NetBackup™ Backup Planning and Performance Tuning Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup & Alta Data Protection (10.4, 10.3.0.1, 10.3, 10.2.0.1, 10.2, 10.1.1, 10.1, 10.0.0.1, 10.0, 9.1.0.1, 9.1, 9.0.0.1, 9.0, 8.3.0.2, 8.3.0.1, 8.3)
  1. NetBackup capacity planning
    1.  
      Purpose of this guide
    2.  
      Changes in Veritas terminology
    3.  
      Disclaimer
    4.  
      How to analyze your backup requirements
    5.  
      How to calculate the size of your NetBackup image database
    6. Sizing for capacity with MSDP
      1. Key sizing parameters
        1.  
          Data types and deduplication
        2.  
          Determining FETB for workloads
        3.  
          Retention periods
        4.  
          Change rate
        5.  
          Replication and duplication of backups
        6.  
          Sizing calculations for MSDP clients
    7.  
      About how to design your OpsCenter server
  2. Primary server configuration guidelines
    1.  
      Size guidance for the NetBackup primary server and domain
    2.  
      Factors that limit job scheduling
    3.  
      More than one backup job per second
    4.  
      Stagger the submission of jobs for better load distribution
    5.  
      NetBackup job delays
    6.  
      Selection of storage units: performance considerations
    7.  
      About file system capacity and NetBackup performance
    8.  
      About the primary server NetBackup catalog
    9.  
      Guidelines for managing the primary server NetBackup catalog
    10.  
      Adjusting the batch size for sending metadata to the NetBackup catalog
    11.  
      Methods for managing the catalog size
    12.  
      Performance guidelines for NetBackup policies
    13.  
      Legacy error log fields
  3. Media server configuration guidelines
    1. NetBackup hardware design and tuning considerations
      1.  
        PCI architecture
      2.  
        Central processing unit (CPU) trends
      3.  
        Storage trends
      4.  
        Conclusions
    2. About NetBackup Media Server Deduplication (MSDP)
      1.  
        Data segmentation
      2.  
        Fingerprint lookup for deduplication
      3.  
        Predictive and sampling cache scheme
      4.  
        Data store
      5.  
        Space reclamation
      6.  
        System resource usage and tuning considerations
      7.  
        Memory considerations
      8.  
        I/O considerations
      9.  
        Network considerations
      10.  
        CPU considerations
      11.  
        OS tuning considerations
      12. MSDP tuning considerations
        1.  
          Sample steps to change MSDP contentrouter.cfg
      13. MSDP sizing considerations
        1.  
          Data gathering
        2.  
          Leveraging requirements and best practices
    3.  
      Cloud tier sizing and performance
    4. Accelerator performance considerations
      1.  
        Accelerator for file-based backups
      2.  
        Controlling disk space for Accelerator track logs
      3.  
        Accelerator for virtual machine backups
      4.  
        Forced rescan schedules
      5.  
        Reporting the amount of Accelerator data transferred over the network
      6.  
        Accelerator backups and the NetBackup catalog
  4. Media configuration guidelines
    1.  
      About dedicated versus shared backup environments
    2.  
      Suggestions for NetBackup media pools
    3.  
      Disk versus tape: performance considerations
    4.  
      NetBackup media not available
    5.  
      About the threshold for media errors
    6.  
      Adjusting the media_error_threshold
    7.  
      About tape I/O error handling
    8.  
      About NetBackup media manager tape drive selection
  5. How to identify performance bottlenecks
    1.  
      Introduction
    2.  
      Proper mind set for performance issue RCA
    3.  
      The 6 steps of performance issue RCA and resolution
    4. Flowchart of performance data analysis
      1.  
        How to create a workload profile
  6. Best practices
    1.  
      Best practices: NetBackup SAN Client
    2. Best practices: NetBackup AdvancedDisk
      1.  
        AdvancedDisk performance considerations
      2.  
        Exclusive use of disk volumes with AdvancedDisk
      3.  
        Disk volumes with different characteristics
      4.  
        Disk pools and volume managers with AdvancedDisk
      5.  
        Network file system considerations
      6.  
        State changes in AdvancedDisk
    3.  
      Best practices: Disk pool configuration - setting concurrent jobs and maximum I/O streams
    4.  
      Best practices: About disk staging and NetBackup performance
    5.  
      Best practices: Supported tape drive technologies for NetBackup
    6. Best practices: NetBackup tape drive cleaning
      1.  
        How NetBackup TapeAlert works
      2.  
        Disabling TapeAlert
    7.  
      Best practices: NetBackup data recovery methods
    8.  
      Best practices: Suggestions for disaster recovery planning
    9.  
      Best practices: NetBackup naming conventions
    10.  
      Best practices: NetBackup duplication
    11.  
      Best practices: NetBackup deduplication
    12. Best practices: Universal shares
      1.  
        Benefits of universal shares
      2.  
        Configuring universal shares
      3.  
        Tuning universal shares
    13. NetBackup for VMware sizing and best practices
      1.  
        Configuring and controlling NetBackup for VMware
      2.  
        Discovery
      3.  
        Backup and restore operations
    14. Best practices: Storage lifecycle policies (SLPs)
      1.  
        Data flow and SLP design best practices
      2.  
        Targeted SLP
      3.  
        Limiting the number of SLP secondary operations to maximize performance
      4.  
        Storage Server IO
    15.  
      Best practices: NetBackup NAS-Data-Protection (D-NAS)
    16.  
      Best practices: NetBackup for Nutanix AHV
    17.  
      Best practices: NetBackup Sybase database
    18.  
      Best practices: Avoiding media server resource bottlenecks with Oracle VLDB backups
