VM Backups in 3.5 VCB SAN Mode

[pentana]

Hi,

We recently implemented a SAN instead of shared storage and I have re-configured a few of the backups jobs to use VCB SAN Mode.
The jobs previously were using the service console agent and were getting speeds around 50MB/sec (jobs were running simultaneously.
I have ran one of the jobs using VCB San Mode (backup server has direct access to the luns/san) and the job is running under 10MB/sec.
Is there anything I can do to speed this up? Any place i can start looking for issues etc.?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Terry

[Gostev]

Terry,

First thing to try is exclude Veeam Backup from the picture. To do this, you should launch the vcbmounter.exe command line from Veeam logs (Help | Support Information) manually on Veeam server. Just change the destination path in command to the local folder on VCB proxy server (instead of folder with GUID in the command line), and provide real username/passwords instead of ******. Take note of the speed (divide VM size by the time it takes for command to execute).

If the speed is about the same (10-15% difference), then the issue is with source storage access speed with VCB. Could be due to your HBA card (outdated drivers), or some storage issues (multipathing enabled)?

If the speed is much faster, then the issue is with target (backup) storage speed with VCB.

If you need any help with performing this testing, you can contact our support for help and they will assist you!

[pentana]

Gostev,

The end storage hasn't changes. It's an iSCSI volume.
The storage of the VM's has changed from local to Fibre.

I have 1 HBA in the tape backup server and I have 6 Fibre ESX Datastores although i have 12 volumes appear in Disk Management. I am guessing it is using the dual paths going through the different Heads on our SAN. How can I disable the path i don't want for each Disk?

Regards,

Terry

[Gostev]

Terry, steps to disable multipathing can be different depending on the storage vendor. There are mini-guides posted by other customers in the stickied thread on multi-pathing performance, please check them out - hope these will help.

[pentana]

Gostev,

I don't think this is the issue as I zoned out the other path and still only got performance at around 10MB/sec.
I looked at the logs of the backup job, and even though I was pointing the output to V:\ in the logs it was using C:\ which I thought was strange?

I then took the command out of the job log and ran it myself directing it to the iSCSI drive and still only got around 10MB/sec in performance.
Is there something else that I am missing?

I don't know why in service console mode I would be getting 50MB/sec+ and in VCB San mode I am only getting 10MB/sec.

Thanks,

Terry

[Gostev]

Terry, if VCB data retrieval speed is only 10MB/sec for you, then it would be best open the case with your storage vendor, since it is very likely this issue was reported previously by their other customers with same storage device, and they already know the resolution. And maybe with VMware too (could be VCB issue, although very unlikely).