Using NetBackup EV Agent and NetApp for open partition backups - extremely slow

[user022013]

Hi All gurus,

Hoping someone out there can clear some muddy waters for me.

I have NetBackup 7.5.0.7 master/media/client environment which I use to backup Enterprise Vault 9.0.5 Open Partitions with.  The Open Partitions reside in CIFS shares on Netapp running 7 Mode.

When backing up the Open Partitions using the EV Agent backups are dismally slow - barely breaking the 1Mb/sec mark.  It doesn't seem to matter where the backups are run to either.  I may gain some speed but not enough to make a noticeable difference.

I backup the Closed Partitions using NDMP and see speeds of over 50Mb/Sec.

Can someone tell me why the EV Agent backups run so slowly?

I do not need an alternative solution as I am aware the alternatives.  I just want to know why the EV Agent backups are so slow.

Thank you.

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Its not really the agent its the nature of the files. If you back the open (or closed) partitions up with a Windows-NT policy you'll see the same speeds. Its the curse of many little files.

But it very slow in your particular case. Might be good to play with the buffer settings and see what the best performance is you can get out of it. Alternatively you could use the scripts and back it up with Accelerator if you have a dedupe license/storage.

[watsons]

To get down to where the bottleneck is, use the bptm & bpbkar logs to determine possiblities of cause: 

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH18422

[Will_Restore · Accepted solution]

Open Partitions reside in CIFS shares

That's the bottleneck.  EV Partitions on local drives are slow; CIFS shares really slow.

I backup the Closed Partitions using NDMP and see speeds of over 50Mb/Sec.

That pretty much confirms it.