mirror activator destination be used for backups and recovery?

[Dan]

We have the following with ASE 15...


Current Backup Path: SAN ------ 2GbsFC------Sun(ASE 12) ---
DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS2
New Backup Path: Netapp --- 1GbsNFS --- Sun(ASE 15) ----
DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS2

Backup dumps in new environment max out the 1Gbit (Netapp) link in the new
environtment and is slower (by about 20 minues) than the old environment...
Backing up about ~100GB

So we are looking for new backup solutions... NFS over the 1Gbit link works
great for everything except dump (sequential read IO) which is about 20-30%
slower....

We are looking to put 10gbe links which hopefully should solve the issue,
however we also are looking for other ideas...

Would the following work. This basically this would offload all the backup
to a secondary server... It could also server as a HA server?

Netapp --- 1GbsNFS --- Sun(ASE 15) ---> replication/mirror
ctivator -----> Sun(ASE 12) ---4GBFC---SAN/SSD ---- DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS


Basically, can the mirror activator destination be used for backups? If so,
would our sybase dba's have issues with this configuration?

[Mark A. Parsons]

Post by Dan
Netapp --- 1GbsNFS --- Sun(ASE 15) ---> replication/mirror
ctivator -----> Sun(ASE 12) ---4GBFC---SAN/SSD ---- DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS
Basically, can the mirror activator destination be used for backups? If so,
would our sybase dba's have issues with this configuration?

Technically this is doable.

Business-wise ... *shrug* ... it's your call.

What happens if the replicate db goes down ... you're now left without a backup solution for the primary database.

What do you plan on using for the mirrored log (ie, the device that mirror activator reads from)? a local or
network-based disk?

Are you going to make sure the mirrored device is run in synchronous mode with the primary log device? and if so, will
the network hop from the primary device to the mirror device be fast enough that you won't notice any unwanted
performance degradation in log writes to disk (ie, the primary and mirror devices would have to complete the disk write
before control is returned to Sybase)?

Do you have repserver experience in house?

Do you have mirror activator experience in house?

How about switching the ASE 15 instance to run off the 4GBFC/SAN/SSD, ie, switch the disks on the ASE 12 and ASE 15
instances?

Personally, the repserver/mirror-activator solution sounds like overkill (price-wise, component-wise, support-wise,
headache-wise) if all it takes is a (relatively) quick upgrade of the connection between the ASE 15 instance and its
disk subsystem.

[Dan]

Thanks for the info! responses below...

Post by Mark A. Parsons

Post by Dan
Netapp --- 1GbsNFS --- Sun(ASE 15) ---> replication/mirror
tivator -----> Sun(ASE 12) ---4GBFC---SAN/SSD ---- DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS
Basically, can the mirror activator destination be used for backups? If
so, would our sybase dba's have issues with this configuration?

Technically this is doable.
Business-wise ... *shrug* ... it's your call.
What happens if the replicate db goes down ... you're now left without a
backup solution for the primary database.

Right now if our primary goes down, we are down until a restore is done...
hours...

Post by Mark A. Parsons
What do you plan on using for the mirrored log (ie, the device that mirror
activator reads from)? a local or network-based disk?

Haven't got this far in the thought process yet...

Post by Mark A. Parsons
Are you going to make sure the mirrored device is run in synchronous mode
with the primary log device? and if so, will the network hop from the
primary device to the mirror device be fast enough that you won't notice
any unwanted performance degradation in log writes to disk (ie, the
primary and mirror devices would have to complete the disk write before
control is returned to Sybase)?
Do you have repserver experience in house?

yes

Post by Mark A. Parsons
Do you have mirror activator experience in house?

not yet...

Post by Mark A. Parsons
How about switching the ASE 15 instance to run off the 4GBFC/SAN/SSD, ie,
switch the disks on the ASE 12 and ASE 15 instances?

FC = significant increase in complexity and decrease in flexibility over NFS
and only slight gain in backup performance. Also with large RAM caches,
almost a no increase in transactional performance.

Post by Mark A. Parsons
Personally, the repserver/mirror-activator solution sounds like overkill
(price-wise, component-wise, support-wise, headache-wise) if all it takes
is a (relatively) quick upgrade of the connection between the ASE 15
instance and its disk subsystem.

You may be right, mirror-activator on paper sounds good but we don't have
any experience on it yet... I was hoping someone here has some production
experience...

[Peter Collard]

Post by Dan
Current Backup Path: SAN ------ 2GbsFC------Sun(ASE 12) ---
DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS2
New Backup Path: Netapp --- 1GbsNFS --- Sun(ASE 15) ----
DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS2

Have you tried increasing the number of stripes to see if you can reduce
latency losses with the NFS.

[Dan]

Yes, tried just about every dump option... We've come to the conclusion
that the bottleneck is either latency and/or 1gbit link. We are upgrading
to 10gbit between the server and the filers and we should have the results
shortly....

But it sure would be nice to have another method that offloaded the backups
from the primary disks...

Post by Peter Collard

Post by Dan
Current Backup Path: SAN ------ 2GbsFC------Sun(ASE 12) ---
DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS2
New Backup Path: Netapp --- 1GbsNFS --- Sun(ASE 15) ----
DUMP---1GBE ---- NAS2

Have you tried increasing the number of stripes to see if you can reduce
latency losses with the NFS.