ONTAP Discussions

SnapProtect questions

peluso
34,294 Views

Hi all,

You may have seen the latest announcement for our new product, SnapProtect.  Please ask your questions - we have technical expertise ready to provide answers and point to useful information.  I will post a few questions here as well to break the ice and open up the conversation.  For more information about the product, start with our product pages. http://www.netapp.com/us/products/protection-software/snapprotect.html

Best,

Terri

Thanks so much!
Terri Peluso
Senior Community Program Manager
177 REPLIES 177

jcbettinelli
4,327 Views

Does the VSA agent support the VMware vCenter appliance?

Yes, it does. It was just a problem with the services not running on the appliance. Sorry for that.

cgeck0000
4,327 Views

I have a question about snapprotect snapshoting virtual machines.  We are a hosting business with multiple customers running VMs on NetApp storage.  These VMs do not have direct access to the NetApp, as well the customer network itself does not have direct access to the NetApp for security reasons.  If we implement SnapProtect to snapshot the virtual machines in each different customer network is there any part of the product that needs access to the NetApp from within the customer network or Active Directory domain?  We would like the product to sit on our management network only.  Thank you.

l_mitchell
4,327 Views

The machine running the vSphere iData Agent needs to see the vCenter server and the NetApp IP addresses that are used to present storage to VMware, but not the VMs themselves.

The guest VMs don't need anything if you only need to do VM level snapshots. It takes a VMware snapshot of each VM (one at a time, can be tediously slow if quiesicng a datastore with a lot of VMs), then performs the NetApp level snapshot. Restoring customers' individual data would be an interesting topic, or if they wanted individual applications protected say.

My question would be do you need the ability to catalog your customers data, or back off to tape? If not then I'd suggest looking at the VSC. If you are looking at some sort of Backup as a service offering then you're probably looking at full blown CommVault.

cgeck0000
4,662 Views

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, we need the ability to catalog everything, send it to tape, and restore individual files if need be.  We would also need to achieve individual application protection, primarily Exchange and SQL server.  At this time we are using CommVault is a traditional manner, but would like to snapshot to protect the VM and say Exchange server data.  Is anyone using SnapProtect in this way, if so which pieces are implemented and in what way?

bwood
4,662 Views

A few things here...

If Exchange and SQL are running on VMDKs then your only option here is to protect the VMs using the Virtual Server Agent and enable application quiescing as part of the VM backup.  I don't see why this wouldn't work given the network layout described.  Your recovery option would basically be to restore the entire VM.

If Exchange and SQL are running on LUNs...

     - Only physical mode RDMs (iSCSI only) are supported

     - Client connected iSCSI is also supported

  In this case you would have to use the actual database agents (Exchange database iDA, SQL iDA) running inside the VMs.  The problem you would have here is that we need to add the VM (from the guest OS perspective) as a client into the SnapProtect environment.  And assuming these networks are completely isolated I don't think you could do that.

Restoring individual files / folders from the VM backups might also be a challenge...  You'd be restoring those files back to the private network.  Then you would need to get them back into the VM on the customer network.

frank_iro
3,895 Views

Here's another question.

We're currently deploying SnapProtect for a client with Oracle on NFS sitting on a FAS3210. We have installed the Oracle iDataAgent (the server is running HP-UX IA64 11.31) but are running into an error when trying to run a backup. We get an error stating "the library is not supported". It fails at the very beginning, before even creating a snapshot on the filer. First of all, does SnapProtect support Oracle on NFS? I have had a look at the NetApp IMT and SnapProtect documentation, and as far as I can see, it's supported. Secondly, any idea what the error means?

Btw, we have another server (Oracel on Solaris 10.5) connected via FC. SnapProtect works on this just fine.

aborzenkov
3,895 Views

As far as I know it should be working. Did you test with SnapTest whether basic configuration is correct? Which version (service pack) do you use? Is SnapProtect itself installed on local disks or on NFS volumes?

Hmm … just looked more closely on CommVault site and it appears that on IA64 only FC is supported indeed:

NetApp

Snapshot ONTAP 7.3.5 or higher

ONTAP 8.0.1, 8.0.2 and 8.1.0 (7-mode supported)

FlexClone

SnapRestore

SnapVault/Mirror for replication

None Fibre Channel

iSCSI

NFS

CIFS

Supported on HP-UX running on Intel Itanium processors using Fibre Channel.

frank_iro
3,895 Views

That's a bummer. Client got 10Gbe NICs and switches specifically for this! Can this be 100% confirmed?

frank_iro
3,895 Views

Just a heads up about the issue I posted earlier. Updated Snapprotect with the new service pack, SP8. The error's gone now. Works perfectly on HP-UX 11.31 IA64 with Oracle on NFS.

l_mitchell
3,912 Views

I am struggling understanding how backup to a tape library works. Could somebody help?

