Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
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pmaa
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Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by pmaa »

I've learned that vSphere 6.5 now enforces NBDSSL for network mode. From what I've read, on previous versions you could expect at least about 25 MB/s in network mode on gigabit ethernet and maybe more with tuning.

I'm getting 5 MB/s with vSphere 6.5. Is this the new normal or should I expect a bit more?
DGrinev
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by DGrinev »

Hi pmaa and welcome to the community!

Can you share the bottleneck stats of the job, that should help to understand the cause of the slow performance. Thanks!
pmaa
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by pmaa »

Hi DGrinev,

Bottleneck is source 99% and also target is 98%. Proxy and network are very low with only a few %.

I tested setting up the VMwareNBDCompressionLevel registry key with value 3 and the processing rate went up to 6 MB/s with peaks of 9 and 11 MB/s. Now the bottleneck is target 99%, source 34%, proxy 11% and network 4%.

Edit: This is a replication job between local hosts.
pmaa
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by pmaa »

Another replication job using VMwareNBDCompressionLevel of 3 is now running with processing rate of 7 MB/s. Bottleneck stats are: Source 7%, Proxy 9%, Network 0%, Target 49%. So with this one it definitely seems that the infrastructure is keeping up easily but perhaps NBDSSL is the bottleneck.
DGrinev
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by DGrinev »

Hi,

The reduction shouldn't be significant about 10% - 20% than ordinary NBD.
Overall processing rate depends on different factors such as read or write speed, configuration of NICs and so on, ideally you can expect about 25 MB/s in network mode.

During the last run the bottleneck was Target, which means 49% of the time the job spent writing data to the target storage.
Please review the bottleneck analysis post for additional information. Thanks!
pmaa
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by pmaa »

Ok, I'll open a support case, although this VMware KB isn't too encouraging: https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2147768
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by pmaa »

Support determined that it's indeed a limitation of NBDSSL in vSphere 6.5. So 5 MB/s is currently to be expected with gigabit ethernet.
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by DGrinev »

In case you are replicating between two local hosts, why don't you consider to use Hotadd transport mode? Thanks!
pmaa
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by pmaa »

For the moment we are replicating between local hosts but will move to offsite replication later. Hot-add works with offsite if there is backup proxy on both ends right? Currently we don't have enough Windows VM's to do Hot-add, so unfortunately we have to get Windows Server licenses just for that.
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by DGrinev »

pmaa wrote:Hot-add works with offsite if there is backup proxy on both ends right?
Yes, the proxy role should be assigned to a VMs on both sites. Thanks!
DonZoomik
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by DonZoomik »

How about a Veeam hotfix to include updated VDDK. It seems that this was fixed in April: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en ... notes.html
6.5U1 would be nice but 6.5b has been out for months.
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by foggy »

pmaa wrote:Currently we don't have enough Windows VM's to do Hot-add, so unfortunately we have to get Windows Server licenses just for that.
You can use any existing VM as hotadd proxy, no need to have a dedicated one.
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by foggy »

DonZoomik wrote:How about a Veeam hotfix to include updated VDDK.
You're right that switch to NBDSSL was fixed in a later VDDK version. Chances are it will be included in v9.5 Update 3.
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Re: Network mode performance on vSphere 6.5

Post by tmtech »

I'm running vbr 9.5 u2 on server 2016 datacenter with one proxy, VMware esxi 6. After lots of troubleshooting final verdict was to remove cdrom and sata controller from vbr vm's.
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