PAPER:
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PRO
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CTION
Symantec NetBackup
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, Cisco
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UCS,
and VMware
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vSphere
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Joint Backup
Performance Benchmark
6 to restage anything to disk or recombine incremental backups to create a full VIRTUAL MACHINE image. This means that incremental backups can be more commonplace, which reduces the amount of data being backed up without any loss of restore (single file or entire VIRTUAL MACHINE) options. Backing up less data means improving overall backup performance and shortening backup windows.
NetBackup Setting Value Notes
7 Another aspect of I/O is the ability to connect to the backup environment through host bus adapters. I/O slot capacity is key. We recommend that each I/O source and destination be configured on separate host bus adapters (HBAs) if possible. This includes network backup traffic, as this is essentially I/O as well. For example, the connection between the backup source (in this case the ESX datastore) and the backup destination (for example, disk or tape) should not be shared. This isolates the backup traffic to separate HBAs that in turn can improve performance. Also consider that additional I/O slots that might empty and are not needed today can be used in the future when your backup needs expand. CPU. Fast, multi-core CPUs are commonplace today. Today’s CPUs are so powerful that for traditional backups it is not uncommon for the backup system CPU to be a bit underutilized. But deduplication technologies have changed this significantly. Deduplication relies heavily on CPU power to compare segments (or blocks) of data to determine if they have been previously backed up or if they are unique. More and faster CPUs can improve overall deduplication performance, which in turn improves backup performance. Once again, expandability should also be an important consideration. The ability to add CPU capacity on demand can future-proof your backup system, delaying the need to upgrade your backup system. Memory (RAM). Deduplication technologies are particularly suited to take advantage of large amounts of RAM. Before backup data is committed to disk, it is compared with data that has been previously backed up. This comparison process is performed in RAM, instead of constantly comparing backup data that exists on disk. This significantly speeds up the deduplication process and enhances deduplication efficiently; however, it tends to require a lot of RAM. If deduplication is to be used, we recommend a system that has the capacity to support at least 32 GB of RAM. This system should also have the capacity to expand well beyond this. Once again, this expansion capability can future-proof the backup system to scale to much larger deduplication environments. VMware backup host configuration Cisco System’s UCS platform was selected as the VMware backup host. These systems are ideally suited for this benchmark, as we focus on virtual machine backup performance using traditional backup destinations as well as deduplicated backup destinations. Cisco UCS computers excel in all important performance metrics. The UCS platform features Intel’s state of the art QuickPath Interconnect technology for fast internal data transfers between critical internal system components. This provides extremely fast I/O capabilities. UCS systems can also expand to as many as 32 cores and up to 384 GB of RAM. The configuration used for the VMware Backup host is listed (see Table 2).
Component Description Notes
NetBackup VMware Backup Host Cisco UCS B200-M1
Operating System Windows Server 2008, SP 2 64-bit
Processors Xeon x5570 2.933 GHz CPU 2 Sockets, 4 Cores/Socket
RAM 48 GB
8
Virtual machines. A total of 92 virtual machines were used as backup targets. The virtual machines were running Windows, had an average size of 43 GB of data, and approximately 100,000 files per virtual machine (see Table 3).
Component Description Notes
ESX Server Cisco UCS B200-M1
Operating System ESX 4.0.0, Build 208167 Patch ESX400-200912001
Processors Xeon x5570 2.933 GHz CPU 2 Sockets, 4 Cores/Socket
RAM 24 GB
Unified Network/FCOE CNA Cisco CNA M71KR-C (AKA Palo or Cisco Virtualization Interface Adapter)
One per ESX server
Virtual Machine OS Windows 2008 Avg Size = 43 GB