I have a new tape library (don't ask!) zoned into my primary filers, followed the instructions on how to add a tape storage device connected directly to the filer, brilliant, it shows as configured. and there's me thinking that would be the hard part!

I don't understand how I use it with an existing storage policy doing local snapshots though? In the documentation it looks like you just go into your existing policy and choose a normal copy and select the library, however I can't select the library at all. I can create a new storage policy and use the new tape library as my library, however I'll then have to create new backupsets / subclients etc alongside the existing snapshot ones this way, surely not?

Other things I have done is chosen to share the media library amongst all media agents (all agents same site so guessing this is fine) and also as its zoned into both filer heads, I set it up so the library looks accessible from both heads, so from a commvault snapprotect perspective I can see the drives twice, I'm not sure if that'll make a difference?

Does anybody have any experience to help me on this, any guides anybody has stumbled across maybe, I'm going mad trying to understand the documentation!

A couple of other general queries, which is confusing me the more I use this product, what is the difference between the library selected when you create a storage policy, I though that this was for Indexing? Which leads me onto what is the local index cache on each media agent used for then? There doesn't seem to be any clear documentation around this, it just shows you to create an index for your storage policy and that's it, but this index cache must be important as it seems to get huge. How do you size for it, what are the best practices around it etc. Currently I have put these libraries on NetApp CIFS shares for my storage policies, but I don't know what I should do really with this local index cache or understand its relation to the other library index created with a storage policy (if any??).

Thnaks in advance.

aborzenkov
3,895 Views

How you perform backups now? Do you have another library connected to filers?

frank_iro
3,912 Views

Hi Mitchell,

You mentioned you can't select the library when you create a normal copy in your storage policy. Had the same issue, then realized you can change the data path for that copy, which will allow you to select a different library.

Right-click on the normal copy you have created and select "properties". Under the "Data Paths" tab, click the "Add" button. From the list, select the media agent which has Tape Library you have configured. Click the "OK" button. Select the newly added data path and click the "Set Default" button. Optionally remove the other data path. Close the properties dialog, and you're done. You're new copy should now be configured to backup to the requested tape.

Hope that helps.

l_mitchell
3,912 Views

This is the only tape library and is being presented to the primary filers via FC. There is a secondary san for snapvaulting that isn't offsite (no fc ports either), hence the requirement for tape. In my head the tape should only be used for compliance really, and ideally never have to be used!

Frank, that looks promising, however the tape library doesn't show up as an option. I think the issue I am having it the entire library is only zoned into the filer heads and not to any media agents.

And you obviously can't create a filer as a media agent, which would have sorted my issue out. The problem here is that the all my backup servers are virtual vm's that do not use FC connectivity on the esx hosts, its all NFS storage, so I couldn't get creative and try to use something like npiv to present a vm media agent onto the fabric, not that I'd want to really! Hmm.

I noticed in the Snap POC cookbook I have that where it talks about tape, there are two examples, both have the tape library controller zoned into a media agent, and in example one the tapes are zoned directly to the filers, and in the second example the tapes and the library controller are all presented to a media agent. Either way it looks like I could then select the tape library as a data path in an existing storage policy as you've described.

I think in my scenario with the way its currently setup, I am going to have a separate storage policy / retention rules / backupsets / subclients etc etc and perform backups independent of my current snapshots? So it'll likely have its own index etc associated to it. Would that mean its own snapshots etc on the primary volume (has to be from the primary volume just in case the backup san is moved to a secondary location, which then to me would mean tape drive is legacy if backup san was moved to a secondary site, but politics...!), I just want 52 weekly full archived off to tape and a yearly that never ages, is that too much to ask!!!

I'm not sure if this is even possible, what I'm thinking, or if I should even go down that route or not, any ideas welcome! Should I be looking at getting a media agent to see the library? Or should I be able to do weeklys / yearlys easily enough. All the tapes in the magazines are being seen, even the tapes barcode labels etc so it does look like it should be ready to go, but maybe not...!

I may be getting bogged down with that's how you could do it with native NetApp again here.....and not taking into account I'm limited by the way ndmp works too. I'm need to understand what the relationship is between SnapProtect backup to tape and how the volumes are backed up to tape in different scenarios and pretend NetApp doesn't exist I think.

aborzenkov
4,476 Views

You I understand you correctly, you want to backup SnapProtect initiated snapshots to tape directly attached to NetApp. That’s not possible. Not even with NFS and not even in Simpana 10. You need media agent that acts as proxy, mounts these snapshots and writes them out to tape.

l_mitchell
4,476 Views

aborzenkov, what about NetApp NAS iDA? Could I select backup to tape (assuming I actually could add the tape library to my storage policy,) and it would not do a native NetApp SMTape / NDMP backup directly to tape then?

