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Issue Date: 5th April 2009 Version number: 2.0 Note: This is a living document and will be subject to periodic updates. Please check the data and version number to ensure you are referencing the latest version.
Best Practices for Disk Layout with the Flexible Disk Option version 2.0 Page 1
Contents
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................3 1.1 GLOSSARY...................................................................................................................................3 1.2 SHAREDDISK SUPPORT...................................................................................................................4 1.3 RELATED DOCUMENTS.....................................................................................................................4 FLEXIBLE DISK OPTION DISK TYPES.........................................................................................5 1.4 ADVANCEDDISK............................................................................................................................5 1.5 SHAREDDISK................................................................................................................................5 1.6 FILE SYSTEM RESTRICTIONS............................................................................................................5 1.7 WHICH DISK TYPE SHOULD I BE USING?............................................................................................6 DISK POOL FUNDAMENTALS......................................................................................................6 1.8 CONFIGURING STORAGE SERVERS....................................................................................................9 1.9 CONFIGURING DISK POOLS..............................................................................................................9 1.10 EXCLUSIVE USE OF DISK VOLUMES.................................................................................................13 1.11 DISK VOLUMES WITH DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS.............................................................................13 1.12 DISK POOLS AND VOLUME MANAGERS...........................................................................................14 ADVANCED DISK PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS AND BEST PRACTICES....................14 1.13 CONSIDERATIONS FOR DISK VOLUME SIZES IN ADVANCEDDISK............................................................14 1.14 NETWORK FILE SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS........................................................................................14 1.15 STATE CHANGES IN ADVANCEDDISK..............................................................................................15 SHARED DISK PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS AND BEST PRACTICES.........................16 1.16 PREPARING SHAREDDISK LUNS FOR USE......................................................................................16 1.17 SCALABILITY.............................................................................................................................17 1.18 STATE CHANGES IN SHAREDDISK .................................................................................................19 CAPACITY MANAGEMENT WITH FLEXIBLE DISK OPTION......................................................20 1.19 INTELLIGENT CAPACITY MANAGEMENT AND LOAD BALANCING WITHIN DISK POOLS...................................20 1.20 WATER MARKS AND CAPACITY BASED RETENTION..........................................................................20 1.21 INCREASING AND DECREASING THE SIZE OF DISK POOLS.......................................................................21 STORAGE UNIT CONFIGURATIONS...........................................................................................21 1.22 STORAGE UNIT GROUPS AND MEDIA SERVER LOAD BALANCING..........................................................21 1.23 MULTIPLE STORAGE UNITS SHARING THE SAME DISK POOL................................................................22
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Introduction
The disk types available under the Flexible Disk Option (AdvancedDisk and SharedDisk) as first introduced with NetBackup 6.5 allow NetBackup to fully utilize file systems native to the host operating system of the Media Server. NetBackup assumes full owner ship of these file systems while at the same time using the Storage Server capabilities of the host operating system. The Flexible Disk Option comes in two flavors of disk types. One of these, AdvancedDisk, does not require any specialized hardware, while the other, SharedDisk, depends on the availability of SAN attached storage. Both flavors are managed as Disk Pools within NetBackup. This document will focus on performance issues and best practices related to both these flavors. In practice the entire data path between client and storage including both hardware and software stacks determines the overall performance of the backup and restore process. It is therefore essential that the performance of the disk storage is not considered independently of entire data path and effect of infrastructure when seeking to resolve overall performance issues. While following the guidelines presented in this paper should ensure that the disk storage performs optimally it will not guarantee optimal performance of the entire data path
1.1 Glossary
