topic Re: SnapCenter 4.5 SQL retention in Data Protection

SnapCenter 4.5 SQL retention

MaGr — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:14:10 GMT

Hi there,

we are running SC 4.5 to backup SQL server.

It's installed and running well.

Retention is set to 4 days for full and 4 day for UTM restore.

I noticed that in the server log volume (where the TBD files are) the snapshots are piling up.

At the moment there are 452 snapshot in the volume.

It's mentioned to set the LOG_SNAPSHOT value using the CMDLET. But it seems it's no longer supported to do so.

Set-SmPolicy -PolicyName 'test' -PolicyType 'Backup' -Description 'Full and log backup Policy' -scheduleType Hourly -retentionsettings @{"BackupType"="DATA";"RetentionDays"="4"}, @{"BackupType"="DATA";"ScheduleType"="HOURLY";"RetentionDays"="4"},@{"BackupType"="LOG";"RetentionDays"="4"},@{"BackupType"="LOG_SNAPSHOT";"RetentionCount"="3"} -pluginpolicytype 'SCSQL' -sqlbackuptype 'Fullbackupandlogbackup' -CreateLogFolderSnapshot

If fails with the following output:

WARNING: Providing on demand retention setting for Hourly policy is deprecated. On Demand retention setting will be ignored. WARNING: Log_Snapshot value is non-configurable and hence value provided for LOG_SNAPSHOT retention will be ignored.

How can I fix that?

Marcus

Re: SnapCenter 4.5 SQL retention

CSCOTTENO — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 13:19:01 GMT

Marcus,

As bad as it sounds, I'm happy I'm not the only person facing this problem since 4.5. I also had TBD files/snapshots piling up across our SQL environment, and eventually ended up where you are, trying to configure log retention via Powershell.

The resolution for me, which is just a workaround, is I found old policies for DB backups that had "hourly" set for LOG_SNAPSHOT, which was the default setting before 4.5. I have been copying those policies and applying them, replacing these LOG_SNAPSHOT "none" policies. Sadly, one has to be careful about editing these copied policies as SC will re-write the LOG_SNAPSHOT value to "none" even if that wasn't the item in the policy being edited.

I'd have to dig for it, but there is even a KB article I found that states LOG_SNAPSHOT should be set to "hourly" and not "none".

Re: SnapCenter 4.5 SQL retention

MaGr — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 06:24:23 GMT

Hey,

thanks for your input.

It's a new installation of SC, I'm running a poc for it. So no old policies should be there.

The output of get-smpolicy shows a mix of everything.

BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : Daily RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0 > BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : Daily RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0 > BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : Hourly RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0 > BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : None RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0 > BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : None RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0 > BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : Daily RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0 > BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : Hourly RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0 > BackupType : LOG_SNAPSHOT SchedulerType : Hourly RetentionCount : 2 RetentionDays : 0

I open a case towards Netapp for that ...

Marcus

Re: SnapCenter 4.5 SQL retention

MaGr — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 08:59:14 GMT

Its a confirmed bug.