IT43417: LARGE BACKUP WORKLOADS GENERATING UNEXPECTED HIGH APPLIANCE CPU AND MEMORY USAGE

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus large backup workloads can generate
  unexpected high CPU and memory usage on appliances correctly
  sized as per IBM Spectrum Protect Plus BluePrints
  (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-spectrum-protect-plus-blu
  eprints).
  The impact of this performance degradation depends on the system
  sizing and applied workload and might not always be noticeable.
  Beside observing a usage in CPU and/or memory above the daily
  observed levels and reaching 100% in the performance monitor in
  vSphere for the appliance VM, possible other symptoms can be the
  GUI slow response times or a GUI hang.
  
  IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Versions Affected:
  IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 10.1.x
  
  Additional Keywords: SPP, SPPLUS, TS011897417, performance,
                       GUI hang
  

Local fix

Problem summary

• ****************************************************************
  * USERS AFFECTED:                                              *
  * IBM Spectrum Protect Plus level 10.1.x                       *
  ****************************************************************
  * PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:                                         *
  * See Error Description                                        *
  ****************************************************************
  * RECOMMENDATION:                                              *
  * Apply the fixing level when available. This problem is fixed *
  * in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus levels 10.1.15.2 and 10.1.16.   *
  ****************************************************************
  

Problem conclusion

• In previous versions of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, user sessions
  could be created internally and never released, causing a memory
  leak, which, in turn, caused IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to crash
  after all available memory was exhausted. In addition, there was
  a known memory leak when performing a cloud offload, such as an
  Azure offload. This memory leak would cause memory to accumulate
  over time as more cloud offload jobs were run, eventually
  causing the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance to crash from
  memory exhaustion. In IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 10.1.15.2 and
  10.1.16, these bugs have been fixed, thus resolving this
  session-based and cloud offload memory leak.
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  SP PLUS

• Fixed component ID

  5737SPLUS

Applicable component levels