About the MSDP Deduplication Multi-Threaded Agent

The MSDP deduplication process can use a Multi-Threaded Agent for most data sources. The Multi-Threaded Agent runs alongside the deduplication plug-in on both the clients and the media servers. The agent uses multiple threads for asynchronous network I/O and CPU core calculations. During a backup, this agent receives data from the deduplication plug-in through shared memory and processes it using multiple threads to improve throughput performance. When inactive, the agent uses minimal resources.

The NetBackup Deduplication Multi-Threaded Agent improves backup performance for any host that deduplicates data: the storage server, load balancing servers, or clients that deduplicate their own data. For each host on which you want to use the Multi-Threaded Agent, you must configure the deduplication plug-in to use it.

The Deduplication Multi-Threaded Agent uses the default configuration values that control its behavior. You can change those values if you want to do so. The following table describes the Multi-Threaded Agent interactions and behaviors. It also provides links to the topics that describe how to configure those interactions and behaviors.

Table: Multi-Threaded Agent requirements and limitations describes the operational notes for MSDP multithreading. If the Multi-Threaded Agent is not used, NetBackup uses the single-threaded mode.