High Core Switch CPU usage when running MSSQL backup

[Doctorski]

Hi,

     My Network guys are complaining of high CPU utilisation on a Cisco 6509 core switch when we kick off our MS SQL backups from one of our SQL clusters.

Client is Windows 2008 R2 running 7.6.0.2 using the MS SQL agent going to a 5220 running 2.6.0.2.

We are using a dedicated backup network and the IP's he is giving me from the log match the above pair.

The process causing the CPU spike is a "Virtual Exec" process.

Has anybody seen anything like this ?

Google hits seem to point to issues on the switch, but as usual NBU is getting the blame.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks - Darren

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Hi Darren,

We don't really control what goes on at the network layer, we rely on the OS to do the talking.

What type of utilization are you seeing on the NIC? Is there multiple NIC configured?

[Yasuhisa_Ishika · Accepted solution]

I agree with Riaan. Please check if this issue happens when you make any huge traffic(file copy, ftp or so) between these two hosts. I believe at least NetBackup is innocent fot this issue as NetBackup rely on OS in network communication, and have nothing exhaust network infrastructure other than amount of backup traffic.