topic Re: Snapdrive and flexclone in ONTAP Discussions

Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:30:14 GMT

I have a customer who has successfully replicaed (via snapmirror) a volume containing a SMSQL backup. They were able to succesfully create a flexclone of the replicated volume and confirm that it's online.

They are also running snapdrive 6.0.1 on the Windows server in DR. Normally, all you have to do is go into snapdrive and connect to the filer's volume/lun. For whatever reason the flexclone volume does not show up in the list of volumes on that filer.

Is there something else that needs to be done for snapdrive to be able to see that flexclone volume? Normally, with snapdrive 6.0.X there is no longer the need to share out the volume first before snapdrive can see it - just automatic. Yte, I even went so far as to create a CIFS share for the flexclone volume and snapdrive still cannot display it.

If someone could point out what's wrong I'd appreciate it.

Cheers

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

chriskranz — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:04:25 GMT

That definitely shouldn't be the case.

Are they trying to create the FlexClone from within SnapDrive itself (connecting to a SnapMirror destination will do this for you), or have they created the FlexClone outside of SnapDrive, and are now trying to connect to the cloned LUN?

Is the LUN online?

Do you see the cloned volume?

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:15:01 GMT

The flexclone was created via filerview first. They went into filerview on the DR site and created the flexclone volume. So you have a bigger picture - The production site has SMSQL up and going. After the backup a snapmirror is kicked off to replicate the databases and logs to the DR site. We didn't want to upset the replication from happening by basing the flexclone at the DR site on the snapmirror snapshot, so a SMSQL backup was created (so the replicated data would be in an application consistent form) and a manual snapmirror performed. We based the flexclone snapshot off of that manual SMSQL backup.

Anyways, we went into filerview on the DR side and created the flexclone volume successfully. The LUN contained in this volume had no initiator maps, which was expected. At this point I'd expect to be able to go into snapdrive on the DR side and connect to the flexcloned lun - mapping the initiators as part of the process. Not sure why we can't see the flexcloned volume though.

Could you explain how we could create a flexclone from snapdrive - keeping in mind that all work is being done at the DR site? If that's possible then I'll tell them to always use snapdrive to create the flexclone, rather than using filerview or the CLI.

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

chriskranz — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:18:36 GMT

Simply go into SnapDrive and point to the SnapMirror destination. SnapDrive will prompt you that this is a SnapMirror destination, and provided FlexClone is licensed, it will create a clone for you and map it.

Just to confirm (sorry, just a sanity check), the LUN you have already cloned, is this definitely online? The FlexClone process may have turned it offline to prevent conflicts with LUN mappings (as it is an identical clone.

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:24:33 GMT

So, just to get this straight - I'm on the DR site and I can go into snapdrive here and connect to the filer here, which is the destination filer and be able to create a flexclone? How is creating the clone different from connecting to an existing lun. What I mean is there an option to 'create flexclone' or something? I know I can use snapdrive to create, connect, expand, etc., but dont see an option for create flexclone.

Can this be performed at the DR site or must it be performed from the production site?

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:25:51 GMT

The lun was in an offline state - as expected from a flexclone.

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

chriskranz — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:26:57 GMT

Yup, at the DR site. The FlexClone creation is totally transparent. The idea being that a Windows administrator doesn't have to realise what a clone is, or what snapmirror is, or any of that, they just point and click.

There is no real difference between this and you doing it manually, it's just that SnapDrive takes the hassle out of it.

It should work perfectly well doing it manually also however.

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

chriskranz — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:27:33 GMT

Okay cool, turn the LUN online, and you should be able to connect from SnapDrive as you expected before.

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:29:25 GMT

So, I should go into snapdrive, connect to the replicated volume and it will prompt me at that time, that this is a destination volume? At that point it'll walk me through the flexclone process?

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

chriskranz — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:30:25 GMT

Yup, should do the job!

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:31:00 GMT

Unfortunately, to connect to that lun snapdrive still needs to be able to see the volume that contains the lun - which it was not displaying. I'll try what you mentioned about snapdrive being able to create the flexclone by itself and let you know.

Thanks!

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

arqureshi — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:13:48 GMT

Hello Ian,

It seems like snap drive 6 automatically uses flex clone technology to mount a LUN from a snapshot. Here is what I did

Created a manual snapshot of the volume call SQLFV1 (This volume hosts my sys and user db luns) snap name is asif_snap

Started snapdrive and clicked on connect to disk

in the volumes window expanded my volume and then expanded snapshot and then expanded asif_snap (name of the snapshot)

Clicked on the dblun (name of the lun) and completed the wizard

performed the same process for sysdb LUN

Went to filer view and manage flex clone and sure enough it created a flex clone associated with asif_snap.

I'm running snapmanager for SQL and I seem to be able to follow the same process using the snapshots create by smsql.

Hope this helps

Asif

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:50:48 GMT

Hi. I've successfully created flexclones from Snapdrive. Very handy. Today, I attempted to try and create a flexclone and choose the LUN type as shared (Microsoft Cluster Services only). Unfortunately, that option is greyed out.

Is it not possible to create a shared cluster disk resource from a flexclone? I also tried to create the flexclone from filerview and connect via snapdrive, but got the same result.

My client has a MSCS in their DR site and was hoping to use flexclones of the replicated volumes for test/dev. So far no go in creating a flexclone LUN cluster (shared) disk resource.

Any suggestions?

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

chriskranz — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:53:33 GMT

Are you cloning from a cluster disk to a cluster disk, or are you trying to clone a standalone disk into a cluster? The disk signatures will be brought across, and this will identify whether it's a standalone or cluster disk. I've never had to try changing it to be honest, so I'm not sure I'm afraid!

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

amiller_1 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:04:00 GMT

I can't say I'm totally sure I'm following the issue/question....but I think this KB applies somewhat (interestingly enough it was updated yesterday).

https://now.netapp.com/Knowledgebase/solutionarea.asp?id=kb47449

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:06:40 GMT

Hi Chris. It's a cluster disk. There is a SQL cluster in the production site and the cluster disk is being replicated to DR.

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

ianaforbes — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:11:22 GMT

Thanks Andrew!

Re: Snapdrive and flexclone

chriskranz — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:12:34 GMT

You definitely should be able to do this; this is how we work Exchange DR failover.

But reading the KB article (thanks for that Andrew), looks like it may be an issues with SD6. You might have to map them manually I'm afraid...