    19.  
      Best practices: Avoiding media server resource bottlenecks with MSDPLB+ prefix policy
    20.  
      Best practices: Cloud deployment considerations
  7. Measuring Performance
    1.  
      Measuring NetBackup performance: overview
    2.  
      How to control system variables for consistent testing conditions
    3.  
      Running a performance test without interference from other jobs
    4.  
      About evaluating NetBackup performance
    5.  
      Evaluating NetBackup performance through the Activity Monitor
    6.  
      Evaluating NetBackup performance through the All Log Entries report
    7. Table of NetBackup All Log Entries report
      1.  
        Additional information on the NetBackup All Log Entries report
    8. Evaluating system components
      1.  
        About measuring performance independent of tape or disk output
      2.  
        Measuring performance with bpbkar
      3.  
        Bypassing disk performance with the SKIP_DISK_WRITES touch file
      4.  
        Measuring performance with the GEN_DATA directive (Linux/UNIX)
      5.  
        Monitoring Linux/UNIX CPU load
      6.  
        Monitoring Linux/UNIX memory use
      7.  
        Monitoring Linux/UNIX disk load
      8.  
        Monitoring Linux/UNIX network traffic
      9.  
        Monitoring Linux/Unix system resource usage with dstat
      10.  
        About the Windows Performance Monitor
      11.  
        Monitoring Windows CPU load
      12.  
        Monitoring Windows memory use
      13.  
        Monitoring Windows disk load
    9.  
      Increasing disk performance
  8. Tuning the NetBackup data transfer path
    1.  
      About the NetBackup data transfer path
    2.  
      About tuning the data transfer path
    3.  
      Tuning suggestions for the NetBackup data transfer path
    4.  
      NetBackup client performance in the data transfer path
    5. NetBackup network performance in the data transfer path
      1.  
        Network interface settings
      2.  
        Network load
      3. Setting the network buffer size for the NetBackup media server
        1.  
          Network buffer size in relation to other parameters
      4.  
        Setting the NetBackup client communications buffer size
      5.  
        About the NOSHM file
      6.  
        Using socket communications (the NOSHM file)
    6. NetBackup server performance in the data transfer path
      1. About shared memory (number and size of data buffers)
        1.  
          Default number of shared data buffers
        2.  
          Default size of shared data buffers
        3.  
          Amount of shared memory required by NetBackup
        4.  
          How to change the number of shared data buffers
        5.  
          Notes on number data buffers files
        6.  
          How to change the size of shared data buffers
        7.  
          Notes on size data buffer files
        8.  
          Size values for shared data buffers
        9.  
          Note on shared memory and NetBackup for NDMP
        10.  
          Recommended shared memory settings
        11.  
          Recommended number of data buffers for SAN Client and FT media server
        12.  
          Testing changes made to shared memory
      2.  
        About NetBackup wait and delay counters
      3.  
        Changing parent and child delay values for NetBackup
      4. About the communication between NetBackup client and media server
        1.  
          Processes used in NetBackup client-server communication
        2.  
          Roles of processes during backup and restore
        3.  
          Finding wait and delay counter values
        4.  
          Note on log file creation
        5.  
          About tunable parameters reported in the bptm log
        6.  
          Example of using wait and delay counter values
        7.  
          Issues uncovered by wait and delay counter values
      5.  
        Estimating the effect of multiple copies on backup performance
      6. Effect of fragment size on NetBackup restores
        1.  
          How fragment size affects restore of a non-multiplexed image
        2.  
          How fragment size affects restore of a multiplexed image on tape
        3.  
          Fragmentation and checkpoint restart
      7. Other NetBackup restore performance issues
        1.  
          Example of restore from multiplexed database backup (Oracle)
    7.  
      NetBackup storage device performance in the data transfer path
  9. Tuning other NetBackup components
    1.  
      When to use multiplexing and multiple data streams
    2.  
      Effects of multiplexing and multistreaming on backup and restore
    3. How to improve NetBackup resource allocation
      1.  
        Improving the assignment of resources to NetBackup queued jobs
      2.  
        Sharing reservations in NetBackup
      3.  
        Disabling the sharing of NetBackup reservations
      4.  
        Disabling on-demand unloads
    4.  
      Encryption and NetBackup performance
    5.  
      Compression and NetBackup performance
    6.  
      How to enable NetBackup compression
    7.  
      Effect of encryption plus compression on NetBackup performance
    8.  
      Information on NetBackup Java performance improvements
    9.  
      Information on NetBackup Vault
    10.  
      Fast recovery with Bare Metal Restore
    11.  
      How to improve performance when backing up many small files
    12. How to improve FlashBackup performance
      1.  
        Adjusting the read buffer for FlashBackup and FlashBackup-Windows
    13.  
      Veritas NetBackup OpsCenter
  10. Tuning disk I/O performance
    1. About NetBackup performance and the hardware hierarchy
      1.  
        About performance hierarchy level 1
      2.  
        About performance hierarchy level 2
      3.  
        About performance hierarchy level 3
      4.  
        About performance hierarchy level 4
      5.  
        Summary of performance hierarchies
      6.  
        Notes on performance hierarchies
    2.  
      Hardware examples for better NetBackup performance

