9.1 killed my servers performance tech support no help.

[Barney_Evans]

Hello All.


I upgraded my NT 4.0 SP6a backupserver from 6.3 to 9.1. I followed the instructions to the letter. My backup times increased from 6-7 hours to 14-18 hours. Thinking I had a bad machine I moved the backups to a faster server. Same result.


After removing the Veritas software from both systems I found they both were very sluggish communicating across the network. A 2-4mb file would take 2-3 minutes to transfer between servers. (All servers are on the same switch on my network) I restored one server from tape to a date before I installed the 9.1. That servers performace has been restored to normal levels.

Unfortunatly I do not have a backup for the first server. It is slow to the point of being unusable at this point.


I do not have the time to rebuild this server from scratch. Anybody have any idea what 9.1 changes to cause this perfromance degredation? Veritas support is no help. They blame my network as being "too slow to support my servers". I have a switched 100mbs full duplex network with only 50 users.


I will never buy another Veritas program again!

Message was edited by:
Barney EvansMessage was edited by:
Barney Evans

[Barney_Evans]

Anybody! Am I the only one with this problem?

[A_van_der_Boom]

Did you upgraded the remote agents and is the 9.1 agent the only one on youre servers or is the old agent also still installed ?

Just my E0.02
Regards
A van der Boom

[Barney_Evans]

I did uninstall the old agents and installed the new versions.


Its funny, I built a test server with an eval edition of 2000 server and used 10.0 and the performance of my backups is as good as 6.3. I don't know what 9.1 does but it changed something on my servers slowing down network performance. The two I had 9.1 on are just slow transfering data over the network, everything else works fine. I can copy files between drives on the machine at a normal rate. But if you try to copy or move a file between one of the effected servers it takes forever.

Thanks for taking a shot at the problem!

[A_van_der_Boom]

You coud try applying SP6a again although I don't know if 9.1 need files of a certain version on NT like MDAC

Regards
A van der Boom

[Amruta_Purandar]

Hello,

Please check the following settings as mentioned in the following technotes.

Title:
What Backup Exec settings can be modified to reduce the amount of time it takes for a backup to run?
http://support.veritas.com/docs/249090

Title:
How to correct slow backup performance, slow virus or pre-job scans, and agent initialization problems on fragmented Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows 2003 server partitions
http://support.veritas.com/docs/237444

Title:
Reasons why the data throughput rate can be slower than the theoretical maximum when backing up to tape media
http://support.veritas.com/docs/231488

If the issue persists, do revert.

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.

[Barney_Evans]

Just as I expected the canned responses from Veritas.



I don't think Veritas is reading the posts. They see the word slow and the canned response above gets posted. Really disapointing.


I will explain one more time what my issue is.


After installing 9.1 on my NT 4.0 Server and finding the performance unacceptable, I REMOVED THE SOFTWARE. After removing the software, the network performance of the server is very slow. Files are slow to transfer, the server is slow to respond to requests.

This happened to 2 servers I tested. I restored the configuration of one server from a backup made before I installed 9.1, and the problem was resolved. The second server I do not have a pre 9.1 backup for. I do not want to rebuild this server from scratch! It is obvious that 9.1 changed some files or registry settings and did not restore these when it was removed.

[Barney_Evans]

Bump

[Ken_Putnam]

Even though you say that file transfers are normal, verify that AutoNegotiate is NOT enabled on your Server NICs and switch ports. Hard set each end of each pipe to 100/Full or whatever is appropriate for your site

Also, on the slow servers, from the Device Tab\Properties for the drive, what are the settings for block size, buffer size and number of buffers?

[Brett_Montgomer]

Barney,

I read that you already changed the nic cards to 100 full Duplex, but did you change the port settings on the switch as well?
When I switch to 9.1, I saw a big decrease in performance as well. I called the Tech Support and it took some time, but we did resolve the issue. I changed the settins on my Dell Servers, but the issue did not go away until I had it changed it on my Cisco switch as well. After that, the performance came back and things have been great.

Good Luck

[Deepali_Badave]

Hello,

-- Have you executed the same backup job using Windows native backup utility (Ntbackup)?

What is the result?

-- Try performing the backup using backup to disk folder.

-- Stop the antivirus services and all the third pary applications during the backup.

Please keep us updating on this issue.


NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.

[Barney_Evans]

Brett,


My switches are dumb and auto detect speed and duplex. Every computer attached to them is showing a light for 100mps and full duplex on the card and the switch.

Remember this server no longer has the backupexec software on it. I moved the backups to a Windows 2003 box.

Message was edited by:
Barney EvansMessage was edited by:
Barney Evans

[Barney_Evans]

Boom,

You hit the nail on the head. Reinstall SP6a and whola! performance returned. 9.1 is replacing something. If I go back I will reinstall SP6a after I install backupexec. Maybe it will help the performance.

[Brett_Montgomer]

Good to know!!