fbackup v Omniback

[Alun Territt_1]

We currently use fbackup from an N4000 to a DLT8000.

Have an issue with speed and are considering switching to Omniback but still using a DLT8000.

Could anyone advise as to what sort of performance impact this could have ?

Just need a ball park indication to help sweeten management into letting me eval the product.

Many thanks

Alun

[harry d brown jr]

I'm not sure if you are going to see a huge impact in performance because it depends on how you were using fbackup and what you were backing up.

live free or die
harry

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Alun,

for example you could use concurrent disk agents for different file systems to do your backups with Omniback. Run one disk agent on every filesystem and let them all write to one tape device to speed up your backups.

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Alun Territt_1]

Thanks for your comments. But what I really need is an indication of how much of an improvement it should give out of the box (i.e. 10% ??).

I am looking at a full backup every night onto a single tape in a DLT8000. I am not looking to change the hardware, only the software.

Has anyone switched from using fbackup to Omniback and has experience of the change ?

Appreciative as always.

Alun

[Leif Halvarsson_2 · Accepted solution]

Hi
Which performance do you get with fbackup. If you can stream the DLT 8000 at full speed (about 12 MB/s with 2-1 compression) you can't expect better performance with OmniBack. But if not, you have better chance with OmniBack (with concurrent filesystem backup) to get max performance out of your DLT drive.

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi there.
I think, some more items should be thought about.

1st
OmniBack GUI is very comfortable, once you get it running. Setup may give some headache.

2nd
You can run one backup on several tapedrives ( if licenced ).
You can spread the different filesystems through the tape drives manually or by load balancing option.
You can choose the load on the network ( that works on your machine as well ).

3rd
MONEY !
OmniBack is not a cheap product to buy and maintain.


Hope, i gave some ideas.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Bill Hassell]

If you are not using a config file for fbackup, then Omniback will be significantly faster (2x-4x or more). However, if you use a config file (fbackup's defaults are for reel-to-reel tape drives) then the backup speed will be about the same (assuming you use good config values). Since DLT and DDS config values are not really doucmented very well, here is a sample config file that should significantly improve performance:

blocksperrecord 256
records 32
checkpointfreq 1024
readerprocesses 6
maxretries 5
retrylimit 5000000
maxvoluses 200
filesperfsm 2000

Omniback's primary value is in backup management, things like multiple systems, multiple tape drives, changer support, and most important: preventing loss of data by using the wrong tape for backup or restore.

[Donald Kok]

You are focussing on software. Speed is basically a hardware issue. So IMHO you first check what the speed is through the hardware components, and then identify the slowest components. Then you go for a solution, which may be omniback.

The data goes through: disk -> scsibus -> systembus -> memory -> systembus -> scsibus -> DLT

The speed for each component should be identified. In the N4000 I do not suspect memory or systembus to be the problem. Might be the scsibus or the DLT itself.

The DLT has a hardware speed of 6 Mb/s, if it is not reached, the DLT will have the spin back. This may damage the drive after while, the drive must be kept streaming.

HTH Donald