Data striping (Legacy only)

In addition to multi-threading to maximize throughput on a single session, Data Protection for SQL Server uses separate threads to support SQL Server data striping, which allows use of multiple parallel sessions to backup and restore a single database. This is another method to maximize data throughput.

If a single session cannot fully exploit available bandwidth, multiple parallel sessions can yield improved data throughput, especially if the database is spread across multiple physical volumes.

If you use one data stripe per physical volume for both the SQL Server and the Tivoli® Storage Manager server, the performance, which is measured as the amount of time necessary to backup or restore a particular SQL Server database, should show an improvement over the unstriped case. The improvement is approximately proportional to the number of data stripes that are used, given the constraints of the devices and the network that is used, and the striping independent overhead in SQL Server, Tivoli Storage Manager server, and Data Protection for SQL Server.

You can specify the number of stripes to use with the /STRIPes parameter on the command-line interface. You can also specify the number of stripes to use from Microsoft Management Console (MMC), by changing the number in the Stripes field in the Backup options or Restore options panel.

Note:
  • Additional striping does not necessarily improve performance and may even decrease performance if system constraints involving real and paged memory, processors, network interface cards, networks, device reads and writes, and RAID become saturated or exceed capacity.
  • If you use striping in conjunction with SQL Server buffers, be certain that the number of SQL Server buffers specified is equal to or greater than the number of stripes.
  • The default values that Data Protection for SQL Server assigns to buffers, buffer size, and stripes can be changed in the Data Protection for SQL Server configuration file. Use the set command or the Performance property page in MMC to modify the configuration file.