NetWorker 7.6 SP1 is There!

  5 comments for “NetWorker 7.6 SP1 is There!”

1. Hi Mauricio,

   Heem, it sounds CSV is still not supported not in this version and will not be in 7.6 SP2, because I can see the same phrase in coming release notes of NetWorker 7.6 SP2!

   Even in the soon to be release version of NMM 2.3, the documentation state the following:
   —————————-
   Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 virtualization support
   NMM 2.3 is qualified with Hyper-V 2008 R2 virtualization. NMM 2.3 provides the same level of support for Hyper-V 2008 R2 as it did in previous release.

   To perform backup operation:
   – Hyper-V 2008 R2 must be enabled.
   – Child partitions (virtual machine) must be installed on Windows server 2008 R2.

   The recovery steps to recover Hyper-V 2008 R2 server are the same as the steps to recover a Hyper-V 2008 SP2 server.

   Note: NMM 2.3 does not support backup on Clustered Shared Volumes (CSV) enabled child partitions.
   —————————–

   That is really annoying….!

2. The Release Notes are contradictory on support for Cluster Shared Volumes in Hyper-V R2.
   While it is listed in the improvements in this version, when you click the index in the article, it will take you to this text:

   Note: The NetWorker client on Windows Server 2008 R2 will not support CSV. If Networker
   detects configured CSV, it does not back up the CSV, and displays the following message:
   ALERT: This release of NetWorker does not support the backup of Cluster Shared
   Volumes.The save_set_path directory and its contents will not be saved.
   Networker continues to backup the remaining files and directories.

   So where is the support for CSV?

3. hi,
   what should the NSR_SOCK_BUF_SIZE be on windows 2008 R2 client and NW server ?? should it be 1024 as env variable ??

   Also, do you recomend the following registry changes to windows 2008 R2 client and NW server

   Modify system registry to include following parameters:
   HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\

   TcpWindowSize:REG_DWORD=512K
   GlobalMaxWindowSize:REG_DWORD=512K
   Tcp1323Opts:REG_DWORD=1
   SackOpts:REG_DWORD=0.
   EnableRss:REG_DWORD=1.
   RssBaseCpu:REG_DWORD=1.
   MaxNumRssCpus:REG_DWORD=2.
   KeepAliveTime:REG_DWORD=3420000

   HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AFD\Parameters\FastSendDatagramThreshold:REG_DWORD=64K

   • Hi Donkarnash,
     Thank you for passing by.

     Well concerning this environment variable “NSR_SOCK_BUF_SIZE”. I think this is a good step from NetWorker developers side to be more flexible to the new change in SMB. At lease you are now able to scale the TCP window size on NetWorker level to comply with the TCP window size on OS level, which will result in a better backup performance. Hopefully it would lead to smaller Window Backup time.

     Sinds the release of Windows 2008 & Windows Vista, a new enhansments have been added to the old SMB version 1.0, also known as the Common Internet File System (CIFS).

     In the new version of SMB version 2.0, there has been many enhancements, like:

     – Supports sending multiple SMB commands within the same packet. This reduces the number of packets sent between an SMB client and server, a common complaint against SMB 1.0.
     – Supports much larger buffer sizes compared to SMB 1.0.
     – Increases the restrictive constants within the protocol design to allow for scalability. Examples include an increase in the number of concurrent open file handles on the server and the number of file shares that a server can have.
     – Supports durable handles that can withstand short interruptions in network availability.
     – Supports symbolic links.

     More information on: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726965.aspx

     On the other side the continuously increasing speed of NIC’s (1GB & 10GB), makes TCP scaling more applyable on operating systems. It gives also the capability of handeling bigger TCP packets. which result in carring more Data per TCP packet.

     Some useful information:
     http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1323.txt.
     TCP Receive Window Size and Window Scaling: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms819736.aspx.
     TCP Receive Window Size Calculation and Window Scaling: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa924893.aspx.
     TCP/IPv4 Configurable Registry Settings: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa922356.aspx.

     As a result of that all: More data is transmitted, less blocks fragmentation & reduced I/O overhead. but bear in mind that those settings consumes more RAM.

     Generally if you are going to tune the TCP Window size on your NetWorker Server to comply with your performance expectations, you must always start doing that on OS level, that is why those registry setting from EMC. (Well, actually it is a Microsoft setting to adjust the TCP Window Size).

     Sinds you are setting the “TCPWindowSize” to 512K, then it would be reasonable to set the variable “NSR_SOCK_BUF_SIZE” to 512K too. (the range of the buffer size setting is between 4K and 512K on the nsrmmd side).
     EMC recommends starting from the value 256K.

     Please see also the following EMC link:
     https://solutions.emc.com/emcsolutionview.asp?id=esg116651

     In the end environments varieties, so choosing the right setting would vary too.

4. Who else but me yet again. Yes, dedup is a fascinating feature but I’ll wait for a software dedup if that ever happens. few people, not including me can shell out bucks for a data domain box.

   * “Integration of Data Domain features and services in NetWorker”.

   * “AFTD changes to load balancing, device target session values, and intelligent space management”.

   This last item seems smart. I used to write a script to pin important stuff at the bottom of the DBO, like this:

   DEV priority 7
   PROD 6
   IMPORTANT 5
   …
   PIN 0

   When the DBO fills up, the high numbers get expired …the pinned stuff at the bottom of the bucket and probably be on disk for a while longer than others.

   * “New VSS writers for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7”.

   Yes, the “shadow volume” thing …..nice to have.

   * “Checkpoint restart backups”.

   Now this gets me hot.

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