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#1
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Fine Tuning Linux for backup/production coexistence.
Hi,
I am running a CentOS 4 box with 4 terabytes of data on it. It houses most of my users' data, so it is constantly being used. I'm running the Networker 7.3.2 client on the box, as well. I have established a seperate backup network successfully - all data is backed up over this secondary network, and not over the production network. The secondary, like the primary, is all GigE, so we're as fast as we can go, there. Even though I've made this change, machine response is VERY slow during a backup. The CPU(s) get thrashed, since it has a lot of calculations to do in order to perform a backup. Sadly, there are no throttling options in Legato Networker, since its really designed to do a backup as quick as possible. What I'd like to be able to do is a backup of the system, without (significantly) impacting server performance. Now granted, I try to run backups during non business hours, but sometimes thats imposssible. I tried to /bin/nice the save processes on the file server, but this did not have a significant change. Is it possible to improve the performance (without completely swapping out the back plane?) Are there any /proc settings that might help? Would bumping up the number of NFS processes help? How about the wsize/ rsize of the exported directories? Anything else anyone can think of? If anyone has any thoughts, I would really appreciate it. I'm at a loss, and I don't even see the advantage to a backup network now, since my network is STILL impacted when a backup is running. - Thanks, Todd |
#2
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Fine Tuning Linux for backup/production coexistence.
On Feb 1, 3:23 am, "Todd" wrote:
Hi, I am running a CentOS 4 box with 4 terabytes of data on it. It houses most of my users' data, so it is constantly being used. I'm running the Networker 7.3.2 client on the box, as well. I have established a seperate backup network successfully - all data is backed up over this secondary network, and not over the production network. The secondary, like the primary, is all GigE, so we're as fast as we can go, there. Even though I've made this change, machine response is VERY slow during a backup. The CPU(s) get thrashed, since it has a lot of calculations to do in order to perform a backup. Sadly, there are no throttling options in Legato Networker, since its really designed to do a backup as quick as possible. What I'd like to be able to do is a backup of the system, without (significantly) impacting server performance. Now granted, I try to run backups during non business hours, but sometimes thats imposssible. I tried to /bin/nice the save processes on the file server, but this did not have a significant change. Is it possible to improve the performance (without completely swapping out the back plane?) Are there any /proc settings that might help? Would bumping up the number of NFS processes help? How about the wsize/ rsize of the exported directories? Anything else anyone can think of? If anyone has any thoughts, I would really appreciate it. I'm at a loss, and I don't even see the advantage to a backup network now, since my network is STILL impacted when a backup is running. - Thanks, Todd I feel network must not be the bottlenek. In most of the cases disk read/write and memory to perform comparision in case of incremental backup. I am not sure about the working of Legato Networker but logically in case of incremental backup it checks current data with its database to find out changed data and for that it requires lots of memory. So I suggest to keep notice on RAM utilization of the server. Anothr workaround may be you put Networker client on another server (lets say call it scan server) which can access user data over NFS and can take backup. It this case your primary storage server will not be impacted. |
#3
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Fine Tuning Linux for backup/production coexistence.
"Todd" wrote in message oups.com... Hi, I am running a CentOS 4 box with 4 terabytes of data on it. It houses most of my users' data, so it is constantly being used. I'm running the Networker 7.3.2 client on the box, as well. I have established a seperate backup network successfully - all data is backed up over this secondary network, and not over the production network. The secondary, like the primary, is all GigE, so we're as fast as we can go, there. Even though I've made this change, machine response is VERY slow during a backup. The CPU(s) get thrashed, since it has a lot of calculations to do in order to perform a backup. GigE is good, but GigE w/ TOE is better. This will offload the processor. If the backup application is the culprit, there's nothing you can do except insure that your system has adequate memory. Monitor the page faults if this is possible. If it's excessive, more RAM may resolve the sluggishness. Da Moojit Sadly, there are no throttling options in Legato Networker, since its really designed to do a backup as quick as possible. What I'd like to be able to do is a backup of the system, without (significantly) impacting server performance. Now granted, I try to run backups during non business hours, but sometimes thats imposssible. I tried to /bin/nice the save processes on the file server, but this did not have a significant change. Is it possible to improve the performance (without completely swapping out the back plane?) Are there any /proc settings that might help? Would bumping up the number of NFS processes help? How about the wsize/ rsize of the exported directories? Anything else anyone can think of? If anyone has any thoughts, I would really appreciate it. I'm at a loss, and I don't even see the advantage to a backup network now, since my network is STILL impacted when a backup is running. - Thanks, Todd |
#4
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Fine Tuning Linux for backup/production coexistence.
In article ,
Moojit wrote: "Todd" wrote in message roups.com... Hi, I am running a CentOS 4 box with 4 terabytes of data on it. It houses most of my users' data, so it is constantly being used. I'm running the Networker 7.3.2 client on the box, as well. I have established a seperate backup network successfully - all data is backed up over this secondary network, and not over the production network. The secondary, like the primary, is all GigE, so we're as fast as we can go, there. Even though I've made this change, machine response is VERY slow during a backup. The CPU(s) get thrashed, since it has a lot of calculations to do in order to perform a backup. GigE is good, but GigE w/ TOE is better. This will offload the processor. Do you have any rational reason to believe that a gigabit of TCP throughput will saturate a modern processor? The dirty little secret about "TOE" is that it often _slows things down_. -- Thor Lancelot Simon "All of my opinions are consistent, but I cannot present them all at once." -Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On The Social Contract |
#5
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Fine Tuning Linux for backup/production coexistence.
GigE is good, but GigE w/ TOE is better. This will offload the processor. If the backup application is the culprit, there's nothing you can do except insure that your system has adequate memory. Monitor the page faults if this is possible. If it's excessive, more RAM may resolve the sluggishness. Da Moojit can you suggest how to find out page fault. by sar or there are some other tools ? RajuMahala |
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