RAID?

[cruisen]

Hi,

when you use the agent probably you re using its deduplication option at the source client, it will only sends the blocks that has been modified over the LAN, therefore your speed should be faster than when you backup the whole full vm if there is not so much changing blocks.

best regards

cruisen