NetBackup SAN Media Server Deployment for Windows File Server Backup Details
Detailed overview of the tentative deployment of a NetBackup SAN media server for backing up a Windows File Server, including hardware and OS details, SAN port connections, external disk storage setup, and utilization of external tape storage. The notes on NetBackup installation are also highlighted.
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Presentation Transcript
Tentative deployment of NetBackup SAN media server for Windows File Server Backup Anton Panyushkin apanyushkin@beeline.ru
File server details hardware & OS Hardware: HP ProLiant DL360 G5 CPU: 8xIntel Xeon E5440@2.83GHz RAM: 3.326 MB OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server 2003 R2 HBA: 2xHP-branded 4Gb dual-port Emulex LPe11002 Firmware version 2.50A6, driver version 5.2.20.006 External disk storage: HP EVA 4400 External tape storage:2xLTO4 drives of IBM 3500 tape library Tape Drivers: Symantec tape PnP drivers version 5.1.25.0 13 2025 . 2
File server details SAN Ports of the first HBA has been connected to HP EVA 4400 disk array and two LTO4 tape drives are attached to the ports of the second HBA. Hence, disk and tape drives are attached to separate HBAs and belong to different zones. 13 2025 . 3
File server details external disk storage An empty 2Gb LUN has been presented to the file server DISKPART> detail disk HP HSV300 Multi-Path Disk Device Disk ID: 21C1BBC4 Type : FIBRE Bus : 0 Target : 0 LUN ID : 1 Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- Volume 0 X Eva NTFS Partition 2047 GB Healthy The LUN has been entirely formatted as NTFS partition with cluster size 4Kb C:\>fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo X: NTFS Volume Serial Number : 0xd216b64616b62b7d Version : 3.1 Bytes Per Sector : 512 Bytes Per Cluster : 4096 Bytes Per FileRecord Segment : 1024 13 2025 . 4
File server details - external tape storage File server used two IBM LTO4 tape drives of IBM 3500 tape library for SAN-based backups C:\Program Files\VERITAS\Volmgr\bin>tpautoconf.exe -t TPAC60 IBM ULT3580-TD4 A232 0007893360 2 0 0 0 Tape0 - - TPAC60 IBM ULT3580-TD4 A232 0007893376 3 0 0 0 Tape1 - - 13 2025 . 5
Notes on NetBackup installation NetBackup 6.5.4 media server for Windows has been installed on the test file server. Once base media server installation completed, a couple of Symantec EEBs has been deployed. EEB Technote URL NB_6.5.4_ET1765302_1_329235 http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/329235.htm eebinstaller.1791461.2.x86.exe http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/335061.htm eebinstaller.1791461.2.x86.exe appeared to be broken, so the Windows DLL that was in the patch has been manually installed. C:\Program Files\VERITAS\NetBackup\bin\goodies>versioninfo.exe -f "C:\Program Fi les\VERITAS\NetBackup\bin\bpbkar32.exe" ======= C:\Program Files\VERITAS\NetBackup\bin\bpbkar32.exe ======= @(#) NetBackup_6.5.4_EEB1_PET1765329_SET1765302 13 2025 . 6
Large I/O block Since large I/O block is good for both backup and restore, the test file server has been tuned with a view to increase I/O block size up to 1Mb and therefore boost overall backup speed. We tweaked HBA driver, Windows OS and NetBackup respectively. 13 2025 . 7
Large I/O block HBA driver tuning In order to enable 1Mb I/O block on the HBA driver level, Emulex HBA driver parameter named ExTransferSize has been set to 1 for each HBA card. In addition, HBA to which tape drives are attached had AutoMapping disabled and persistent binding enabled. 13 2025 . 8
Large I/O block OS tuning MaximumSGList has been set to 255 to enable 1Mb I/O block 13 2025 . 9
Large I/O block NetBackup tuning SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS has been increased to 1048576 and NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS bumped up to 128 In the file server NetBackup properties Raw partition read buffer size has been initially set to 1024 Kb to match SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS We had to change this setting later. Stay alert! 13 2025 . 10
Initial restore In order to populate an empty partition with real-world data, the 1.5Tb FlashBackup-Windows image previously taken from another file server has been restored on the test file server. The data stream has been transferred over a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet LAN, so the maximum restore speed was not more than 50 Mb/sec. 13 2025 . 11
NetBackup uses 32Kb I/O block for FlashBackup-Windows restores While initial partition restore was in progress, we examined Performance Monitor counters on file server. It turned out that NetBackup uses 32Kb I/O block to write data during restore from FlashBackup-Windows image. Small size of I/O block severely hits restore performance. There is a touch file named FBU_READBLKS that is supposed to help in I/O block tuning. But in reality NetBackup simply ignores this touch file on Wintel hosts. A: The FBU_READBLKS touchfile is ignored in MS Windows. This will be fixed in next releases. Q: How do I change I/O block size for FlashBackup- Windows restores? 13 2025 . 12
SAN backup Netbackup policy Once the file server external disk has been populated with tons of files and folders, time to launch SAN-based backup has came. To do so, we created a FlashBackup-Windows policywith default attributes. 13 2025 . 13
SAN backup read block issue As a result, FlashBackup started to use 1Mb block for reading In order to get 1Mb I/O block, Raw partition read buffer size has been set to 2048. The test file server has been tuned with the aim for boosting I/O block size up to 1Mb. But as we traced Performance Monitor counters during SAN backup, I/O block size turned to be twice smaller only 512Kb. A: Here appears to be a bug in code which reads the data in KB from windows GUI but place it as 512- There is supposed to be a software bug in how NetBackup handles Raw partition read buffer size parameter. It looks as if NetBackup calculates this parameter in 512-byte blocks, not in kilobytes. Q: What logic is behind Q: What logic is behind Raw partition read buffer size ? block ? registry. Raw partition read bytes sectors in 13 2025 . 14
SAN backup performance In comparison to LAN backup that might have taken days to complete, backup speed of SAN backup was merely superb. 13 2025 . 15
SAN backup shared memory issue Having test media server on hand, prompted us to alter SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS and NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS and see how they affect backup performance. The results were rather confusing: A: No detailed answer yet. Research is still in progress. Shared memory (MB) Q: It looks as if there is SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS a 128Mb limit of shared memory that NetBackup can allocate in Windows. Backup result 1048576 128 128 Backup completes successfully Backup fails with error "problems encountered during setup of shared memory" 1048576 1024 1024 Backup fails with error "problems encountered during setup of shared memory (89)" 1048576 512 512 Backup fails with error "allocation failed (10)" 1048576 256 256 524288 256 128 Backup completes successfully 13 2025 . 16
SAN restore small I/O block size strikes back Again, small I/O block size resulted in bad restore performance. Following to SAN backup, we decided to perform a SAN restore. In took NetBackup about 7 hours to restore partition that had been previously backed up within 3 hours! 13 2025 . 17
Anton Panyushkin apanyushkin@beeline.ru 13 2025 . 18
