Data Protector Client for OpenVMS V5.5 (DP V5.5)

[Burkart Beat]

Hi there

I have some discs containing directories with more than 10000 files each. The whole disc has about 90000 files in total (4.5GB) The backuptime is about 6-8 hours for a disc!!! (aprox. 190KB/s)

If I save 275GB database discs (150 files) I have about 3 hours doing 100GB/h

Any idea, what to do, speeding up the process. But please, do not tell me to have only directories with less than 2000 files, it's not possible!

Best regards
Beat

[Daniel Fernandez Illan]

Hi
See this link to read some considerations about backup performance.
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=943200

Saludos.
Daniel.

[Burkart Beat]

Hi

No! That's not the point. Doing an ordinary OpenVMS Backup (/Image) this disc is saved in less than an hour... So it has something to do how Data Protector is doing the job! I think after reading one file from the directory, it always sorts his internal list, then reading the next file...

regards
Beat

[Daniel Fernandez Illan]

Hi
But the article included contains some discussion about BACKUP perfomances

See:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82FINAL/aa-pv5mj-tk/00/01/117-con.html#proc-sec

Saludos.
Daniel.

[Kris Clippeleyr]

Hi,

Another discussion on Data Protector can be found at:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=939153

As is stated there, Data Protector is very recent to VMS (I don't have any experience with it). So it might be useful to contact HP directly.

Regards,
Kris (aka Qkcl)

[Uwe Zessin]

I would not call it 'very recent'. I've talked to an engineer who worked on the port and that was definitely 2+ years ago.

Now, if you were talking about the entire timeline of Omniback/Data Protector, with that I can agree.

[Willem Grooters]

It may have to do how the backup is done. BACKUP on a file-by-file basis will take a lot of time, certainly if these are (very) small (50K compared to 1.75Gb makes a difference) and you use a streaming tape (most are, am I right?). It may be that an image backup is much faster in your case, but I may be mistaken there.
Perhaps you should consider another backup-approach: if you have diskspace available, it might be feasable to backup the files to disk first (in a separate saveset per directory, for example)) and copy that onto tape. This disables direct restore, but will speed up writing the backup to tape.

[Burkart Beat]

@William

This is exactly the problem! The /image option is NOT available using the DP-Product. Not to mention, that OpenVMS System discs are not saved very properly (using of WRITEBOOT.EXE is needed)

So considering, that I must save these disks first to another disc is just out of discussion, because then I write my data directly to tape using OpenVMS Standard Backup and save time and money...!

If HP really want to sell this product there must be at least equal run times compared to the "free" product...

Beat

[Uwe Zessin]

If I remember, DP by default uses a rather small number of buffers. Can you try increasing the number of buffers?

DP can also multiplex the data from several disk agents, but if the input is a single disk or even a single directory I am afraid that won't work.

[Burkart Beat]

Attached you find a logfile! It describes exactly what the software is doing - be aware, the tape device is attached locally to the system...

[Burkart Beat]

Here another LOGFILE:

Showing the same disc to the same tape with the OpenVMS Backup (V7.3-1)

And it uses with /LOG enabled just 7 Minutes...

[Willem Grooters]

Given your logfile of DP it seems it will do the backup file-by-file. If just examining what files to backup takes about an hour and a half, I'm not surprised that writing to tape would use just one hour extra....

If image backup is no option, the only solution (using DP) seems to be to play with it's buffering - if possible. Otherwise, if you have to use DP for your backup, consider another approach. It may be more costly in terms of processing, but you could win (dramatically) in time creating the backup.

(A personal note: A backup product to be used on VMS would not just have at least about the same execution time, it should also use the standard available utilities and therefore faciliate VMS-specific strcutures. If your statement on the system disk is true, and usage of DP would require WRITEBOOT after backup, I have severe doubt on DP and I would drop the product immediately and completely, for usage on VMS systems)