Veritas NetBackup™ Appliance Capacity Planning and Performance Tuning Guide

What do you want to backup? - computer systems

The following questions provide the considerations to be made to backup computer systems.

Have you listed the Computer systems you need to backup?

Have you noted the host name of each computer system to be backed up?

Have you noted the operating system (and version) installed on each computer system?

Have you noted the details about the Network technology used to connect the computer systems?

Have you separately listed the computer systems connected to the network directly and the ones connected remotely?

Have you noted the location of the resources to be backed up?

Have you listed the total number of disks drives/tapes (and their model type) connected to each system?

Have you listed the applications installed on the computer system?

What do you want to backup? - Databases

The following questions provide the considerations to be made to backup databases.

Have you listed the Databases you need to backup?

Have you noted the host name of each database?

Have you noted the location of each database?

Have you noted the operating system (version) installed on the database?

Have you noted the details about the Network technology used to connect the database?

Have you noted the database types and what are their version numbers?

Have you noted the database engines and what are their version numbers?

Have you noted the method used to backup these databases?

Have you identified the databases that can be backed up while they are offline?

Have you identified, for each database, whether the entire database or the raw partitions need to be backed up?

What do you want to backup? - Application Servers

The following questions provide the considerations to be made to backup Application Servers.

Have you listed the Application servers you need to backup?

Have you noted the host name of each Application server?

Have you noted the server type and application release numbers of each Application server?

Have you noted the location of each server?

Have you noted the details about the Network technology used to connect the application server?

Have you identified the application server that can be backed up while they are offline?

Have you identified the method used to backup these application servers?

How much data do you want to back up?

The following questions provide the considerations to be made for calculating the amount of data to be backed up:

Have you computed the total disk space on each individual system?

Have you identified and added all the data types included in the backup?

Have you identified how compressible is the data that you want to backup?

Will the data be encrypted?

Have you added the space on mirrored disks only once?

Have you added the size of your database backups to your final calculations?

Have you identified the data protection requirements?

Have you added the requirements of the test-backup environment?

Have you added any resulting growth factor to your total backup solution?

Have you computed the amount of data you will need to backup in the next six months to a few years from now?

When should the backup take place?

The following questions provide all the considerations for planning a backup schedule:

Will you perform daily-incremental backups?

When will you perform a full backup? - Weekly

When will you perform a full backup? - Bi-weekly

When will you perform a full backup? - Monthly

Have you identified the number of jobs to be run per day?

Have you identified the window of time that is available to complete each backup?

Would you want to configure a deduplication solution to take backups?

Would you want to consider using the advanced NetBackup features such as synthetic backups, a local snapshot method, or FlashBackup?

Do you plan to run an Off-site backup?

Do you plan to run a Local backup?

Have you identified the total number of local computer systems to be backed up?

Have you identified the total number of remote computer systems to be backed up?

Do you plan to backup any computer system over a network?

Do you want to allow the users to run the backups and restores for their computer systems?

Have you identified the policy for backup expiration?

What is the retention period?

The following questions provide the considerations to be made when estimating the retention period:

What are the standards specific to your organization for creating a retention policy?

Have you identified the projects requirement to retain the data?

Have you identified the user-specific requirements on retaining data?

Are their users who want to retain specific data for a longer period?

Have you identified the business requirements specific to define the retention period?

Have you considered the regulatory or the legal department laid requirements to retain the data?

Have you calculated the size of your NetBackup image database?

Designing your backup system - buying a new Media server appliance

The following questions provide the considerations you need to make for purchasing a NetBackup 52xx media server appliance:

Which is the Deduplication you want for the media server appliance? - File System

Which is the Deduplication you want for the media server appliance? - VMware

Which is the Deduplication you want for the media server appliance? - SQL

Which is the Deduplication you want for the media server appliance? - Exchange

Which is the Deduplication you want for the media server appliance? - Oracle

What is the deduplication rates in percentage(%) applicable for Initial Full backups?

What is the deduplication rates in percentage(%) applicable for Daily backups?

What is the deduplication rates in percentage(%) applicable for Additional Full backups?

How often are full backups taken? - Weekly

How often are full backups taken? - Monthly

Have you identified the number of incremental backups run per day?

Have you estimated the data growth with each increment (%)?

Have you estimated the Full backups to be taken per year?

How long is the data retained? - Years

Have you estimated the amount(MB) of Daily full backup to Advance Disk?

Have you estimated the amount(MB) of Daily Incremental to AdvancedDisk?

Have you identified the Retention Period (Days) for the AdvancedDisk?

Have you identified the approximate yearly growth (%) for the AdvancedDisk usage?

Have you estimated the Time Span (years) for the AdvancedDisk usage?

For each deduplication use case, the following questions help to identify the Network parameters:

Do you require SAN Transport connectivity for the media server?

Do you required Fibre Channel connectivity for the media server?

Do you require 2 Fibre Channel ports?

Do you require 6 Fibre Channel ports?

What is the estimated High ethernet throughput peak?

What is the estimated Low ethernet throughput peak?

Designing your backup system - buying a new primary server appliance

The following questions provide the considerations you need to make for purchasing a NetBackup 52xx primary server appliance:

Have you identified the total number of clients to be connected to the Primary Server?

How you identified the estimated data to be incrementally backed up in full (%)?

Have you identified the total number of full backups the Primary Server would take per Month?

Have you identified the retention period for a full backup?

Have you identified the total number of incremental backups the Primary Server will take per Month?

Have you estimated the approximate Total Number of files to be backed up?

Have you identified the Average File Size (KB) to be backed up?

Have you identified the total disk space used on all servers in the domain?