×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS

Contact US

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you a
Computer / IT professional?
Join Tek-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!

*Tek-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

(OP)
We have a Groupwise server which gets backed up nightly from a Novell Arcserve application. Numerous support documents have been read and we have tried to apply all solutions found. It stills sits in there more than 10 hours every day - even after latest service pack was applied and everything.

Has anybody tried to tweak GW (or Arcserve, for that matter) and would like to share a positive experience with the backup problem?

-sam

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

sam -

How many users are you backing up?  Are you using the compare and/or verify feature with each backup?  Are you running a full backup each night?  Have you tried to update the backup drives' drivers?

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

These set parameters are for GroupWise servers but we have seen some great results on other applications as well. We have used these on Novell 4.x and 5.0 servers. Our ARCServe backup times (with a full compare) were cut dramatically on several servers where we put these in place.

Startup.NCF
SET Directory Cache Allocation Wait Time = 0.5
SET Directory Cache Buffer NonReferenced Delay = 30
SET Dirty Disk Cache Delay Time = 0.5
SET Maximum Concurrent Directory Cache Writes = 100
SET Maximum Concurrent Disk Cache Writes = 500
SET Maximum Directory Cache Buffers = 4800
SET Maximum File Locks = 20000
SET Maximum Packet Receive Buffers = 4500
SET Maximum Record Locks = 100000
SET Minimum Directory Cache Buffers = 4500
SET Read Ahead LRU Sitting Time Threshold = 60

Autoexec.NCF
set Maximum Outstanding NCP Searches=150
SET Maximum Service Processes = 1000
SET Minimum Service Processes = 110
SET New Service Process Wait Time = 0.3

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

(OP)
In response to the question on the number of users and such: We have a network of about 250 users. And yes, we do a full backup nightly.

The problem with the parameters change on the server is that it worked for a while. We upgraded Arcserve and after latest patch was applied we were back to the 10 hour idle problem. We do verify, but the verification is suppossed to take place after all backups are done. It does SERVER pretty fast - It's Groupwise the one that obviously stalls because of the large amount of files. And yes: I know what you are thinking, and we checked the directories for excessive file fragmentation.

This seem to be a throughput problem. What worked before didn't seem to work now. However, I read a support document in which the changes you recommend are mentioned. But it warns you it can cause serious memory shortage while running. I will have to test it on a weekend to see if it will not crash me while live. We have had crashes on this Groupwise server before - the usually occur early in the morning when all users start logging in to their e-mail.

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

Is GroupWise running on a separate server or on your main file & print server? We have run the server parameters in a number of environments (3-8 LANs, 25-200+ users) without server problems.

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

(OP)
Groupwise is a separate server. Arcserve backs it up from our main file and print server, which I called SERVER above (it's the name in our tree too). We thought in the beginning this would be a through[ut problem in the main server, but the crashes suggest it's the Groupwise server the one which needs tune up.

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

(OP)
We saw great improvements playing with the parameters suggested above - Thanks. BUT the server is crashing every morning around 4:30 to 6:00 A.M. - now AFTER the backup gets done.

It's not crystal clear obvious to us why this is happening. The performance improvements do not seem directly related - if anything we see the crashes happening more often now.

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

Are you using any backup agents on the GroupWise Server?  ie: Arcserve Push agent or open file backup agent.  The open file agent is really the key, it improved our backup time by several hours.  I use both agents but if I could only have one it would be the open file agent.

Hope that helps.

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

(OP)
We have the Push Agent. If by the open file agent you are referring to that Groupwise agent they have now - we don't haVE IT.

Anyway the backup issue has become a server issue now. A total length of about 4 hours like we have now is really an improvement for us. The problem now seems to deal with Groupwise server going down at some unspecified time at night. It hardly goes down during the day now - which I cannot explain - but usually after 12:00 a.m. or after 4:00 a.m. We are also trying to deal with an ARCSERVE.DB corruption message we get on the nightly Arcserve log.

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

We have ARcserveIT 6.6 backing up our GW55 server, and it was slow till we added the CA Backup Agent for GroupWise (open file agent). This type of agent must be used:

- to ensure even busy  files are backed up
- to impove backup performance
- to ensure server stability during backup

GW store many files, but the directory structure is such that messags, documents etc are stroed across 255 sub directories, ensuring access time by users or agents is not impaired.

RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise

I have seen this A LOT.... using switches (instead of Hubs).  If you are connecting the server to a switch, try setting the duplex on both the server and the hub to 'half duplex'.  I'll bet that speeds up the backup.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Tek-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Tek-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Tek-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Tek-Tips and talk with other members! Already a Member? Login

Close Box

Join Tek-Tips® Today!

Join your peers on the Internet's largest technical computer professional community.
It's easy to join and it's free.

Here's Why Members Love Tek-Tips Forums:

Register now while it's still free!

Already a member? Close this window and log in.

Join Us             Close