How to backup a MSA 1000 over a Fiber
Hi everyone,
I was hope someone could help with a Backup Architecture question.
I have the following situation. I have a 2 node Windows 2003 Cluster front ending a MSA 1000 with about 6TB of capacity. Currently I am backing up over IP (1GB) using Backup Exec 10d. Due to file density, my backup performance has increasingly become degraded and I estimate that the MSA is only at 2/3 capacity. The MSL5060 has a fiber port so I assume I can attach that to my existing fabric. MSA 1000 has some fiber connections between it and the 2 HP DL380s that are acting as a clustered file server.
My question would be, can backup this SAN appliance over fiber vs. IP?
If, so what else would I need to accomplish this? I noticed symantec has a product called Backup Option for SAN, so I am guessing I would need that on both servers and a fiber connection for my current media server.
Can someone add more thought on this for me?
Thanks in advance for any help.
I was hope someone could help with a Backup Architecture question.
I have the following situation. I have a 2 node Windows 2003 Cluster front ending a MSA 1000 with about 6TB of capacity. Currently I am backing up over IP (1GB) using Backup Exec 10d. Due to file density, my backup performance has increasingly become degraded and I estimate that the MSA is only at 2/3 capacity. The MSL5060 has a fiber port so I assume I can attach that to my existing fabric. MSA 1000 has some fiber connections between it and the 2 HP DL380s that are acting as a clustered file server.
My question would be, can backup this SAN appliance over fiber vs. IP?
If, so what else would I need to accomplish this? I noticed symantec has a product called Backup Option for SAN, so I am guessing I would need that on both servers and a fiber connection for my current media server.
Can someone add more thought on this for me?
Thanks in advance for any help.
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You don't *need* extra fibre channel cards you can use the existing but it would seriously impact your SAN bandwidth if you did.
If the load on the LAN is light during backup there's something wrong, the backup server might be short of RAM or you may be getting bad read performance from the MSA.
If the load on the LAN is light during backup there's something wrong, the backup server might be short of RAM or you may be getting bad read performance from the MSA.
ASKER
I agree, but my backup server is not overlly taxed. But the active node of the cluster is slammed.
So I am thinking that I could be getting a disk bottleneck on the MSA. I should note that that I have 4 drives in the MSL 5060 and when all four are backing up different drives (from a MS OS prespective on the SAN) performance really tanks. I configured the backup schedule to try and reduce the amount of time. Last week I was getting 60+ hours to backup 500GB which backed up the whole schedule.
The only thing I can do is to figure out the mapping the of LUNS to the "drives" so I can better balance the job schedule to prevent a bottle neck. Its a pain using Symantec 10d as there are very few reports to help with the analysis.
So I am thinking that I could be getting a disk bottleneck on the MSA. I should note that that I have 4 drives in the MSL 5060 and when all four are backing up different drives (from a MS OS prespective on the SAN) performance really tanks. I configured the backup schedule to try and reduce the amount of time. Last week I was getting 60+ hours to backup 500GB which backed up the whole schedule.
The only thing I can do is to figure out the mapping the of LUNS to the "drives" so I can better balance the job schedule to prevent a bottle neck. Its a pain using Symantec 10d as there are very few reports to help with the analysis.
ASKER
Thank you for your help. I just want to confirm a minor point.
To confirm: I will need 2 additional fiber cards to connect the clustered pair of servers to a FC switch from which I would attach my MSL5060. Therefore I would need 3 ports on an FC switch.
That may be the best solution, as from a LAN/IP perspective, the load or traffic is pretty light. Though that could be a switch issue which I dont have much insight into.
Either way you have given me a pointer to follow up on.
So again. Thank you.