Backup Exec and CPS Setup / Problem

[Brian_Perry]

My setup.

Dell 2850
Win 2003 sp1 Standard
Xeon 3.6
2 GB
2 � 73GB SCSI Raid 1 (system partition)
Dell 220s
4 � 300GB SCSI Raid 0 (Backup to disk storage)
Dell 114t
2 � LTO3 Drives

I�m currently using Backup Exec 10d to backup 20 Local servers to Disk, and am using CPS to backup 14 Remote servers to Disk. I�ve setup my storage Drive with folders for each server so that I can backup more than one local server at a time.

Layout of my Storage Drive 1.2TB
Folder for each 20 Servers, Folder for CPS Data, with a folder for each CPS server under that. All of this happens at Night from 9PM until 7:30am. Then during the day I back all of this up to Tape

My problem is now that I�m noticing is that ever since I install CPS on this server that my local backups are taking longer then they used too. I�m being doing some reading around and I�ve noticed that this is due to fragmentation. I checked my drive and it came up at over 75% fraged. I downloaded and installed all of the updates and whipped the drive clean and then restore from tape, but after a week running it jumped back up to 75% fraged. I�m starting to think this is because I�m running more than one backup job on the drive at a time.

Also, I�ve noticed that when backing up the CPS data to tape that it is extreamly slow. Running at 200 MB/min where just backing up the bkf files get around 2700 MB/min. Spec wise though I should be able to get 320 GB/hr or 5300 MB/min

[Amruta_Bhide]

Hello Brian,

Throughput is a environmental Issue mostly. The Througput of your job depends wholely on the environment. This includes, the device, the SCSI card, the NIC card, the transfer rate of normal file between the remote Server and the local server so on and so forth.

If you still think your throughput is less, please get back to us with more information about your environment.

thanks
Regards

[David_Parkin]

Brian

It is the CPS system that is slowing your backups down not any environmental issues re scsi cards etc.

We have the same issue with backups running slowly when CPS is running. If we stop the CPS system backup speeds return to normal. We found by testing that the bottleneck is the read performance of the disk when CPS is running and nothing to do with tape throughput. Our tests indicated that read speed dropped by nearly half when CPS is running.

I think veritas need to look into this and give advise on how best to integrate the 2 products.

[Deepali_Badave]

Hello,

We suggest you to install the following hotfix:

Backup Exec 10d Continuous Protection Server (CPS) Service Pack 1 Hotfix 4
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/283827.htm

Regards,

[Brian_Perry]

Update:
Sorry it's been a while, but i couldn't log back in until now. This is what i get for using IE 7 beta.

Throughput - this has nothing to do with the environment. If i completely delete all of my backups on disk and start fresh, they preform as expected. So i know i don't have any issues with my environment. This only happens after a week or so of daily backups due to extreamly fragmented drive. So..

I added a new partition to just store all of my CPS data. 2 - 146GB drives in RAID 0. I moved every thing over to this drive and started up the backup process. After a week i have no issues with my CPS data backing up to Disk and then to Tape.

Then. I formatted my 1.2TB drive and then backed up all of my local servers to it. I had no issues. Was able to backup 100GB in less then 2hrs. So i then tried to backup the data to Tape. No issues and was averaging about 4.3GB/min. So i let every thing go for a week to see what will happen. I look at it this morning. and my CPS partition is fine. i have only 7% fragmentation on it and everything is still running very quick. now on my other partition where i keep my B2D's i'm at 50% fragmentation, and things are starting to slow down. maybe I�m doing something wrong with how i backup this data.

The problem lies with Backup exec and not CPS.

Here's what versions I�m running at.
CPS version - 10.1.327.401
Exec version - 10.1 Rev. 5629
Service Pack 1
Hot Fix 27
Hot Fix 33
Hot Fix 29
Hot Fix 26


Hot Fix 27 was supposed to fix this fragmentation issues but apparently it did not.

[Brian_Perry]

To answer Davids question.

CPS is not running when i backup to tape. i have it setup to have CPS and B2D at night, and backup to tape during the day. I did test out backing up to tape while haveing CPS running and i didn't find that much of a difference in backup times

[Gauri_Ketkar]

Hi,

Which type of Data is getting backedup When executing a tape backup ?
-database or normal file server data ?

hope following technotes help :

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://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/237444.htm

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

Remote backups performed using agents (Agent for SQL, Agent for Exchange, Remote Agent, etc.) are unresponsive or extremely slow on particular machines.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/190828


Update us on the same and revert for any further Query



Thank you
Gauri

[David_Parkin]

Brian

Sorry for delay and thanks for reply.

We are having similar problems backup up our CPS system to tape and receive slow throughput. Set up of backup job is to backup the CPS info as per Symantec document http://support.veritas.com/docs/283543 . When we do this the backup speed is around 100mb/min.

If we then stop all CPS services and backup the hard drives where the CPS data is stored we get speeds of 1500mb/min and over.

It looks as if the CPS system cripples the tape backups

[shweta_rege]

Hello Brian,


--- Could you please Update us on the issue?




Thank You,


Shweta