topic SM-SQL and SnapMirror in ONTAP Discussions

SM-SQL and SnapMirror

davidm — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:15:05 GMT

Hi All,

I'm having an issue at a customer site, where they are happily running SM-SQL 5 on SQL 2005 with successful backups, verification and mirroring for their DB, Log and SnapInfo LUN. The problem is that they also have their system DBs on a LUN (model, msdb and master) and want to mirror these databases as well. They back up fine, they have a snapmirror relationship and all the other LUNs are mirroring but not this one. There are no errors in the log and SM-SQL seems to think that everything is fine.

Here's the SM-SQL command:

C:\Program Files\NetApp\SnapManager for SQL Server\SmsqlJobLauncher.exe new-backup –svr 'Server1' -d 'Server1', '6', DB1', 'DB2', 'DB3', 'master', 'model', 'msdb' -ver –verInst 'Server1' -mp –mpdir 'C:\Program Files\NetApp\SnapManager for SQL Server\SnapMgrMountPoint' -RetainBackupDays 2 -lb -bksif -RetainSnapofSnapInfo 8 -trlog -updmir –mgmt daily

My question is; is this expected behaviour, and if not, what can I do to successfully mirror the system DBs?

Thanks

David

Re: SM-SQL and SnapMirror

sourav — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:29:40 GMT

Hi David,

System databases are not backed up in the same way as user databases.

System databases are backed up using stream-based backups and not

SnapShots. These backups are stored in the SnapInfo directory. In your

case the SnapInfo volume is already mirrored, the system database

backups are anyways getting mirrored across. Also note that unless you

intend to rebuild the same exact server and SQL Server instance at the

DR site, system database backups cannot be restored.

Regards,

Sourav.

Re: SM-SQL and SnapMirror

davidm — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:33:14 GMT

Hi Sourav,

Thanks for the reply!

So assuming I do plan to rebuild the exact same instance in a DR situation, is there a way to force the system DBs to mirror across (other than setting up a scheduled SnapMirror)?

Thanks

David

Re: SM-SQL and SnapMirror

bazmercer — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:03:56 GMT

Hi David,

Did you find an answer to this? We also need the Sysdbs snapmirrored accross, preferably with -updmir rather than doing it as a manual schedule.

Thanks

Barry