LTO2 SAN & New server Sizing

[1018DADA]

I would like input from forum members regarding backup server and their SAN experiance, i have one Master Legato 7.2 server, which backs up 115 + Windows based server, most of it over Current backup server is Proliant Dual P 2.4 Mhz & LTO1 4 drive Tape Library.
We will be implementing SAN with Adic I2000 library, LTO2 drives and Tape area network, initiall all the clients will be Network attached eventully bulk of the DATA moving in SAN, no VTL is planned imedieatly.
What has been your experiance in sizing backup server, will Dual core Opturon vs Intel, 64 v of Networker work, do you have any experiance with this ?
4 Single CPU vs two dual core ?
ML-580 vs others.
eventually 8 LTO drives may be implemted in this library, any thoughts on the library ?
What is your typical SAN enviroments, any Tips, any input on all of the topics is appreciated.

 

[speculos]

Hello 1018DADA,

We have similar configuration(120 windows and AIX servers, HP SAN, 3x LTO2 drives, ESL library, Networker server is a Proliant ML530 with 2Gb RAM). My experience is that the CPU is not the most critical element for Networker server; the RAM and the network is more important, especially if you have a lot of small files.
But you didn't tell about the amount of data to backup, the save window and the restore contraints, so the sizing is not easy.

 

[1018DADA]

I backup 1 TB Daily
4.5 TB over the weekend.
I have to finish backup starting 5:30 PM to 6am for weekday, and Full backup span from Fri evening to Sunday early morning.
We send all tapes offsite daily, no onsite restore media is cloned or kept.
I see our CPU load HIGH during peak backup time, Memory being over 4 GB is not an concern, I also run Bocada and SQL server on the backup server itself.
Your server being AIX it may be more I\O efficient then Windows, however, i will be using Windows 2003 X64 Bit on the new implementation.
How do you backup NAS and SAN, what legato modules, Power snap etc, what is your experiance with that.

 

[speculos]

We use Networker Module for SQL to backup 10 SQL2000 servers, biggest is 600 Gb;
We tried Networker Module for Oracle/RMan but it's not exactly what we need, so for small Oracle database we use physical /network backup, and for biggest Oracle database (>200 Go) we use SAN "scripted" backup:
- freeze database (Begin-backup Oracle)
- SAN SnapShot (1 minute) or SnapClone (30 minutes)
- unfreeze database (End-backup Oracle)
- present SnapShot to storage-node, and then backup to tapes.
The last backup stay on disk, easy to recover.
Sorry, no experience with Power snap.
What is "Bocada"?
Why do you run SQL server on the backup server? it's unusual.

 

[1018DADA]

Oracle admins in our company take care of creating backups which i then backup to tape.
Bocada is backup monitoring software, which is run on SQL platform, hence the SQL install.
Still looking for proper way to backup the SAN enviroment, wheather it's Power snap or any other, in detail.