Got questions about SMVI?

[mlisa]

Our team is very interested in the questions posted on SMVI functionality, configuration, and automation … thanks for taking the time to share.  And please keep the questions and feedback on your experiences working with SMVI, good or bad, coming.  Good feedback makes for a good day, bad feedback makes for a better product J.

I also wanted to let you know that NetApp is hosting an SMVI/SRM Webcast on February 19 focusing on data protection in a VMware environment: NetApp SMVI for backup/restore and VMware SRM for disaster recovery. SDDPC Sys Admin Rick Scherer - who designed and maintains a 25 host VMware ESX 3.5 farm with well over 300 Virtual Machines, plus writes a great blog (http://vmwaretips.com/wp/) - will be joining us to describe how his team uses SMVI. There will also be a panel of folks, including best practices authors and reference architects, to address questions submitted via chat.

Webcast: http://communications.netapp.com/p/Network_Appliance/20090219140000WL?REF_SOURCE=communities

Lisa Haut-Mikkelsen

SMVI Product Manager

[amritad]

Hi

In case you do not want an e-mail to be sent here's a manual process that we have documented in a KB:

https://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb58122

Please let us know your feedback on this and if this helped.

Another way to go about this would be to reserve a VM fo SFR, run the restore agent on that VM and use that dedicated VM for SFR operations.

Regards

Amrita

[dunno1958]

Good post.

Why do I need a FlexClone license when I can use VMDkmounter?

http://communities.netapp.com/docs/DOC-4865

Thanks

[amritad]

well SFR is architected to  use Flexclone.

SMVI also makes use of FlexClone for NFS datastore mounts and VMDK restore to an alternate datastore. Apart from these 3 operations for all other backup and recovery FlexClone is not required.

REgards

Amrita

[#5]

So I can do the single file restore using VMDKmounter

I can mount a datastore from snapshot - no need for FlexClone

The SMVI VMDK restore to an alternative location - isn't that just a mount operation and a manual copy?

I'm not sure why I would spend the money on a FlexClone license

[amritad]

Well if you are a VSC 2.0 (our integrated plug-in that consists of VSC,SMVI and RCU) user you can use FlexClone for cloning VMs also.

Also in my opinion our FlexClone technology offers a lot of benefits and savings to users. You could read up more here

http://www.netapp.com/us/products/platform-os/flexclone.html

Regards

Amrita

[#7]

Thanks Amrita,

I'm looking at FlexClone in particular to NFS datastore/virtual machine/single file backup and restore. What will it allow me to do specific to backup/restore, over-and-above what I can do without it and the free VMDKmounter tool?

Thanks 

[amritad]

Hi

In case you are using SMVI you would need to the FlexClone license for the operations I mentioned i.e.

1) SFR-single File Restore

2) NFS datastore mounts- mounting snapshots on NFS datastores to verify content

3) VMDK restore to an alternate location- just restoring the VMDK to an alternate datastore

For all other SMVI backup and recovery operations FlexClone is not required. I am not an expert on the VMDKmounter tool so am not sure about that but let me do some reading on that.

Regards

Amrita

[aborzenkov]

Unless I am mistaken, VMDKmounter is for Windows/CIFS only. The document you mentioned earlier explicitly says:

You must have the ability to create a FlexClone of the NetApp SnapShot containing the NFS

datastore. This is required because access to the filesystems on the virtual disk files will

typically involve some log replay on the ext3 or ReiserFS filesystem. The log replay will require

a small amount of data to be written to the virtual disk, which can not be performed if you are

accessing the virtual disk in a NetApp read only SnapShot.

[dunno1958]

A FlexClone license isn't required if you access the snapshot directory using CIFS. You do need a FlexClone license to access snapshots of Linux VMs.

I've attached the VMDKmounter doc. A few extracts::

"This paper documents the configuration and tools that can be used to perform recovery of single files from NetApp SnapShots of VMware virtual machines within NFS datastores."

"The virtual disks for virtual machines running Microsoft Windows based operating systems will typically be formatted with the NTFS filesystem. Accessing the virtual disk files via a Microsoft Windows client (either physical or virtual) is preferred, as a Microsoft Windows client will understand both the NTFS filesystem, as well as the NTFS ACLs that reside on the virtual disk. As such, we will present methods for accessing the virtual disks of Microsoft Windows based virtual machines via the CIFS protocol."

"On a Microsoft Windows client, we can access the virtual disk files directly in the NetApp SnapShot via the CIFS protocol."

