Overview of agent data compression
Agent 2.28 and newer supports compressing data transmitted over the network to the appliance or vault.
- Agent data compression is automatically enabled by default when operating in Direct-to-Cloud mode and disabled when operating in regular appliance mode.
- Agent data compression is optimized by default for typical WAN connectivity and Direct-to-Cloud backups.
When to use compression
Enabling agent data compression can significantly affect the amount of time necessary to complete a backup, but it is not as straight forward as you might think.
- Compression of data requires time and CPU overhead, for both the protected system sending and the vault or appliance receiving. If the compression overhead outweighs transmission time over a high-speed connection (like a LAN or very fast Internet connection), then backups may take longer with compression enabled.
Typical compression ratio with average Windows data is about 1.5:1, which means that 3GB of data compresses down to about 2GB to be sent over the network.
In general:
- Network speeds below 20Mbps will benefit (have faster backups) with compression enabled.
- Network speeds over 100Mbps will suffer (take longer to complete backups.)
- Network speeds in between 20Mbps and 100Mbps may either benefit or suffer, depending on the compressibility of the data and the data compression level chosen.
Configuration
Compression supports three new configuration parameters in aristos.cfg
|
USE_COMPRESSION=<true/false> This parameter explicitly enables or disables compression when transmitting data to the receiving appliance or vault. If not present, the value defaults to TRUE when operating in Direct-to-Cloud mode and FALSE when operating in appliance mode. |
|
COMPRESSION_LEVEL=<1-9> Sets the compression level to be applied by the compression algorithm. Higher levels result in more compression (smaller data size) at the expense of higher CPU overhead on both the protected system and the receiving vault or appliance. Compression levels higher than 3 are not recommended, as the resulting data size differential is small compared to the much higher CPU overhead required during the backup. If not specified, the default Compression Level is set to 3. |
|
Compression_ALGORITHM=<zlib> Sets the underlying compression algorithm to be used to perform data compression. Currently only ‘zlib’ is supported, but this may be extended in the future to enable other compression types. |
SUPPORT | 720-204-4500 | 800-352-0248
- Contact Axcient Support at https://partner.axcient.com/login or call 800-352-0248
- Free certification courses are available in the Axcient x360Portal under Training
- To learn more about any of our Axcient products, sign up for a free one-on-one training
- Subscribe to the Axcient Status page for a list of status updates and scheduled maintenance
711