Netbackup 7.0 hardware/server specification

[Denz1217]

Hi Guys,

Any advice on how to properly size or come up with an INTEL-based hardware/server spec for Netbackup?

Right now, we have the both netbackup master and media server running on a solaris (SUNW,Sun-Fire-T2000) which has 1 physical processor and has 32 virtual processors (0-31)  UltraSPARC-T1 (cpuid 0 clock 1200 MHz) and 16GB RAM. Currently, it's running well and I don't see any CPU/RAM bottlenecks but we're moving away from solaris and would be going to a HP hardware with Linux. This being said, how can I translate the said Solaris specs to an Intel machine? Anything at par with it or a little better would be nice. Thanks so much.

Cheers,

Dennis

[Ed_Wilts]

Given what you have, I'm thinking something along the lines of a DL380 would probably suit you.  http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/15351-15351-3328412-241644-241475-4091412.html

I wouldn't go with less than 16GB of RAM.  Either of the two "featured" models listed there will probably suit you quite nicely.

If you like AMD processors instead of Intel, the DL385 line has comparable models.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

CPU and memory requirement is not so much different between Solaris and Linux.

T1 has 4 core of 8 thread, so 4 core IA processor of 1.2GHz(or higher) will be OK.

Effective performance of CISC processor(IA) is better than RISC(SPARC) in general, so you may be satisfied with 2 core IA processor of 2.x GHz.

[Denz1217]

Hi Ed,

Thanks for the quick response :) I agree with the RAM part. So, just to confirm a 2x Intel® Xeon® X5680 (6 core, 3.33 GHz, 12MB L3, 130W) would be comparable to 1x UltraSPARC-T1 (cpuid 0 clock 1200 MHz)  with 32 virtual processor. Or, will a 2x Intel® Xeon® E5640 (4 core, 2.66 GHz, 12MB L3, 80W) be enough as well.

By the way, I did check the CPU utilization for the past 3 months of our current box and it's only 25-40%.

Cheers.

[Marianne]

Only problem is that IA is no longer supported as NBU server... only as client.

[Denz1217]

Hi Yasuhisa,

Thanks for the response as well. I failed to see your response earlier :) I guess I should have hit refresh. Anyways, thanks for breaking down the T1 architecture. So, I believe 2x Intel® Xeon® E5640 (4 core, 2.66 GHz, 12MB L3, 80W) should be enough to match/cover the processing power of our current Solaris box. Thanks again.

Cheers.

[Denz1217]

Hi Marianne,

Very nice of you to chime in :) I do remember you helped me before on the Exchange DAG issue I had. Anyways, I'm currently in the process of moving our netbackup server from Solaris to a HP hardware. Right now, I just need to match as much as possible (or even slightly better) our Solaris to a target HP hardware. There was a suggestion that that DL380 might be suitable. If this is so, which of the two would be enough.

2x Intel® Xeon® X5680 (6 core, 3.33 GHz, 12MB L3, 130W)

2x Intel® Xeon® E5640 (4 core, 2.66 GHz, 12MB L3, 80W)

Thanks again to everyone for your valuable responses.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

I'm not clear at this point, I mean IA-32 with EMT64, not IA-64.

[Denz1217]

We'll be going with x86-64 (CPU architecture)  with Enterprise Linux 4.0 (AS) (x86-64) or Enterprise Linux 5.0 (Advanced or Base) (x86-64). 

Furthermore, I believe our T2000 is an 8 core 1.2Ghz UltraSPARC (http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t2000/specs.xml) having 4 thread each core (3 MB integrated L2). This being said, will.....

2x Intel® Xeon® E5640 (4 core, 2.66 GHz, 12MB L3, 80W)

.... be able to perform at par or slightly better? Or, a 2x Intel (6 core) would be best in this scenario. Thanks a bunch.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

One E5640 is enough for replacing 8-core T1.

No data for T1 on www.spec.org , but 8-core T2(later generation of Sun's CoolThread processor) score is about 100. T1 might be more slower.

One E5640 score of "SPECint2006 rate"(throughput) is about 115. This is enough to beat T1 in throughput.

No "SPECint2006"(speed) data of T2. But I believe that speed of E5640 is far faster than T1.