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Conference turris::digital_unix

Title:DIGITAL UNIX(FORMERLY KNOWN AS DEC OSF/1)
Notice:Welcome to the Digital UNIX Conference
Moderator:SMURF::DENHAM
Created:Thu Mar 16 1995
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:10068
Total number of notes:35879

8648.0. "V4.0 downgrade,optical,compression" by METMV3::COX () Thu Jan 30 1997 11:14

    A couple of questions...
    
    Is there a way to "downgrade" from v4.0a to v3.2c, short of a fresh
    install?
    
    Is there a way to do backups (dump,vdump,tar.cpio...) to a RW531 and
    have the optical drive load the next platter when the first one is
    full?
    
    Last one, the customer did a vdump -c to a TZ88 with compression turned
    on. They expected to get 40GB to a tape. So far, they have been able to
    write 2 - 9GB vdumps before they get the tape full message. The partion
    that is getting backup, oracle apps and database is about 12GB. 
    The system is a 2100 5/250, running V4.0a, 
    Ant thoughts on the low compression ratios?
    
    Tom Cox
    SBU Sales Support
    dtn 238-4305 
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8648.1OP:HIGH mrd_show() incorrect on RW500NABETH::alanDr. File System's Home for Wayward Inodes.Thu Jan 30 1997 13:2730
0.  Please put such wildly separate questions in different notes.

1.  Restore from the backup you made before you did the upgrade.  You
    (the customer) DID make a backup before the upgrade DIDN'T they?

2.  Not with those utilities.  If the customer wants backup with media
    management, they should buy NSR.  I'm also curious how they're
    using the optical drive.  Some drives can pretend to be SCSI Direct
    Access devices (disks) instead of Optical.  I don't know which of
    drives support this feature.  For those that can't you need the CLC
    Optical driver, which is only licensed with the products that use it.
    Even if those utilties supported sequential loaders, I don't know
    if the medium changer on that drive is sequential or purely random.  

3.  The 40 GB capacity for the TZ88 assumes 2:1 compression of the
    data.  Some data compresses better, some data worse.  The algorithm
    used by the TZ88 may be one that the data can actually grow when
    handed some types of data.  A good example of this type of data
    is that which has already been compressed.

    Compression on top of Compression is usually a good way to make
    the resulting data get larger.  This is probably the problem.
    If the customer wants to use software compression, they need
    to use one of the lower density special tape files that won't
    use drive compression.  Or don't do software compression and
    let the drive do it.

    This still may not get the full 40 GB capacity, but it should
    help.  Remember, the compressability of data, depends on the
    data.
8648.2DECWET::RWALKERRoger Walker - Media ChangersThu Jan 30 1997 13:3014
I'll skip the downgrade question.

If you want to automate backups to an optical drive you need a product
like NetWorker that will combine both the backup processing and the
device management.

If you select software compression on a backup such as the -C switch
to vdump you will only get the native capacity of the tape ~20GB. 
Unless you are going over a network link it is better to let the
hardware do the compression (less CPU load).  Using the /dev/nrmt*h
device selects hardware compression, you do not need any switches on
the backup command.  Compression can vary from 1:.9 to 20:1 depending
on the data.
8648.3thanks for the answersMETMV3::COXThu Jan 30 1997 13:5914
    Thanks for the answers...
    
    reply .1  This was a fresh V4.0 install. The issue is with a version of
    one of thier Oracle apps. They need to go to V3.2D, upgraded to Oracle
    stuff then upgrade to V4.0 .  Looks like a fresh V3.2x install coming
    up.
    Next time I will enter separate notes, Sorry :-(
    
    As for the optical drive, they have Networker, we haven't tried it due
    to some other issues with the optical drive. Time to give it a shot.
    
    I thought compressing compressed data sometimes made it grow, just
    looking for someone to confirm.
    	
8648.4Use hardware compressionDECWET::RWALKERRoger Walker - Media ChangersTue Feb 04 1997 13:0411
	Generally we recomend using the device compression even
	if the data is already compressed.  For an application
	like NetWorker there are still extra label and index blocks
	added to the data stream that do compress.  Since it is
	harder to change the hardware compression (must delete
	and redefine the device) the /dev/nrmt*h device should 
	always be used.

	The customer can turn on and off the client compression
	until they find the best mix for their use that balances
	CPU usage and network load.