PDDO with VCB

[flippie_spies1]

I have a customer that has the following configuration:
1. Netbackup 6.5.4
2. PDOS 6.5.1
3. VMware VC 2.5
4. ESX 3.5
5. VCB 1.5

The customer is using VCB to backup the VMware environment and makes use of method 3 (FullVM and file for incremental) in the snap shot methods window, which means that the image is backed up by means of flash backup. The environment is configured with PDOS as a storage device which is the primary storage for the VCB images. The images are also transfered via SAN to the VCB server.

The entire backup process goes through with any problems, but it seems that PDOS is not de-duplicating any data. While testing the environment, the "Global data reduction saving" counter on each job stays at "0" and the data growth on the PDOS system is the same size as the VCB/VMDK file of each VM. Even backing up the same VM produces the same results.

Does de-duplication work with VCB and PDDO or does it require a special setting to enable de-duplication of these type of images?

[Frankie_Ng]

Try to modifiy install_path\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\ost_plugins\pd.conf , change COMPRESSION from 0 to 1, thanks 

[ElGringo]

Hello,

I have a customer using the same configuration.

To my mind, enabling PureDisk compression could have negative effects on performance. Compression does not affect deduplication rate...

You just have to change the SnapShot option in the VCB policy for vmdk-type from 0 to 1.


Regards,

ElGringo
 

[flippie_spies1]

Seems that PDDO does not support the de-duplication of VDMK files, as yet. Version 6.6 of PD will have this functionality.

Regards 

[ElGringo]

I'll complete flippie's answer ...
In fact, deduplication with .vmdk files does not work as well as deduplication with regular files. This is because fullVM backup is built upon FlashBackup technology ...
Yes, PD 6.6 will provide great enhancement for .vmdk files deduplication.

[furry]

Flippie, are you using optimized or full in the vmdk type settings in your policy? It would also be interesting if you could tell me how much deduplication you are actually getting on the original full size of the backup. I am about to setup exactly what you have....

Thanks

[ElGringo]

I am using Full vmdk type... Deduplication is arround 40% for most VM and 0% for some others. All VM are runing W2k3... I'm waiting for the PureDisk 6.6 for VM deduplication enhancement with PDDO...

[furry]

I am getting exactly the same - between 30 % and 50 % dedupe for full vmdk type 3 backups with non-optimized - average is about 40%. I will be installing 6.6 after Sep 14 and will update the new dedupe figures.

[ElGringo]

Hello,

Furry, have you already installed PD 6.6 ? What about your dedupe result now ?

[MILB65]

Hello all

We are in the middle of a NBU7/PD6.6 POC for our VMware backups using vStorage.  We are only getting a 3x deduplicaiton:

Total Storage Pool Volume Used: 555.56 GBTotal Storage Pool Data Reduction Factor: 3.71

Data Selection Name: PDDO (2)	Agent: PDDO (2)
Total Size on Source: 2,063.20 GB	Storage Pool Volume Used: 555.56 GB

The above is the output from our data mining report.

So here is our configuration (test environment):
MASTER: Linux RHEL 5 NBU7 with PDDO 6.6.0.2
MEDIA: (2) Proxy media servers Win2K3
One PPDO server.

Trying to backup 77 VM's with a total data set of 1.4TB.

I am trying to figure out if there is some magical setting that I have missed, or not yet thought of configuring. 

I have two backup policies one with and one without the option "Disable client-side deduplication" enabled. 
The policy type is FlashBackup-Windows:

Here are the settings for the Snapshot:
Snapshot Method:  VMware
Snapshot Method Arguments: trantype=6,snapact=0,nameuse=1,vmmono=0,Virtual_machine_backup=2,file_system_optimization=1,disable_quiesce=0
Perform Offhost Backup:  yes
Backup Copy:   0
Use Data Mover:   no
Data Mover Type:  -1
Use Alternate Client:  no
Alternate Client Name:  catl0as480.corp.cox.com
Use Virtual Machine:  1

I am not trying to bash the product, just seeking some input from other organizations that are doing the same thing and see better results.

[ElGringo]

 Hello,

For me, I use NBU 6.5.5 with PDDO (Puredisk 6.6.0.2)
We notice 85,7% dedupe average  rate ( which is equivalent to 6,7 dedupe factor if my calculation is correct)on VM Full backup.
We use to distinct Storage Pool, so we could expect that the dedupe rate could be better if we got only one (bigger) Storage Pool.

We use policy Windows Flashbackup policy type with Mapped Full-VM.

So did you configured your policy to use Mapped-FullVM ?

[ElGringo]

Hi

Which file type do your VMs contain (.doc, .zip, .jpg ...) ?