How to achieve over 2 TB/hr network backup with Integrity entry-class servers running HP-UX 11i v3

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Figure 10: Footprint of two rx3600s vs one rx6600
The smaller, yet very powerful rx3600 has a height of 4U EIA (Electronic Industries Association) units,
while the rx6600 has a height of 7U. As shown in Table 1, the rx3600 delivers an amazing 517
MB/s (or 1.77 TB/hr) of network backup throughput with four LTO-4 tape drives. In contrast, the
rx6600 can deliver 643 MB/s (or 2.2 TB/hr) of network backup throughput. It still has the processing
power and system resources to scale further or to perform additional business-critical services.
Table 1: Comparing rx3600 and rx6600 performance
Backup
Server
Model
CPUs Memory Server
Height
Network Backup
Throughput
Network Backup
Throughput
Integrity
rx3600
2 dual-core
9140M
processors
16 GB
DDR2
4U EIA
units
517 MB/s 1.77TB/hr
Integrity
rx6600
4 dual-core
9140N
processors
32 GB
DDR2
7U EIA
units
643 MB/s 2.2TB/hr
For those concerned with footprint space in the data center, consider using two rx3600 servers
running HP-UX 11i v3. Two rx3600 servers require a total height of 8U (EIA units)—only 1U EIA unit
more than the height of a single rx6600. The dual-rx3600 configuration yields a remarkable total
network backup throughput of 1034 MB/s (or over 3.5 TB/hr) compared to the single rx6600
server’s 643 MB/s (or 2.2 TB/hr) throughput for about the same footprint. In addition, when the two
rx3600 servers are configured as part of an HP Serviceguard cluster, they can provide highly-
available data protection services.
Optimizing for mission-critical applications and high-demand
environments
Network-based backup using a backup server is only one of many possible backup/recovery methods
to consider as you formulate your overall data center backup and recovery strategy. For applications