HP Data Protector Software Performance White Paper

Test data

In the following proof points, two different types of file systems and one Microsoft Exchange

Server 2003 were created, so that the results shown are realistically achievable in similar

situations:

1. Typical file server data with fewer files and a broad range of size (KB/MB)

2. Problematic file server data with millions of small files

3. Typical Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 data

Data creation tools

All test data was created using the following public tools:

• HP L&TT version 4.2 SR1a

• HP HPCreateData version 1.2.3

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Load Simulator (LoadSim 2003)

The datasets were developed using the following utilities:

• HPCreateData for Windows

• L&TT for HP-UX

HPCreateData for HP-UX was not used because it is only available as a CLI and cannot create

more than one directory. All files would be created in a single directory, which does not

correspond to what occurs in real file server environments.

HPCreateData and L&TT generated different file sizes with different data contents (fixed,

random, up to 4:1 compression ratio) and different distribution (file-based, MB-based). All

created files had names with a maximum of 16 characters to avoid corner cases.

HPCreateData and L&TT are downloadable from http://www.hp.com/support/pat

LoadSim 2003 was used for creating the Exchange test data. Before it was used, the Exchange

organization had been prepared with the Exchange System Manager. For optimal performance,

all databases files were moved to separate disk volumes. When data is read or written, the

storage system should not become a bottleneck for the test.

LoadSim 2003 is downloadable from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=27882