I'm not interested in Linux VMs so why would I need FlexClone?

As far as I can tell the SMVI redirection restore is a manual copy of a VM from within a 'mount' unless you have a storage VMotion licesnse - or am I missing the mark here?

[findlay]

I'm confused

My VMs are on NFS and I can do a single file restore without flexclone

1. Using SMVI mount the snapshot to an ESX host
   
2. Go to the host and browse the datastore of that snapshot.
   
3. Find the disk you are interested in and mount it as an additional ESX level drive on another virtual machine
   
4. retrieve files
   
5. reverse
   

obviously you need to be a sysadmin to do this, but do many people allow this to be a user operation?!

I think it's actually easier than the "proper" way of doing it.

PS this works equally well for both linux and windows VMs - it makes no difference

[amritad]

Hi

Yes you can use the manual process if required.

PFA the steps to do so.

Regards

Amrita

[#13]

Amrita, the manual process is based on using a FlexClone license though isn't it?

Findlay, I thought the mount function needed FlexClone? See the extract from SMVI 2.0 Best Practice.

"FlexClone is required for mount operations of NFS datastores. FlexClone is not required for NFS VM in-place VMDK restores (SMVI uses ZAPIs). FlexClone is required for out-of-place NFS VMDK restores. Also FlexClone is optional for mounting VMFS datastores. SMVI uses LUNClone when FlexClone is not available."

I'm confused as well, or am I confusing everyone else!!!??!

[findlay]

No, a mount doesn't require flexclone. If it did, then any restore operation would require flexclone as you must mount the snapshot to restore.

I don't have flexclone and the steps I outlined work fine.

Cheers

Bob

[tyrone_owen_1]

Hi Bob,

What you are doing does not seem possible according to the best practice doc and this kb article:

"FlexClone is required for mount operations of NFS datastores."

https://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb53562

I'm not saying I disbelieve you, so is the document wrong?

I think the question about FlexClone is a valid one. What value will FlexClone add for SMVI backup and restores that you can't do another 'free' and equally effectivly way?

Thanks

[findlay]

Well, my feeling is it must be wrong because I can mount a machine that's in a snapshot, including starting it up and having it fully running. I do not have flex clone (it's £10000s and we can't afford it).

Even if it was true, surely you could still mount the vmdk to another vm even though it's in a read only volume?

Thanks

Bob

[cnshelpdesk]

Okay.. sorry about that… I’ve stopped the e-mail notifications ☹

[amritad]

Hi

Just trying to understand your set-up. Are you using VMFS or NFS datastores. For mounting NFS datastores using SMVI you would need a FlexClone license. We have updated all our documents to reflect this.

Regards

Amrita

[dunno1958]

Back to my question about FlexClone in relation to NFS: why do I need it?

Amrita's points regarding FlexClone and NFS were (my responses in bold italics):

1) SFR-single File Restore - Apparantly you can use VMDKmounter to do SFR. BTW, has anyone used this app?

2) NFS datastore mounts- mounting snapshots on NFS datastores to verify content - You can manually mount a snapshot to a datastore

3) VMDK restore to an alternate location- just restoring the VMDK to an alternate datastore - I can see where FlexClone would be useful here IF you also have a storage VMotion license. You can mount (clone) the snap to ESX and storage VMotion to another datatsore. However if you don't have either licenses you can mount a snap and manually copy the VM/VMDK to the desired datastore, or alternativly you can do a NDMP copy.

With that in mind, why would you go to the expense of a FlexClone license? What value does it add? Further to that why even purchase SMVI if crash-consistent snapshots work?

As an afterthought, how would you do an 'out-of-place restore' if you conform to the NetApp Best Practice and place pagefiles, temp files and VMkernel swap files on separate datatsores to the guest OS?

[findlay]

well, I guess if you only ever used to shut down your servers by pulling the power out of them, then you might be happy with crash consistent backups .  Personally I would not be.

if you are cash poor but have programming expertise, you could IMHO do a pretty good impression of SMVI just using powershell.  All you would need to do is instruct vmware to take snapshots, kick of a netapp snapshot, then delete the vmware snapshots.  Of course restoration becomes very manual, but you get what you pay for.

[findlay]

oh this is embarassing

I DO actually have flexclone on my filer.

SINCERELY SORRY everyone, I was getting confused with flexcache or something

[imarcroft]

it's all flex this and snap that.

easy to get confused.