Skipping a Client

2001-01-17 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

I wish there were a way to skip over a client that begins having
troubles after a backup has begun.  I have a client machine that
sometimes stops responding while a backup of it is running (wish I
could fix it, but it's not my machine!).  At that point, my backup
script stops and doesn't advance.  I get no error message (contact
with the client isn't lost, it just stops for some reason).  There is
no way for me to tell Retrospect to skip that client and continue the
backup without going to the client and turning it off from there.
Could there be both and automated and a manual way to skip the
problematic client in cases like this?

An automated way could be to say something like "Don't allow this
particular client to take more than 120 minutes during a Normal backup
and 4 hours during a New or Recycle backup." and skip it after that
period.

   ...Doug



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RE: Holding disk (feature request)

2001-01-04 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

Perhaps the process could queue the files in 650MB (or whatever) size
chunks which could then be copied to tape as soon as the first one on
the disk is complete.  If the tape drive ran faster than the system
could fetch the data from the clients, you could simply increase the
number of backup processes writing to the holding area.

My tape drives can write data faster than I can get it from the
network if the files are small (in fact, I often see reduced tape
capacities because of all of the small files).  If they're large
files, tape speed is probably the bottleneck.  I have seen nearly
200MB/min on a switched 100MB connection with my drives (OnStream
ADR50).

I still think it would be great to be able to get the client machines
to do the catalog compares and snapshot creations in parallel and just
have the server fetch the data and write it to tape.

As for disk space concerns, I purchased a 40GB 7200 RPM Ultra 100
drive yesterday for $177.  I wouldn't use IDE drives for network
storage, but as a buffer, I think it would work fine.

   ...Doug

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf
Of matt barkdull
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 5:36 PM
To: retro-talk
Subject: Re: Holding disk (feature request)


>Just a thought, when does it get time to copy to tape, this seems
>good in theory but I guess it could only be efficient if you can run
>multiple backup sessions in parallel. I'm not sure about the problem
>with speed, I think tape drives can keep up with network speeds
>though I can't tell you that for certain.
>
>I do like the idea of the hard drive taking over as a fail over,
>"the backup must go on".


This might work well for clients with small amounts of data, but just
imagine trying to keep more disk space than your clients on the
server.

Didn't we just go through a discussion on file sizes?  So if you do a
backup to file, there is a limitation of 2GB(?) of that file.  If
they break that barrier, then the rest of the stuff is fairly easy I
would think.



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RE: Anyone used Retrospect on medium-large systems?

2000-12-31 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

Medium here.

4 OnStream ADR 50GB drives on one backup machine (700MHz Windows 2000
Pro) backing up 4 servers (Win NT & 2000 around 100GB) and 15
workstations (Win 98 & 2000 about 20GB).  "New tape" backups run on
Friday and "normal" backups run Sun-Thu.  Friday night's backup
currently takes around 30 hours and the others take around 10.  I
really hope that Dantz is working on some possibilities that could
shrink that window somewhat by using all of the drive simultaneously
so I won't have to resort to splitting the drives out into two (or
more) separate systems.

This is not even half of what you mentioned, but hopefully it gives
you a better feel for things...

   ...Doug

   Douglas B. McKay
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Data Mgt Group
   http://www.datamgt.com

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf
Of ian
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2000 4:26 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Anyone used Retrospect on medium-large systems?


I've used Retrospect on my home network (two PCs and a Mac) for nearly
a
year and it is exactly right for my needs.

I am also responsible for  my company's IT environment. We use
ArcServe
for the backup software - the server running on a Windows NT server, a
Dell PowerVault twin-drive 30-tape library and the ArcServe agent
running on each of a dozen or so NT servers. I don't find ArcServe
particularly usable or flexible, so I am thinking of looking at
alternatives. I would also like to (although we don't do this now)
have
an arrangement to back up the laptop users (about 30 or so) who tend
to
store a lot of data on local machines.
Data volumes are around 250 GB for personal data and another 35 GB or
so
for Notes databases. Due to the way Notes mail works, a fair
proportion
of that 35 GB turns over each day.

So... the question is, since I am planning to look at the market for
backup software for bigger systems, would it be reasonable for me to
include Retrospect in the candidate list? Is anyone on the list
backing
up systems on this scale?

Any advice welcome.


Ian.


