ONTAP Discussions

Are vfilers supported with SnapProtect?

parrizas
3,497 Views

Hi there,

We are experiencing some problems when using SnapProtect with vfilers.

We are trying to backup a NFS ESX Datastore which is served through a vfiler. SnapProtect creates the required snapshots on primary storage fine. On a second step, SnapProtect talks to DFM to archive that snapshot to secondary storage, but the operation fails, probably because SnapProtect treats de vfiler as a physical FAS although there are some operations that cannot be performed against the vfiler.

Do we have any official statement about what is supported/unsupported with SnapProtect and vfilers?

Thanks!

6 REPLIES 6

glennm
3,497 Views

SnapProtect supports vFilers as sources and pFilers as destinations for replication. SnapProtect does not support the configuration of vFilers as replication targets.

parida
3,497 Views

Note that SnapVault and SnapDiff – both components used by SnapProtect – currently have limited support for vFilers. At present, SnapDiff API does not support vFilers; SnapVault does not support vFiler as a backup destination.

Both limitations will be addressed in RR.1.

Himanshu Parida

DPG Product Mgmt

408.822.6821

parrizas
3,497 Views

Thanks for your anwsers.

I will try to be more specific.

I was talking about using a vfiler as the snapvault source. According to the documentation it's supported and should be working... but the truth is that we are finding problems to make it work. Has anyone tested this configuration?, are there any special considerations when dealing with vfilers?... we just added them to SnapProtect as any other physical array... 

Here's a description of the problem we are experiencing:

When getting to do the secondary snapshot (snapvault), SnapProtect talks to the DFM and according to the DFM logs, it lists all the hosts using API host-list-info-iter-start, this list includes physical filers and virtual filers (vfilers). For each of these hosts SP tries to get a list of interfaces using the API netif-ip-interface-list-info, which uses a snmpwalk. The problem is that vfilers don't implement SNMP so the call to that API fails when trying to run the query against a vfiler. SP outputs an error similar to "DFM error: SNMP walk failed" and the secondary snap job fails.

That's why I am asking if we need to make any special configuration for vfilers or we can treat them just as standard arrays...

Is this an issue of SnapProtect not making the proper API calls to the DFM when dealing with vfilers as primary storage?

Thanks for your help!

bwood
3,497 Views

Can you describe what systems you have defined in Array Management (in SnapProtect) as well as in Host Storage Systems in Protection Manager?  I want to know where you have vfilers listed vs the physical host.

parrizas
3,497 Views

Hello,

It seems I'm not authorized to upload any screenshots to the communities so I will try to explain it with omly text:

I have used ComCell Console > Control Panel > Array Management to configure physical systems, vfilers and DFM in SnapProtect:

  • For Physical System and vfiler I used "File Server" type and marked the checkbox "Primary"
  • For DFM I used "Data Fabric Manager" type

So in the Array Management window I have IP address and login information for DFM, Physical System and Vfiler.

The following is the output from a "dfm hosts list". The one in bold and underlined is the vfiler that I'm trying to backup.

C:\Users\administrator.DEMONA>dfm hosts list

ID   Type                     Host Name                           Host Address                              ProductId    Deleted

---- ------------------------ ----------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- ------------ --------

  83 Cluster                  cmode                               10.68.49.211                                           No

  84 Active/Active Controller curso15.DemoNA.NetAppU.com          10.68.49.215                              0101185268   No

  85 Active/Active Controller curso16.DemoNA.NetAppU.com          10.68.49.216                              0101183380   No

  82 Active/Active Controller curso8.demona.netappu.com           10.68.49.208                              0101179731   No

  78 Active/Active Controller fdemo2.demona.netappu.com           10.68.49.202                              0101199156   No

  74 Active/Active Controller fdemo3.demona.netappu.com           10.68.49.203                              0101174433   No

  79 Active/Active Controller fdemo6.demona.netappu.com           10.68.49.206                              0101174445   No

  81 Active/Active Controller fdemo7.demona.netappu.com           10.68.49.207                              0101174090   No

  77 Controller               nas.demona.netappu.com              10.68.49.204                              0135058274   No

809 Controller               node0                               10.68.49.210                              0101184897   No

810 Controller               node1                               10.68.49.211                              0101169894   No

811 Controller               node2                               10.68.49.212                              0101180473   No

812 Controller               node3                               10.68.49.213                              0101176781   No

  75 Active/Active Controller test0.DemoNA.NetAppU.com            10.68.49.200                              0118051550   No

  76 Active/Active Controller test1.DemoNA.NetAppU.com            10.68.49.201                              0118053016   No

  80 Active/Active Controller urso9.demona.netappu.com            10.68.49.209                              0101168852   No

971 vFiler                   vfiler1                             10.68.49.199                                           No

1220 vFiler                   vfiler_test.demona.netappu.com      10.68.49.169                                           No

2688 vFiler                   vfilermariano                       10.68.49.253                                           No

1456 vFiler                   vfNETAPP03                          10.68.49.190                                           No

1448 vFiler                   vfNETAPP03.demona.netappu.com       10.68.49.190                                           No

880 vserver                  vs0                                 10.68.49.143                                           No

878 vserver                  vs1                                                                                        No

879 vserver                  vsTEST                                                                                     No

877 vserver                  vsXEN                                                                                      No

I am not sure if this is the information you are requesting, please let me know if you need any additional info.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Cheers!

jgriffit
3,497 Views

Has anything come of this?

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