The following terms are used throughout this document: Storage Server A Storage Server is a logical abstraction of the entity that owns (serves) physical storage. It needs to be implemented on a real system. In the context of this paper a Storage Server is always implemented on a Media Server. Data Mover A Data Mover is a logical abstraction of the entity that moves data between the NetBackup Client and the Storage Server. It needs to be implemented on a real system. In NetBackup 6.5, Data Movers are only implemented on Media Servers. Disk, disk volume or volume in the context of this document the term disk does not refer to a single physical spindle or LUN but is stead refers to a disk volume presenting a file system that can be written to by NetBackup. In a SharedDisk implementation this equates to a single LUN presented from a storage array but that LUN may be made up of multiple physical spindles combined at the hardware level. In an AdvancedDisk implementation this equates to a mount point with a file system which could either be a single physical disk (spindle), a LUN comprised of multiple spindles at the hardware layer or a volume created using a logical volume manager such as VxVM. Disk Pool A collection of Disks Volumes (usually in the same disk array) which provides a target storage area for Storage Units. BasicDisk this is the term used in NetBackup 6.5 to describe the simple mounted file system disk storage unit that has been available in NetBackup releases for some time. BasicDisk storage units are limited to a single mount point or path and cannot make use of many of the new features introduced in NetBackup 6.5 such as Media Server Load Balancing and Storage Lifecycle Policies. AdvancedDisk one of the two types of disk covered by the Flexible Disk Option. AdvancedDisk can make use of any locally presented or network presented disk storage. In the initial implementation AdvancedDisk volumes were dedicated to a single media server but from NetBackup 6.5.2 onward volumes such as NFS volumes that can be presented to multiple servers simultaneously can be shared by multiple Media Servers. SharedDisk the other disk type available with Flexible Disk Option. SharedDisk makes use of disk volumes in SAN attached arrays which can be presented to multiple Media Servers in a similar way to the way in which tape drives are shared in a Shared Storage Option configuration with exclusive access to each volume being granted to a single Media Server at any time. LUN or SAN LUN a LUN or volume presented from a disk array that can be used as a disk volume. This may not correspond directly to a physical disk within the array as hardware Raid and mirroring may be used below the LUN level. Best Practices for Disk Layout with the Flexible Disk Option version 2.0 Page 3
Capacity management NetBackups Storage Lifecycle Policy system can be used with the Flexible Disk Option to stage data destined for long term storage, providing a faster restore time for recently created backups. The capacity management feature ensures the disks do not fill up by removing older and less important backups when capacity thresholds are reached. Capacity management also ensures that data is distributed evenly across the volumes in a disk pool. Load balancing works in conjunction with capacity management to ensure that backups are directed to the most appropriate volumes using the least heavily loaded Media Server that has access to the Disk Pool. High and low water marks these threshold figures are use to control the capacity management feature of the Flexible Disk Option. They set on a Disk Pool and applied to all the volumes within a pool. nbdevconfig the NetBackup command used to create, import, preview and inventory disk pools. nbdevquery the NetBackup command used to display the characteristics of disk pools and their associated components. nbshareddisk the NetBackup command used to format LUNs in a disk array used in a SharedDisk configuration. VxVM Veritas Volume Manager, a logical volume manager that forms part of the Symantec Storage Foundation product. VxFS Veritas File System, an advanced file system that forms part of the Symantec Storage Foundation product on UNIX and Linux servers.
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1.4 AdvancedDisk
AdvancedDisk increases the utilization and performance of disk storage by combining disk resources together as a single pool rather than treating them as smaller, separate islands of disk. AdvancedDisk also extends the capability of BasicDisk through the Enterprise Disk Foundation features such as Media Server Load Balancing and Storage Lifecycle Policies which increase Media Server utilization and availability while improving backup success rates and performance. Instead of creating Storage Units from single disk volumes, AdvancedDisk allows you create Storage Units containing multiple disk volumes defined within a disk pool.
1.5 SharedDisk
SharedDisk allows LUNs in a disk array to be shared between multiple Media Servers in the same way that tape drives can be shared with the Shared Storage Option. As in AdvancedDisk, the SharedDisk volumes are defined in a disk pool, however in SharedDisk storage the disks are in a storage array and the disk pool is presented over a SAN connection to multiple Media Servers. Disks in a SharedDisk disk pool are normally dismounted and are automatically mounted on individual Media Servers when required they cannot be mounted on multiple Media Servers at the same time. When a disk from the pool is assigned to a Media Server, the file system is mounted, and the backup image is then read or written. Once the backup or restore operation has completed the disk is dismounted and returned to the pool. Any disk within the disk pool may be presented to any Media Server at any time. Since a disk can be mounted on different Media Servers, the Media Servers participating in the pool must be the same platform type running the same operating system. Support for SharedDisk is limited to certain operating systems and certified disk array and should be checked against the NetBackup Hardware Compatibility List.
