NetBackup Snapshot Manager host sizing recommendations
The NetBackup Snapshot Manager host configuration depends primarily on the number of workloads and the type of workloads that you want to protect. It is also dependent on the maximum number of simultaneous operations running on the NetBackup Snapshot Manager at its peak performance capacity.
Another factor that affects performance is how you use NetBackup Snapshot Manager for protecting your assets. If you use the NetBackup Snapshot Manager agentless option to discover and protect your assets, then the performance differs depending on the type of workload.
With agentless, NetBackup Snapshot Manager transfers the plug-in data to the application host, performs the discovery and configuration tasks, and then removes the plug-in package from the application host.
Cohesity recommends the following configurations for the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host:
Table: Typical NetBackup Snapshot Manager host configuration based on the number of concurrent tasks
Workload metric | NetBackup Snapshot Manager host configuration |
|---|---|
Up to 16 concurrent operational tasks | CPU: 2 CPUs Memory: 16 GB For example, in the AWS cloud, the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host specifications should be an equivalent of a t3.xlarge instance. |
Up to 32 concurrent operational tasks | CPU: 4 - 8 CPUs Memory: 32 GB or more For example, in the AWS cloud, the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host specifications should be an equivalent of a t3.2xlarge or a higher type of instance. |
General considerations and guidelines:
Consider the following points while choosing a configuration for the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host:
To achieve better performance in a high workload environment, Cohesity recommends that you deploy the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host in the same location as that of the application hosts.
If you are using the agentless option, Cohesity recommends that you allocate enough space to the
/opt/VRTScloudpointdirectory on the application host. NetBackup Snapshot Manager uses this directory for extracting the plug-in configuration files.Depending on the number of workloads, the amount of plug-in data that is transmitted from the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host can get really large in size. The network latency also plays a key role in such a case. You might see a difference in the overall performance depending on these factors.
If you want to configure multiple workloads using the agentless option, then the performance is dependent on factors such as the network bandwidth and the location of the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host with respect to the application workload instances. You can, if desired, bump up the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host's CPU, memory, and network configuration to achieve a performance improvement in parallel configurations of agentless application hosts.
In cases where the number of concurrent operations is higher than what the NetBackup Snapshot Manager host configuration capacity can handle, NetBackup Snapshot Manager automatically puts the operations in a job queue. The queued jobs are picked up only after the running operations are completed.
NetBackup automatically controls the number of parallel operations by the number of disk attachment points available on the NetBackup Snapshot Manager VM instance.