So with luns / NFS / even files inside vmdk, as this can be indexed by being mounted does that mean it is being streamed to tape in a file data fashion, and you are not backing up a big lun file inside a volume?

Or is NetApp SnapProtect locked down to NDMP / SMTape backing up (possibly via a media agent?).

aborzenkov
4,896 Views

aborzenkov, what about NetApp NAS iDA? Could I select backup to tape (assuming I actually could add the tape library to my storage policy,) and it would not do a native NetApp SMTape / NDMP backup directly to tape then?

Yes. It is called "Backup copy". You create Snapshot Copy and during backup tell it to copy snapshot to tape. Snapshot can also be marked as "Spool copy" , meaning it is deleted once tape out is completed. This gives you equivalent of "normal" NDMP backup. I do not think it supports SMTape, it is using NDMP (at least I do not remember seeing it in documentation).

So with luns / NFS / even files inside vmdk, as this can be indexed by being mounted does that mean it is being streamed to tape in a file data fashion, and you are not backing up a big lun file inside a volume?

I do not have experience with VMware, but I believe there is extra virtual server iDA which backs up whole VMDK.

Or is NetApp SnapProtect locked down to NDMP / SMTape backing up (possibly via a media agent?).

There are two types on snapshots. NAS snapshots can be written out directly to tape. "Server snapshots" (i.e. - snapshots initiated by any other iDA on host) can only be written to tape via proxy media server.

l_mitchell
4,896 Views

Very interesting, I have zoned in a test physical host into the tape library (but only one of the tape drives, not sure if that matters, I can see the library controller which I think is the most important thing?) and set it up as a media agent (not added the tape library via SnapProtect yet though), so it gives me something to play with.

I want to try the direct to tape direct from NetApp filer to tape without a mediaagent. If this works I'm hoping that the indexed job say would reflect this and I could search a backup catalogue and it would know that that version is only now on tape say and tells you what tapes are required, probably hoping too much there!

I will then configure the media agent to see the tape library and then test some non NetApp NAS iDA backups to see how they work.

I have seen SMTape somewhere, and it fully talked about snapmirror to tape too so that all snapshots as well as primary data is backed up, no idea how it would work via SP, if I stumble on it again I will post, but (thankfully!) not in my scenario.

jskinner
4,896 Views

If you're going to use the NAS IDa and index, you will need a media agent with the NDMP remote server agent installed on it.

l_mitchell
4,896 Views

It seems to need a mediaagent for NAS NDMP backups full stop, index or no index? Is this correct?

I've tried to create a new storage policy, create my local snap backup as spool only, so create local snapshot, then in theory dump straight to tape, followed by a cleanup of the snapshot (on next data aging I presume), however I still cannot choose a tape destination on a classic backup? Only the media agents with my existing disk libraries associated to them.

For some reason when I added the library via the filers using NDMP, I had to put it under a media agent however I cannot select it. I can create a storage policy and use the tape library as a storage policy library, is this the way to do it? Local snap copy, set to spool, followed by dump to tape? I'm guessing you wouldn't have indexing this way, and that is what you mean?

jskinner
4,896 Views

Yes, that is correct.

You will need the NDMP Remoteserver agent installed on the Windows/Linux client. If you go to the properties tab for the MA, it should show installed.

parrizas
4,729 Views

150. Considerations when moving from Commvault Simpana to NetApp SnapProtect.

Hi there,

IHAC who is moving away from Simpana and is planning to install NetApp SnapProtect. Cu's environment is 100% NetApp, FAS3270 as primary controller and FAS2040 as secondary. 100% of their backups are snapshot based, with auxiliary copies (snapvault). They copy data using NDMP (NAS NetApp Agent) directly from FAS2040 to tape.

I hope you can help with a few questions I have regarding this process:

  1. I assume a new installation of the Commserver and Media Agents/Servers is required.
  2. What about clients?, is it possible to export them from the old Simpana CommCell and import them to the new "SnapProtect" CommCell?, is uninstall/install a better approach?
  3. Cu has a Disk Library that uses LUNs from FAS2040 as part of their data path, is this still possible with NetApp SnapProtect?, I think so.
  4. This Disk Library also uses an "Internal Disk" on the Physical Media Server, same question, is this a valid configuration with NetApp SnapProtect?
  5. Considering that Cu environment is 100% NetApp and that they use snapshot for all their backups, which Simpana features are not available with SnapProtect?, for instance, Cu is using Simpana Deduplication, and I think this is not possible with our SnapProtect, any others?

Thanks a lot for you help.

Regards,

Alfonso

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