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In most cases you should be considering converting existing BasicDisk storage units to AdvancedDisk to take advantage of these features. SharedDisk is particularly useful in configurations where only some Media Servers have access to tape drives. Storage Lifecycle Policies can be used with SharedDisk to automate the duplication process to tape using different Media Servers to the ones used for the original backups by setting the Alternate Read Server setting in the backup Storage Destination of the policy. SharedDisk implementations generally offer better performance that AdvancedDisk sharing but rely on premium tier 1 storage. This makes SharedDisk more suitable as a staging point for mission critical backups that have a requirement for fast recovery in the short term and longer tem retention on tape or other storage while AdvancedDisk sharing is more suitable for less critical backups with shorter retention requirements as its comparative low cost makes it more cost effective where backup and restore performance is not a primary consideration.
Will Fit selection selects the Storage Unit based on available space.
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BasicDisk No ability to increase the size of individual Storage Units when disks fill up Does not support load balancing in Storage Unit Groups
Disk Pools Disk pool capacity is increased by adding additional disk volumes into the pool.
Supports load balancing directing the backup to the least busy Media Server
Data can be classified and managed differently throughout its life based on the importance of the data. After it has been duplicated, data can be selectively expired based on the relative importance to the business.
Benefit of Disk Pools Minimal reconfiguration required as environment grows. Improved utilization of disk. Eliminates Media Server bottlenecks to increase the performance and success of backup jobs. Important backups are available for rapid restore for longer periods, thereby improving RTOs.
Table 1 - Disk Pools vs. BasicDisk Storage Figure 1 below shows the difference between a Media Server with access to BasicDisk Storage Units and a Media Server with access to an AdvancedDisk disk pool.
Figure 1 - BasicDisk vs. AdvancedDisk In the BasicDisk configuration the three disks act as separated Storage Units and the backups are written to specific disks. Backup jobs do not use all three disks unless they are configured to form a Storage Unit Group and there is no guarantee that the disk space is used efficiently among the three independent disks. AdvancedDisk utilizes space more efficiently than BasicDisk. In the AdvancedDisk configuration the three disks form a single pool and backups may be written to any of the disks. When a backup runs, Intelligent Disk Capacity Management will automatically estimate the size of the backup and select the disk with the greatest amount of free space and will reserve space to match the estimated size of the backup image so that other backup jobs do not over commit beyond the disks available space. Note how the different colored backup images reside on different disks in the BasicDisk configuration but are distributed across all of the disks in the AdvancedDisk disk pool. Best Practices for Disk Layout with the Flexible Disk Option version 2.0 Page 7
Storage Units that use AdvancedDisk disk pools on different Media Servers can be configured to form load balanced Storage Unit Groups. When a backup is run using the Storage Unit Group, the Storage Unit on the least busy Media Server is automatically selected and a suitable disk within the AdvancedDisk disk pool on that Media Server is used for the backup. An AdvancedDisk disk pool can be formed from any disks that can be seen by, and are presented to, the Media Server. However it is recommended that all the disks in a particular disk pool should have common characteristics to ensure consistent behavior when different disk are selected for use. In a SharedDisk configuration the disk pool is created using a disk array which can be shared between multiple Media Servers over a SAN. This allows the individual disks within the disk pool to be presented to different Media Servers at different times. As in the case of AdvancedDisk, the disk selection process is based on the will fit model with space being reserved while a backup is in progress to prevent conflicts but with SharedDisk the disks can be unassigned to one Media Server and then presented to another Media Server. SharedDisk disk pools load balance at the Storage Unit level rather than the Media Server. Multiple Media Servers have access to the same Storage Unit. When a backup is run to a particular Storage Unit, the least busy Media Server is automatically selected and a suitable disk is presented to that Media Server for the backup to write the backup image. Figure 2 shows four Media Servers sharing a common SharedDisk disk pool.
