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Backup Exec 2010 R3, deduplication and GRT backups

Bill_Parnell
Level 3

Greetings,

I have recently installed Backup Exec 2010 R3 to obtain the latest improvements to Deduplication.

Can I ask whether the recommendation NOT to use deduplication, if you want to perform GRT backups of sharepoint and Exchange, is still the case?

Also, if I were to use Dedupe to store a Full backup (Non GRT) as well as a Full backup(GRT) will I still get the benefits of the dedupe facilities.

Just looking for clarification here.

I.E.

I have an Exchange 2007 Server with 790GB data.
I perform a FULL backup of this to my dedupe device on my media server.

If I was to perform a FULL GRT backup to the same media server and dedupe device would I still get the full benefits of the deduplication.  Also what would the implications be for restoring a GRT.

I am not performing Optimised deduplication to another media server so I do not think that I would have any problems, I am just looking for clarification and guidance.

I also assume that this would be the same for Sharepoint and AD agents also with GRT!

Many thanks for any guidance you may offer.

Best Regards,

Bill

 

5 REPLIES 5

brianj5
Not applicable
Partner Accredited

I would be interested in the answers to Bill's questions as well.  We have a similar setup with Exchange, Backup Exec 2010 R3, and deduplication.  Currently we are doing the GRT backups to a NAS volume but I'd like to also get the dedpe benefits if I can move it to my dedpe volume instead..

Thanks,

Brian

teiva-boy
Level 6

GRT should NOT affect dedupe rates nor the restore process in a single BE server environment.

GRT with optimized duplication to another BE media server (initiated via CASO) also is not affected.  Though restores need to be staged to disk to restore if I recall correctly on the 2nd copy even if already on disk in the dedupe folder (assuming it was a GRT backup)

 

Moltron1
Level 5

According to support, GRT is still not recommended when the target is the dedupe folder due to the high level of calculations and tracking involved. 

I initially tried doing this and the services hung eventually with AVVI.  Support told me this is too resource intensive however I think its just a deficiency  in the software.  Reguardless, I am told that there is a seperate GRT database kept with its own calculations being performed and then dedupe is also resource intensive with a lot of calculations on a single CPU thread.  All this together can be too much for BE to handle.

I backup VMs without GRT now, and no crashes or anything.  I will eventually try enabling this again for some more important servers that need quick file restores.  Dedupe shouldnt care about how it gets the data to dedupe it, so I dont think GRT would affect the ratio you get.

Moltron1
Level 5

Correction.  Spoke with a tier 2 tech today.  GRT backups to dedupe are fixed in R3.

Bill_Parnell
Level 3

Thanks guys.

Thats what I took from the new R3 marketing bumph!

Its good to hear that the have resolved GRT backup issues with R3.

 

Bill.