SQL backup speed enhancement

[Maverick101]

Good day, We have a 5430 flex appliance 3.1 and running NBU 10.1.1  with a 3 media server setup.  We recently migrated a windows SQL server to a remote site where we currently don't have backup infrastructure yet so the backup will be over the WAN.  We have 4 x 10 network links from the remote site to our primary site. Since the move we have seen a decrease in our backup throughput as its only traversing the 1 network channel thus resulting in a max or 1GB/sec where we used to get nearly double that speed when it was a LAN configuration within the same DC. My question thus: Is it possible to ensure that the backup goes over all for network channels to increase the backup performance instead of just going over the 1 channel? Its a 4 stripe backup currently and all going over the same channel. Would like to hear some thoughts on achieving this for a single client backup.

[Nicolai]

Hi @Maverick101 

Netbackup cannot control this, it's network issues.

Contact your network admin and have a talk about what port channel configuration is used on the network gear.

If using LACP, there are multiple option that should be able to load balance over multiple channels.

for info see : https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/en/doc/EDOC1100086560

You may also have to deploy LACP on both backup client and flex appliance. 

In other words, you are into the more advanced part of networking.

[Maverick101]

Thanks so much Nicolai,

That makes sense. I know that we  use port 1556 for inbound connections via the any local interface. silly question. Is it possible to randomise ports to achieve this. The thinking is that this will be seen as a new backup stream to achieve better throughput.

[Nicolai]

Multiple backup stream always improve backup speed until the underlying infrastructure is 100% utilized.

Randomising backup port is not possible nor will it improve backup speed. Multiple backup stream is the way to go, or used client side deduplication, to lower overall bandwidth consumption. 

If the SQL server is on physical hardware, check "interrupt moderation" on the NIC is not set to aggressive. Usually the default value limit network bandwidth quite a lot.

/Nicolai

[bhdrkzltn]

You would try enabling the client side deduplication so that redundant data will not go over WAN link.
Remember client (MSSQL) needs to communicate with storage server over TCP 10082 and 10102 to leverage client side deduplication.

Also know that Veritas has brought back multi-stream support for MSSQL in 10.1.1 with EEB 4102406 v11 and keep your media servers/instances and WORM instances up to date.

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/downloads/update.UPD405441