Figure 2 - SharedDisk Disk Pool Both AdvancedDisk and SharedDisk rely on collections of disk volumes assembled in Disk Pools. Before a LUN becomes usable, a file system native to the operating system of the Media Server host has to be created on that LUN. This use of native file systems means that the normal rules and guidelines related to file system configuration on the host fully apply. Disk Pools support the concept of Media Server grouping for load balancing purposes. For SharedDisk, grouping refers to the Media Servers defined within a Disk Pool to share the volumes. For the OpenStorage and PureDisk options, grouping refers to the Media Servers defined with credentials to the storage server, and defined within storage units that use a Disk Pool. In the initial 6.5 release AdvancedDisk Disk Pools are restricted to a single Media Server but in later releases Media Server grouping will work in the same way that it does for SharedDisk.
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Figure 3: Pool Type Selection Then select the Media Servers you want to associate with this Disk Pool:
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Figure 6 - Disk selection When the array or disks are selected it is possible to set high and low water mark attributes for the Disk Pool, these values are applied to each disk within the Disk Pool individually:
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Figure 7: Disk Pool Properties Once the Disk Pool is created it is possible to configure a SharedDisk storage unit using some or all of the Media Servers associated with the Disk Pool:
1. Create a file containing a list of all the available LUNs using the command: nbdevconfig -previewdv -storage_servers -stype SharedDisk dvlist <file name> <storage server name>
2. Edit the file and remove any LUNs that are not required to be in the disk pool. 3. Create the disk pool based on the contents of the file using the command: nbdevconfig -createdp -dp <disk pool name> -stype SharedDisk -storage_servers <storage server name> -dvlist <file name> This allows you to create a disk pool out of any number of volumes from any number of arrays.
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Manual mount points must be used. Automatic mounting and dismounting can change mount points, which may cause disk resources to be unavailable. The server that exports the mount points must be configured to allow root access to the file systems from the Storage Servers.
Although a network file system can be visible across many Media Servers, NetBackup 6.5 is not aware of this capability and network file systems should not be presented to multiple Storage Servers running NetBackup 6.5 or 6.5.1. NetBackup 6.5.2 and subsequent versions are aware of the ability to present network file systems to multiple servers and allows the configuration of multiple Storage Servers within an AdvancedDisk Disk Pool. However NetBackup does not validate the mount points so if the NFS volumes are presented to more than one Storage Server, the following must apply for the file systems of the disk volumes: Each Media Server must mount the file systems of all the disk volumes within a disk pool. The mount points must be valid The mount points must be the same on each Media Server.
Some network file systems, such as NFS, implement a file system behavior that makes them unsafe for use in spanning situations. This restriction does not apply to locally presented common file systems such as Storage Foundation Cluster File System Recommendation: NFS should be configured to disable spanning. For NetBackup 6.5 this is done by limiting the number of disk volumes in a Disk Pool to one. Note: NetBackup does not support the use of CIFS (Common Internet File System) disk volumes with Windows Media Servers because the mapped devices are not visible to the Windows services and thus cannot be discovered by nbdevconfig.
