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FT Media Server configuration

pprgurav
Level 3

Hi,

I have a query on FT Media Server sizing

we have NetBackup 7.7.3  and now want to take LAN free backup, for this need to install new FT Media server in the environment.

Below sizing is OK for FT Media Server or need to consider more apart from this.

Physical server

2 HDD with Raid 1

32 GB RAM

8 Core Processor

QLogic dual-port HBA Card

1 GBPS NIC Port

 

Regards,

Prashant

 

 

 

12 REPLIES 12

PrathapReddy
Level 4
Certified

The Specified H/W configuration is OK for FT media server, but we shoud consider the number of SAN clients and amount of data being backed up.  If no. of SAN clients and amount of data being backed up is huge then need to consider higher than the specified ones. It also matters the fiber transport speed, 4gbps or 8 or 16 gbps...If it is 4 gbps SAN then load on FT media server may be more due to it takes more time complete the backups and new jobs may be queue or active and hence more IO.

Prathap...

Dear Pratap,

Thanks for your reply,

You mean to say, if the number of LAN Free backup clients and data size is more then I have to increase the RAM and Processor, or I have to add more disk space.

Please, Advice.

Thanks and Regards,

Prashant 

 

 

 

Hi Prashant,

I believe the disk for SAN client backups is SAN attached Storage, I would suggest SSD disk for it. I am talking about the FT media server Hardware Configuration to handle more number of SAN clients or LAN free clients.The backup data read and write happens at media server level hence to handle More IO ops ( more LAN Free clients with huge data size) I would suggest more memory, processor & other configurations..

Prathap

andrew_mcc1
Level 6
   VIP   
Apologies if I missed it but what is the SAN Media Server OS? Also you should verify this and the actual SAN Media Server HBA with the NBU HCL. Best regards. Andrew

Hi Pratap,

Thanks for your reply, here I am using 8 Core Silver processor and 300 GB 10K SAS HDD* 2 QTY and 32 GB RAM.

what I will do I will increase ram from 32 to 64, do you have any FT Media server sizing guide, I search on the veritas portal but I didn't get any.

Thanks!!

Regards,

Prashant 

 

 

 

HI Andrew,

I have checked HCL guide, my concern is what is hardware sizing for FT Media Server.

 

Regards,

Prashant 

Hi Prashant,

Refer the below link and open HCL , html format document attached and go through the FT media server HBAs page.

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH76495

your specified hardware configure looks good for the FT media server. But upgrading the hardware in future is a bit challenging job if more number of clients added near future, hence I would recommed you to use the 64GB RAM and SAS HDD with RAID 1 is OK for the FT media server. But for backups I would suggest SSD storage provisioned from the storage for storage Units and for Dedup data base if any dedup backups.

So I would suggest go with 64GB RAM, SAS HDD with RAID 1 for server and SSD with RAID 5 for storage Unit & Dedup Data base ( MSDP pool & MSDDB).

Prathap

Hi Pratap,

Thanks for your valuable reply.

I want to take 20 SAN clients backup and total backup size is 12 TB, here I want to send data directly to Tape and I don't want to send data to disk storage pool, so I m thinking below FT media server configuration, please advice if any.

Physical server with HBA Card

300 GB SAS HDD * 2 QTY with RAID 1

32 GB RAM

8 Core Intel Silver processor

Thanks!!

Regards,

Prashant Gurav
 

 

 

Hi Prashant,

The below configuration is absolutely fine for FT media server for backing up 12 TB in total for 20 SAN clients. I would suggest to use LTO7 or higher version of tape drives as you are going with fiber tranpsport backups.

Physical server with HBA Card

300 GB SAS HDD * 2 QTY with RAID 1

32 GB RAM

8 Core Intel Silver processor

Regards,

Prathap

Dear Pratap,

Thanks for your reply.

Regards,

Prashant 

 

 

Once you are done with it, do not forget to mark the solution.

andrew_mcc1
Level 6
   VIP   

OK I'm late to this but I'd like to add a couple of things which may be useful for others that come across this thread.

Firstly the original question was sizing of a Fibre Transport Media Server (FTMS). However FTMS only affects the transport used to move data between a Client and a Media Server, I don't believe FTMS makes any significant difference to media server sizing apart from needing to perform I/O over Fibre Channel vs. a network. To the first approximation, for a given backup load, total I/O will be the same for both transport methods. If the backup target is MSDP, you should use the performance recommendations in the Deduplication Guide, otherwise check the 7.5/7.6 Backup Planning and Performance Tuning Guide (the latest version). Regarding FTMS I/O, you do need to configure sufficient PCIe channels, HBAs, Fibre Channel zones etc. You also need separate HBAs for FTMS vs. Disk or Tape connectivity.

Secondly I would be quite cautious about adopting FTMS now as support has hardly changed since NetBackup 7.0. It requires a specific Veritas supplied Fibre Channel driver on the Media Server for the FTMS Fibre Channel ports and this has several limitations:

  • No Windows or Unix support
  • Limited set of HBAs (none of which support 16 gbps)
  • No Client-side deduplication with MSDP

Finally note FTMS is not the same as VMware Virtual Machine backup over Fibre Channel, that uses VMware's own transport methods and isn't subject to FTMS limitations.

Thanks, Andrew