WHITE PAPER BMC Recovery Manager for Databases: Benchmark Study Performed at Sun Laboratories BMC delivers extraordinarily fast Oracle backup and recovery performance close to two terabytes per hour
Table of Contents Executive Summary...2 Continuing Improvement...3 Built for Speed...3 Benchmark Test Details...4 For More Information...5 PAGE 1 OF 7
Executive Summary If your IT organization is like most, you re faced with backing up an increasing amount of data from an environment that is growing rapidly in complexity. What s more, you have to perform these backups in ever-shrinking windows. Finally, you need to recover data quickly, whenever your users need it. BMC Recovery Manager for Databases provides just what you need blazing speed in both backup and recovery. Benchmark Overview This paper presents the results of a recent benchmark study performed to determine BMC Recovery Manager s backup and recovery speeds on a large Oracle database. The results validate the effectiveness of BMC s innovative technologies in delivering exceptionally fast backup and recovery. The benchmark tested the backup and recovery speeds of a 967 GB Oracle database. The backup took only 34 minutes. That s a rate of nearly 2 TB per hour. Efficient on the fly compression reduced the backup size of the database to just over 200 GB. The benchmark was performed using the software right-out-ofthe-box with no upfront tuning. The speed of the BMC Recovery Manager application far outshines all other backup solutions, including native backup and restore applications that are bundled with database platforms. On average, BMC Recovery Manager can perform backups an average of two times faster than other backup and recovery solutions. What s more, it can perform recovery up to five times faster. Compare these exceedingly fast backup and restore times and the compression achieved with the performance you get from other backup and recovery tools. You ll easily see why BMC Recovery Manager is a wise investment. PAGE 2 OF 7
Continuing Improvement BMC has been evolving BMC Recovery Manager for Databases (previously called SQL BackTrack) for more than 15 years. During that time, BMC developers have continually increased backup and recovery speeds, giving BMC customers continual and dramatic improvements in backup times. 30 Backup Time Improvements (from previous BMC versions to BMC Recovery Manager for Databases Version 5.5) 25 20 Hours 15 10 5 0 A major European bank An insurance Company An Investment firm A medical university in US A major US food retailer Before (hrs.) 4.57 18 17 11.3 25 After (hrs.) 2.7 2.8 3 5 2.48 Built for Speed BMC has accomplished this industry-leading speed through the combination of three innovative and advanced technologies: > Multiplexing BMC Recovery Manager for Databases takes full advantage of the fast performance of today s advanced backup storage devices by processing and compressing multiple streams of input data in parallel. > Disk optimization The BMC offering further speeds backup by simultaneously reading from multiple disks, rather than from only one disk at a time. By keeping multiple spindles active, the software minimizes latency. > Parallel streaming BMC Recovery Manager for Databases speeds backup even more by writing to multiple backup devices or storage managers at the same time, allowing multiple backup streams to run in parallel. BMC Recovery Manager provides administrators with step-by-step, intelligent guidance in the recovery process and automates recovery tasks. Intelligent guidance eliminates think time that is, the time it takes a database administrator to diagnose, investigate, and analyze backup data to determine what has to be done to recover it. In most data centers, think time accounts for about 70 percent of data recovery time. PAGE 3 OF 7
With BMC Recovery Manager for Databases, your IT operations staff can easily complete backups within windows, and do it with time to spare. As a result, your staff can accommodate unexpected problems, such as a backup device failure or excessive network traffic. What s more, with its intelligent guided restore capability, BMC Recovery Manager for Databases permits database administrators even those who are not highly experienced to quickly and reliably recover needed data. Benchmark Test Details The benchmark test system configuration is shown in Table 1. Server Backup Storage Test System Configuration > Sun Fire E4900 > 12 dual core CPUs, each running at 1,200 MHz > Memory: 49,152 Megabytes > OS: Solaris 10 Update 3 > 750 GB SAN with 1GB I/O cache > Four 3510 FC Arrays > Two 3510 JBOD (3510 FC Array without controllers) > File system: NFS Database > Oracle 9i (9.2.04) and 10G (10.2) File structure Table 1. Test System Configuration > 967 GB with 53 percent fill factor > 10 volumes mounted on server > 294 data files spread over three volumes BMC Recovery Manager for Databases was installed on the test system. The parameters shown in Table 2 were entered, and the backup was run right-out-of-the-box with no tuning prior to backup. A full restore was then executed. Table 3 shows the impressive results. BMC Recovery Manager Parameter Setup Number of channels 6 Number of disks 3 Multiplexing level 64 Multiplex_open_files 8 Table 2. BMC Recovery Manager Parameter Setup PAGE 4 OF 7
Benchmark Test Results Original database size Backup size Backup time Restore time Table 3. Benchmark Test Results 967 GB 210 GB 34 minutes 87 minutes Again, compare these results with the performance you get from your native backup and recovery tools. You ll easily see why BMC Recovery Manager is a wise investment. Its fast backup helps you meet shrinking backup windows with ease, and its intelligent guided recovery helps you ensure that you won t miss availability SLAs due to inordinately long or failed recoveries. For More Information To find out more about how BMC Recovery Manager for Databases can help you speed your backup and recovery processes, please visit www.bmc.com. PAGE 5 OF 7
ABOUT BMC BMC Software delivers the solutions IT needs to increase business value through better management of technology and IT processes. Our industry-leading Business Service Management solutions help you reduce cost, lower risk of business disruption, and benefit from an IT infrastructure built to support business growth and flexibility. Only BMC provides best-practice IT processes, automated technology management, and award-winning BMC Atrium technologies that offer a shared view into how IT services support business priorities. Known for enterprise solutions that span mainframe, distributed systems, and end-user devices, BMC also delivers solutions that address the unique challenges of the midsized business. Founded in 1980, BMC has offices worldwide and fiscal 2008 revenues of $1.73 billion. Activate your business with the power of IT. www.bmc.com. To learn more about how BMC can help activate your business, visit www.bmc.com or call (800) 841-2031. *96478* BMC, BMC Software, and the BMC Software logo are the exclusive properties of BMC Software, Inc., are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other BMC trademarks, service marks, and logos may be registered or pending registration in the U.S. or in other countries. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Sun and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2007, 2008 BMC Software, Inc. All rights reserved.