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The mount status is indicated by the InternalUp flag. If InternalUp is not show, the disk volume is marked as DOWN in the output of the command nbdevquery listdp U as shown here: Disk Pool Name Disk Pool Id Disk Type Status Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Flag Raw Size (GB) Num Volumes High Watermark Low Watermark Comment Storage Server : DPtest : DPtest : AdvancedDisk : DOWN : Patchwork : Visible : OpenStorage : SingleStorageServer : AdminDown : InternalUp : SpanImages : LifeCycle : CapacityMgmt : FragmentImages : Cpr : RandomWrites : FT-Transfer : 4.00 : 1 : 98 : 80 : : wstmas02
The administrator can reset the state of the disk volume by issuing the command: nbdevconfig changestate stype AdvancedDisk dp <disk pool> -dv <disk volume> -state RESET
1. Issue the list command without any options to display all enclosures. From the list, select an enclosure for further discovery: $ nbshareddisk list Enclosure list: Vendor Array Name Enclosure ID -----------------------------------------------------------------NETAPP ndmpfiler1 UEID##NETAPP##LUN##0a505b7c IBM IBM.1750-13ADDTA UEID##IBM##TOTALSTORAGE##IBM.1750-13ADDTA HP HPEVA4000 UEID##HP##HSV##5000-1FE1-5007-0020 HP VRTS.EVA.ROS UEID##HP##HSV##5000-1FE1-5004-5660 EMC 000182601092 UEID##EMC##SYMMETRIX##000182601092 2. Scan the list to determine on which enclosure you want to perform further discovery. After you select an enclosure for further discovery, issue a command to output the UDIDs. The following example shows the information being redirected to a file so that it can be used with the format option. It lists the UDIDs in a specified enclosure. $ nbshareddisk list -ueid UEID##HP##HSV##5000-1FE1-5007-0020 > mydevlist nbusd_v2 UDID##HP##HSV##5000-1FE1-5007-0020##6005-08B4-0010-5F490000-5000-0B44-0000 nbusd_v3 UDID##HP##HSV##5000-1FE1-5007-0020##6005-08B4-0010-5F49.. nbusd_v4 UDID##HP##HSV##5000-1FE1-5007-0020##6005-08B4-0010-5F49.. 3. Edit the file that you created in step 2 to remove the lines that correspond to UDIDs that are not wanted in the disk group. The format command erases the disk content of the LUN, so be sure to remove any LUNs that may already be in use in NetBackup. Comment out an unwanted UDID line by adding a "#" character at the front of the line. It only examines the lines that contain UDID##. 4. Issue the format command to format all devices in the list. The following example formats all devices that are listed in the mydevlist file that use the VxFS file system. $ nbshareddisk format -udid_file mydevlist -fstype vxfs The format command accepts two values for the fstype qualifier, native which creates a simple UFS partition on Solaris and Linux and an NTFS partition on Window and vxfs which creates a vxfs file system on Solaris and Linux (this value cannot be used on Windows. If vxfs is specified the LUNs are also placed under Veritas Volume Manager control and a VxVM volume is created automatically for each individual LUN.
1.17 Scalability
When configuring a system for SharedDisk storage implementations, there are two dimensions to consider: 1. The number of Media Servers that will be used as Storage Servers to access the SharedDisk Disk Pool 2. The number of SAN LUNs that will be used as disk volumes within a SharedDisk Disk Pool
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The device selection becomes more time consuming with a larger number of Storage Servers. This is especially true for multi-copy operations. The disk array enclosure may encounter scalability problems cause by both hardware and software details of their respective implementation. All the Storage Severs sharing a single SharedDisk Disk Pool must be running on the same platform (i.e. all Solaris, all Windows or all Linux). The amount of background monitoring communication traffic will increase, causing more database activities. The communication traffic consists of the following: o o The Disk Polling Service and the Media Performance Monitor Service within nbrmms on the Media Server. The Resource Event Manager service and the Disk Service Manager within nbemm on the EMM server.
Recommendation: A conservative approach is recommended for the number of Storage Servers in a Disk Pool. The number of Storage Servers should be a maximum of 10-20 rather than in the hundreds. With respect to the Disk Pool configuration in NetBackup, it is easy to add or remove Storage Servers from a Disk Pool.
The number of Storage Servers within a SharedDisk Disk Pool there should be at least one disk volume per Storage Server. While the assignment of disk volume to Storage Server is not fixed over time, a specific disk volume can only be used at one Storage Server at any point in time. If the total number of disk volumes is smaller than the number of Storage Servers, NetBackup simply runs out of disk volumes to mount. Limitations in the number and size of the SAN LUNs imposed by the array disk enclosure.