Finding wait and delay counter values

Wait and delay counter values can be found by creating debug log files on the NetBackup media server.

Note:

The debug log files introduce additional overhead and have a small effect on the overall performance of NetBackup. This effect is more noticeable for a high verbose level setting. Normally, you should not need to run with debug logging enabled on a production system.

To find the wait and delay counter values for a local client backup

  1. Activate debug logging by creating the appropriate log directories on the media server:

    Linux/UNIX

    For example:

    /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bpbkar
    /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bptm

    Windows

    install_path\NetBackup\logs\bpbkar
    install_path\NetBackup\logs\bptm

    The following topic lists log directories for processes that may be used in place of bpbkar, for database extensions:

    See Processes used in NetBackup client-server communication.

  2. Execute your backup.
  3. Consult the log for the data producer process.

    The line should be similar to the following, with a timestamp corresponding to the completion time of the backup:

    Example from the bpbkar log:

    ... waited 224 times for empty buffer, delayed 254 times

    In this example the wait counter value is 224 and the delay counter value is 254.

  4. Look at the log for the data consumer process.

    The line should be similar to the following, with a timestamp corresponding to the completion time of the backup:

    ... waited for full buffer 1 times, delayed 22 times

    In this example, the wait counter value is 1 and the delay counter value is 22.

To find the wait and delay counter values for a remote client backup

  1. Activate debug logging by creating this directory on the media server:

    Linux/UNIX

    /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bptm

    Windows

    install_path\NetBackup\logs\bptm
  2. Execute your backup.
  3. Look at the log for the bptm process in:

    Linux/UNIX

    /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bptm

    Windows

    install_path\NetBackup\logs\bptm

    Delays that are associated with the data producer (bptm child) appear as follows:

    ... waited for empty buffer 22 times, delayed 151 times, ...

    In this example, the wait counter value is 22 and the delay counter value is 151.

    Delays that are associated with the data consumer (bptm parent) appear as:

    ... waited for full buffer 12 times, delayed 69 times

    In this example the wait counter value is 12, and the delay counter value is 69.

To find the wait and delay counter values for a local client restore

  1. Activate logging by creating the two directories on the NetBackup media server:

    Linux/UNIX

    /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bptm
    /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/tar

    Windows

    install_path\NetBackup\logs\bptm
    install_path\NetBackup\logs\tar

    The following topic lists log directories for processes that may be used in place of tar, for database extensions:

    See Processes used in NetBackup client-server communication.

  2. Execute your restore.
  3. Look at the log for the data consumer (tar or tar32) in the tar log directory.

    The line should be similar to the following, with a timestamp corresponding to the completion time of the restore:

     ... waited for full buffer 27 times, delayed 79 times

    In this example, the wait counter value is 27, and the delay counter value is 79.

  4. Look at the log for the data producer (bptm) in the bptm log directory.

    The line should be similar to the following, with a timestamp corresponding to the completion time of the restore:

    ... waited for empty buffer 1 times, delayed 68 times

    In this example, the wait counter value is 1 and the delay counter value is 68.

To find the wait and delay counter values for a remote client restore

  1. Activate debug logging by creating the following directory on the media server:

    Linux/UNIX

    /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bptm

    Windows

    install_path\NetBackup\logs\bptm
  2. Execute your restore.
  3. Look at the log for bptm in the bptm log directory.

    Delays that are associated with the data consumer (bptm child) appear as follows:

    ... waited for full buffer 36 times, delayed 139 times

    In this example, the wait counter value is 36 and the delay counter value is 139.

    Delays that are associated with the data producer (bptm parent) appear as follows:

    ... waited for empty buffer 95 times, delayed 513 times

    In this example the wait counter value is 95 and the delay counter value is 513.