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RE: How Long does this take for you? (long)

2000-12-05 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

Since this comparing is one of the keys to Retrospect's ease of use
(something I wouldn't want to give up), I hope you are considering
ways to make it faster.  I'm only going to be wanting to back up more
clients with more files (most likely a lot of small ones rather than a
few big ones) in the future.  Let's see, with my 15 clients (some with
>1 volume), and 6 backups a week (one "full" and 5 "normal"), I get
over 100 sessions before I move to a new set.  Even on the first
"normal," the times seem rather long for the cataloging processes
(almost double the first night, but only slightly longer subsequent
nights).  Here are the totals from last week's backups (I do a New
Media backup every Friday night).

Fri  Total duration: 1 05:03:16 (05:13:13 idle/loading/preparing)
Sun  Total duration: 10:24:51 (10:02:29 idle/loading/preparing)
Mon  Total duration: 10:59:40 (10:23:30 idle/loading/preparing)
Tue  Total duration: 11:55:39 (10:50:05 idle/loading/preparing)
Wed  Total duration: 11:50:30 (10:47:08 idle/loading/preparing)
Thu  Total duration: 11:37:20 (10:40:56 idle/loading/preparing)

As you mentioned, I don't think upgrading/adding hardware is a good
option.  I'm already running my backups on a 700 MHz machine with
256MB of RAM (and on a dual 600 before that it wasn't any different).
Splitting the clients up into groups defeats one my goals of having
backups be EASY to maintain.

How about when the backup process starts at the scheduled time, you
let the clients get the catalog information from the server, and set
them on their way to do the processing/comparing/etc. and then tell
the server "Hey, I'm ready to send some data."  Then the server could
concentrate (mostly) on writing data to tape (or other media) while
the CPU intensive stuff happens at the workstations.

   ...Doug

-Original Message-
From: Eric Ullman
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 10:05 AM


This matching process can take some time. It's dependent upon the
total
number of files in those sessions and the speed of the backup
computer. At a
certain point, the scanning and matching process will take longer than
actually copying the files to the backup set. Scanning and matching
performance is dependent on the total number of files; copy
performance is
dependent on the amount of data being moved.




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RE: How Long does this take for you?

2000-12-05 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

Ben,

It is a limit with one volume.  Having more files than that across
multiple volumes (as we currently do) is not a problem.

   ...Doug

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf
Of Ben Eastwood
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 11:01 AM
To: retro-talk
Subject: RE: How Long does this take for you?




Hmmm, I wasn't aware of the half million file limit... that is a
_major_
concern for me as I am backing up lots of html files and the like. Is
is a
half million files from one source? What are the details of this
problem?
Also, how soon are we going to see a fix for this? Anyone from Dantz
care
to comment on that?
--Ben





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RE: How Long does this take for you?

2000-12-04 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

Ben,

I have found that Retrospect spends most of its time in my nightly
backups processing files and catalogs, not actually backing up data.
I have 15 clients which are backed up by Retrospect from a machine
with 4 OnStream ADR 50  drives.  The full backups on the weekend take
about 26 hours (~120GB).  Nightly backups take almost 12 hours
(usually less than 5GB).

Be careful about the half-million file limit.  If you get around
500,000 files, Retrospect has a problem with memory and dies.  Dantz
knows about the issue and is working on ways to eliminate the memory
problem (at least that's what I was told several months ago).

Anyway, the bottom line is that what you are experiencing has been my
experience as well (long periods "building" catalogs and things).

It sure would be nice if my backup time could shrink and allow the
file copying to take place at full speed, but perhaps have the catalog
processing, etc. take place separately (perhaps on the client using
its CPU! - my backups happen after hours).

   ...Doug

   Douglas B. McKay
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Data Mgt Group
   http://www.datamgt.com

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf
Of Ben Eastwood
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 5:30 PM
To: retro-talk
Subject: Re: How Long does this take for you?




More on this:
Retrospect is still "building snapshot" and appears to be hogging
about
95-99% CPU, but not stuck, really because it varies... I also notice
that
taskman reports memory usage of 86716K, which seems like a lot on a
machine
with 196 MB of RAM where the System takes up only 6364K... Any hints?