Given this lower bound of one disk per Storage Server and the upper bound of the number of LUNs that can be presented from the array, what are the consequences of different disk volume counts? Storage shareability during media and device selection (MDS) NetBackup tries to find the best Storage Server at the time of selection. Having more disk volumes improves the probability of finding an eligible disk volume for that Storage Server resulting in better load balancing across Media Servers. Raw I/O performance I/O contention is more likely to arise when multiple backup jobs are writing to the same disk volume. Having more disk volumes increases the probability that different jobs will use different disk volumes and thus reduce the I/O contention in the disk array.. Image fragmentation given a constant amount of storage space fewer disk volumes will result in less image fragmentation, because images will be less likely to span disk Best Practices for Disk Layout with the Flexible Disk Option version 2.0 Page 18
volumes. This will reduce the need for multi disk volume restores resulting in a better potential for good restore performance. Media and device selection as with larger Storage Server counts, having large numbers of disk volumes will make the media and device selection process more time consuming. This is especially true for multi copy (in-line copy) operations where different disk volumes need to be selected for the different copies. System monitoring and administration - many system monitoring and administration activities related to Disk Pools have a linear dependency on the number of disk volumes in a Disk Pool and hence the monitoring overhead increase with the volume count
Finding a good balance between these pros and cons for going either towards a larger or a smaller count of disk volumes within a Disk Pool is not easy and the options have been extensively tested.. Recommendation: Based on results from extensive performance modeling it is recommend that the number of disk volumes in a Disk Pool should be configured between 2 and 4 times the number of Storage Servers for LAN Clients. On Solaris and Linux the combination of SharedDisk storage with SAN Clients provides a robust and flexible configuration for the fast backup of large amounts of data. Where FT connections between SAN Clients and Storage Servers are used the number of logical FT connections determines the maximum number of concurrent jobs and thus the maximum number of disk volumes within a SharedDisk Disk Pool that can be used at any one time. For example if two SAN clients are sending two streams of data each over two shared FT connections then the maximum number of disk volumes that can be used is four. Recommendation: Where FT connections between SAN Clients and Storage Servers are used the number of disk volumes within a SharedDisk Disk Pool should not exceed the total number of logical FT connections available between the SAN Clients and the FT Media Servers One final consideration is the time taken to mount the disk volumes. By default NetBackup uses LUN masking to ensure exclusive read/write access for disks in an array. This can result in mount times of the order of 30 seconds to two minutes. It is worth noting, that this delay is not related to the size of the backup job. For longer backup job, the relative effect of this mount delay should be more acceptable. In NetBackup 6.5.1 the option of using SCSI persistent reserve instead of LUN masking was introduced for Solaris Media Servers. This capability was extended to Linux Media Servers in NetBackup 6.5.2 but is not currently available for Windows Media Servers. Using SCSI persistent reserve significantly reduces the mount time and thus the impact it has on overall backup performance. This option is discussed in more detail in the NetBackup 6.5.1 Shared Storage Guide and in tech note 297573. Recommendation: Where LUN masking is used ensure exclusive read/write access for disks in an array the mount time overhead can be reduced by using larger disk volumes and ensuring that only the larger backups are directed to the SharedDisk Storage Units
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a. The total Disk Pool is still above the high water mark b. (In the case of a SharedDisk Disk Pool only) the number of disk volumes that are above high water mark is greater than the number of Media Servers sharing the Disk Pool If an image being removed spans two or more disk volumes within the Disk Pool all fragments of the image on all disk volumes are removed.
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Figure 9: Load Balancing in Storage Unit Groups This Load Balance option is not available for BasicDisk Storage Units. Within a Disk Pool load balancing between the disks occurs automatically with backups always being directed to the disk with the most available space expressed as a percentage of the total space.
concurrent jobs as Silver_DSU, more of critical backups will run at once and thus they will complete first. Taking this a step further, suppose you have a SharedDisk Disk Pool with two fast fiber connected Media Servers, and three ordinary Media Servers. You could configure a Platinum_DSU to use the two fast servers, with a higher Maximum Concurrent Jobs, and a Gold_DSU and a Bronze_DSU that use the ordinary Media Servers. The following illustration attempts to show how this could lay out:
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For this reason while SAN Media Server may take advantage of the volumes in a SharedDisk Disk Pool it should not share its Storage Unit with any other Media Server as this could result in backups running over the LAN to the remote server rather than going direct to disk. To avoid this problem the Storage Unit used by the SAN Media Server should be set up using the following attributes: Storage Unit Type: Disk Disk Type: SharedDisk Media Server: Use only the following Media Servers Only the SAN Media Server (or, in the case of a cluster, the virtual server name) should be selected from the list of Media Servers displayed. The following command line instruction may be used to add the Storage Unit: # bpstuadd label <STU name> -dp <ShareDisk Disk Pool> -dt 6 hostlist <SAN Media Server>
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