TSM and IDS - Any suggestions for best performance?
We are in the planning phases of a Tivoli Storage Manager backup solution implementation for our enterprise to include IDS, SQL Server, MySQL, mail and a collection of other client files here and there. Anyone have any suggestions or pitfalls to avoid that can help make this implementation a success? I'm mostly concerned with the IDS piece where we'll take level 0 archives each night and continuously backup the logical logs to match our current backup solution. Production restores will not be needed that often (knock on wood, I know the db gods shall make me pay dearly for that comment). Critical systems have an HDR pair and we would need to experience a double HDR pair failure before we would need to restore a production backup to a production system. We will be restoring production environments to test systems regularly and using table level restore to recover from data loss caused by user error. There will be a dedicated RAID device (not SAN) attached to the TSM server for our Disk Storage Pool and a fancy pants tape library with 2 tape drives attached to the server for our Tape Storage Pool. The TSM database and recovery log will be on separate spindles from each other and the Disk Storage Pool. The TSM server will hold backups for 8 IDS instances (and the other things mentioned before). Some questions that I don't know the answer to, mostly related to storage pool configuration: 1. Backup IDS directly to the tape storage pool or backup to disk and have TSM migrate to storage in the background? 2. Same as #1 but for logical logs 3. Create separate storage pools for IDS to keep everyone else's junk away from my precious backups and keep all of my IDS data on the same tapes to improve restore performance? 4. Same as #3 but create separate storage pools for each instance 5. Level 0 archives and logical log backups in the same storage pool or separate storage pools? 6. RAID level for Disk storage pool? RAID5, right? Thanks in advance for any suggestions you have, Andrew
These are all just my opinion, right? "Andrew Ford" <aford@networkip.net> wrote in message news:mailman.105.1180990147.13675.informix-list@iiug.org... > 1. Backup IDS directly to the tape storage pool or backup to disk and > have TSM migrate to storage in the background? Most systems we design these days don't rely for primary restore from an IDS back up at all, but a SAN copy. > 2. Same as #1 but for logical logs For 1 and 2 my preference would be to back up to disk first, because if you really think you're ever going to need to restore you'll be better off restoring from disk. You need to script the log rollforwrd from multiple logs though. And you do lose the flexibility of having the whereabouts of your archive/logs directly recodred in the storage manager catalogue. > 3. Create separate storage pools for IDS to keep everyone else's junk > away from my precious backups and keep all of my IDS data on the same > tapes to improve restore performance? Well, a decent storage manager, even TSM, will keep others' junk away from your stuff. If performance is a consideration you might keep the Informix archive archves physically separate from the logical logs, but the interspersion of a few file systems between IDS archives is unlikely to make much difference. > 4. Same as #3 but create separate storage pools for each instance This might make sense if the instances have different retention periods or offsite vaulting requirements. Otherwise, why bother? > 5. Level 0 archives and logical log backups in the same storage pool or > separate storage pools? Separate. > 6. RAID level for Disk storage pool? RAID5, right? Sure.
On Jun 4, 10:49 pm, "Andrew Ford" <a...@networkip.net> wrote: > We are in the planning phases of a Tivoli Storage Manager backup solution > implementation for our enterprise to include IDS, SQL Server, MySQL, mail > and a collection of other client files here and there. > > Anyone have any suggestions or pitfalls to avoid that can help make this > implementation a success? > > I'm mostly concerned with the IDS piece where we'll take level 0 archives > each night and continuously backup the logical logs to match our current > backup solution. > > Production restores will not be needed that often (knock on wood, I know the > db gods shall make me pay dearly for that comment). Critical systems have > an HDR pair and we would need to experience a double HDR pair failure before > we would need to restore a production backup to a production system. We > will be restoring production environments to test systems regularly and > using table level restore to recover from data loss caused by user error. > > There will be a dedicated RAID device (not SAN) attached to the TSM server > for our Disk Storage Pool and a fancy pants tape library with 2 tape drives > attached to the server for our Tape Storage Pool. The TSM database and > recovery log will be on separate spindles from each other and the Disk > Storage Pool. > > The TSM server will hold backups for 8 IDS instances (and the other things > mentioned before). > > Some questions that I don't know the answer to, mostly related to storage > pool configuration: > > 1. Backup IDS directly to the tape storage pool or backup to disk and have > TSM migrate to storage in the background? > 2. Same as #1 but for logical logs > 3. Create separate storage pools for IDS to keep everyone else's junk away > from my precious backups and keep all of my IDS data on the same tapes to > improve restore performance? > 4. Same as #3 but create separate storage pools for each instance > 5. Level 0 archives and logical log backups in the same storage pool or > separate storage pools? > 6. RAID level for Disk storage pool? RAID5, right? > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions you have, > > Andrew Andrew, Here is my $0.02: 1 & 2. It is easier to restore from disk. It may also be handy to have some backups on disk for purposes such as making offsite copies. TSM can make offline set also, but it will last longer and make large load on backup server. 6. Depending on that RAID box you have, you may consider RAID 3 also, for example in 4+1 or 8+1 configuration. It should provide very good performance for such purposes as backup. Some guys (including EMC with respect to CLARiiON) recommend it for applications like backup or rich media. Probably RAID 5 would behave similarly to RAID 3, since with backup operations (large sequential operations) write penalty should be avoided. IMHO, TSM is good product, but fairly different from EMC/Legato Networker and ISM (which is a kind of stripped-down version of Networker, right?). Darko Krstic