Thanks
--Ben




"Ben Eastwood" <"Ben_Eastwood/HMG/Wilson_Learning/US"@wlcmail.com> on
12/04/2000 04:12:40 PM

Please respond to "retro-talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
cc:(bcc: Ben Eastwood/HMG/Wilson Learning/US)
Subject:  How Long does this take for you?



I have questions for y'all:

When running a backup operation of a LOCAL disk (RAID 5 Array,
actually)to
a DLT7000 drive, I noticed that the Performance reported varied
widely,
from a high of 450MB/min to a low of 13 MB/min, and the "Time
Remaining"
would jump around pretty much based on this. Is that normal? The
folder I
backed up had over 36 GB in it, mostly little files. In fact there
were
over 300,000 files in about 10,000 folders, if that matters. Also the
"Scanning" before the backup took a long time.

The actual backup took about 6 hours, and then it went into "Updating
catalog" for about 45 minutes and then on to "building snapshot,"
where it
is now. During these last two sections, it has said "time remaining
00:00:00," but it's not really done... and the progress bar is only
about
halfway across. Is that any real indication of how much time I have
left?

comments appreciated

--ben



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RE: Retrospect 5.15 for Windows (Was: Re: What's new in the5.1.5 PC client?)

2000-10-17 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

Sounds good.  What about the changes regarding OnStream drives - were you
just referring to support for some of the newer ones (I have ADR50 drives)?

   Thanx!
   ...Doug

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf
Of Eric Ullman
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 9:45 AM
To: retro-talk
Subject: Re: Retrospect 5.15 for Windows (Was: Re: What's new in the
5.1.5 PC client?)


Douglas B. McKay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Since I have Retrospect running on a fast (2 way SMP 650 MHz) machine
> running Windows 2000 with 3 OnStream tape drives backing up many W2K
> clients, it sounds like I should upgrade.  BUT, it's been running great!
> Before I decide whether or not to update our server, can you say what
> specifically has been fixed relating to the above configuration?

With Windows 2000 clients, the client service would not start on some
computers running at 667 MHz and higher. This was only with the Retrospect
Client software, not the host application (Desktop/Workgroup/Server).

Eric Ullman
Dantz Development



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RE: Retrospect 5.15 for Windows (Was: Re: What's new in the 5.1.5PC client?)

2000-10-16 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

Since I have Retrospect running on a fast (2 way SMP 650 MHz) machine
running Windows 2000 with 3 OnStream tape drives backing up many W2K
clients, it sounds like I should upgrade.  BUT, it's been running great!
Before I decide whether or not to update our server, can you say what
specifically has been fixed relating to the above configuration?

   ...Doug

   Douglas B. McKay
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Data Mgt Group
   http://www.datamgt.com



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RE: VXA drive (was DDS-3 vs DDS-4?)

2000-08-02 Thread Douglas B. McKay 

May I add one other drive to this list?  What does anyone here think of this
drive from OnStream (http://www.onstream.com)?  Other than having a few
(three in one machine), I have no connection to OnStream.  They seem to work
well, I just hadn't seen much mention here in the time I've been lurking...

   ...Doug
OnStream
ADR50 : 25GB,   2MB/s,  $700 ($50 media)

Exabyte M2: 60GB,  12MB/s, $3777 ($80 media)
Sony AIT-2: 50GB,   6MB/s, $3289 ($94 media)
DLT 8000  : 40GB,   6MB/s, $3915 ($64 media)
Sony AIT-1: 35GB,   3MB/s, $1913 ($88 media)
VXA-1 : 33GB,   3MB/s,  $939 ($67 media)
DDS-4 : 20GB,   3MB/s, $1072 ($33 media)
Mammoth   : 20GB,   3MB/s, $2126 ($56 media)
DLT 4000  : 20GB, 1.5MB/s, $1352 ($64 media)
Mammoth-LT: 14GB,   2MB/s, $1193 ($35 media)
DDS-3 : 12GB,   1MB/s,  $777 ($16 media)
Eliant 820:  7GB,   1MB/s, $1160 ( $8 media)
DDS-2 :  4GB, .51MB/s,  $606 ( $7 media)

-Native capacity listed, compressed capacity is typically 50% more
-Sustained transfer rate listed
-Cost is based on internal model with wide SCSI connector (if available)

-VXA-1 tape drive is even cheaper through Ecrix July promo ($539)
-Media listed is highest capacity format in single packs
---




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