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
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
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
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
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
RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise
RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise
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
Hope that helps.
RE: Arcserve taking too long to backup Groupwise
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
- 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