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

and services that require faster backup and recovery, consider SAN-based backup made directly to

tape devices on the SAN, Zero Downtime Backup (ZDB) solutions, and other possible methods

available from HP.

In particular, ZDB adds more flexibility to your enterprise data-center backup strategy and can help

satisfy the needs of the most demanding of applications environments and services by fully offloading

the backup overhead and data contention from your production environment. You can use rx3600

and rx6600 Integrity servers for ZDB solutions. For additional information about Data Protector’s

Zero Downtime Backup solutions, see the “Zero Downtime Backup Concepts Guide”:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01631247/c01631247.pdf

For more details about this and other strategies and tools for mission-critical, high-demand

application environments, contact your HP sales representative.

Summary of test results

This backup server characterization effort tested the performance of the rx3600 and rx6600 Integrity

servers as backup servers, running HP-UX 11i v3 and using the HP Data Protector backup utility along

with the most commonly deployed datacenter technologies. Various configurations were tested to

determine potential stress points and limits to throughput and to develop an optimal backup strategy.

Tests also determined optimal tuning practices for the backup server, OS, and backup utility.

The base configuration and test environment for the characterization effort was a single backup server

with four LT0-4 tape drives, and eight client systems providing the backup/restore data over a 1GBE-

based private network.

For client data storage, no significant performance difference was observed for either backup or

restore operations when using SAS or SAN connected storage.

Most noteworthy, tests demonstrated that the rx3600 and rx6600 Integrity servers perform superbly

for network backup and restore operations. With four LT0-4 tape devices for backup, and exploiting

the advantages of the HP-UX 11i v3 operating system, the rx3600 delivers 517 MB/s or 1.77 TB/hr

of network backup throughput, while the rx6600 delivers 643 MB/s or 2.2 TB/hr. Using two

rx3600 servers yields a fantastic total network backup throughput of 1034 MB/s or over 3.5 TB/hr,

much more throughput than a single rx6600 server with almost the same rack space footprint.

The rx3600 Integrity servers have about half the processors and memory of the rx6600, but with one

tape device, the rx3600 backup server performance was equivalent to that of the rx6600. With the

other tested configurations (two, three, and four devices), the rx3600 backup server performance was

comparable to that of the rx6600. The advantage of the rx6600 is additional CPU power that

enables scalability to service a larger client base or to host additional mission-critical services.

Table 2 provides a summary of other significant test results.