Very slow Vaulting / not finishing in time.

[Tim_Dile]

Master coupled as a Media Server running Solaris 4.5 MP6 DataCenter. 8 AIT2 drives, Full backups - Multiplex 3 used.

Vault configured with Various Profiles. 3 Read 3 Write Drives, Preserve Multiplex.

Our Backup Window Friday 8PM finishes 6PM Saturday.

Vaulting starts at 7PM Sat and does not finish even at 8PM Monday. - At this point we cancel the job. Data around 3.5TB

At this rate it would be better to launch 2 individual backup jobs. Anyone experienced / remedied this problem as this is clearly not working for us.

Thanks,
Tim

[Stumpr2]

I would use inline tape copy

[Tim_Dile]

Thanks Bob I'll post results after the weekend. I’ve also logged a call with Veritas and see what they come back with as its painfully slow. Just out of interest why will inline be quicker?

Another question.. when multiplexing is used does one use it across all clients or only specifically for slow clients? Currently we use it across all clients MPX3 with a fragment size of 2048

Tim

[Stumpr2]

Inline tape copy is over all faster because you are making the copy at the same time that you are making the original. If you have 6 drives available and use 3 for the policy and the imaging takes 5 hours then the total tape drive usage will be 15 for the creation of the image. If you use 3 drive PAIRS for the duplication process then you would add another 6 drives for 5 hours to read/duplicate the image. That would add 30 tape drive hours to make the total for creating the original and the duplicate to be 15 + 30 =45 tape drive hours.

Inline tape copy would spin 6 tape drives for 5 hours + ~20% = 6 hoursX6 tape drives for a grand total of 36 tape drive hours. So you could save 45 - 36 = 9 tape drive hours

[Tim_Dile]

Anything that knocks hours off is a winner in my books.

Veritas have come back to me and have suggested that we may be overloading our SCSI Bus. Anyone know of anyway to find out for a Sun Enterprise 220R (2 X UltraSPARC-II 450MHz)?....

[Tim_Dile]

UPDATE...

Massive Improvement all Job's finished on Midday Sunday.

Thanks for your help.

Tim

[Stumpr2]

Tim,
If you do Oracle threads you will see an even more impressive restore time. I was able to improve a 12 hour restore from using duplicated tapes to a 4 hour restore job using images that were created using inline tape copy. The reason is that the individual threads are better distributed onto physical tapes when using inline. The advantage/drawback to the vaulted copies is that all of the threads are on a single tape. Great for using less tapes! But BAD for doing a restore, especially if you are in a COOp situation and the restoration of the Oracle db is a major concern with management :)

[MayurS]

Hi Bob,

If i do Inline Tape Copy will the Catalog size be Bigger as compared to if i do duplication.

[Stumpr2]

Catalog size will be the same