topic Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange in Active IQ Unified Manager Discussions

Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

RFRANGEUL — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:27:15 GMT

Hello,

I am trying to integrate my SnapManager for Exchange with Protection Manager.
This architecture will permit to externalize via SnapVault all the backups done by SnapManager for Exchange to a secondary storage
I created a dedicated policy with the following parameters :

Primary data &colon;

Primary data to Backup :

Backup :

The SnapManager job is configured to keep 8 snapshots on the primary storage.

However i have a doubt regarding the retention to configure on the "Primary data" section.

Can i leave the retention values to 0 or is it necessary to configure these values with the same retention of the SnapManager job?

Rgds

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

abuchmann — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:59:20 GMT

Hi Rgds

You can leave the retention values in PM to 0. Our policy is configured like yours and the snapshots kept on primary are controlled by SME.

Kind regards

Adrian

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

adaikkap — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:25:41 GMT

If I remember correctly SME manages the snapshot retentions. It depends on what is the value of the api element "is-application-managing-primary-backup-retention"

If this options is turned on while creating the application dataset, irrespective of the snapshot retention count, Protection Manager does not enforce deletion as per its count.

By default its off.

Even if this option is off, if the snapshot retention type is unlimited then irrespective of the retention count the snapshot are not deleted by Protection Manager.

Can you run the following cli and tel me what is the retention setting ?

dfpm backup list <dsid/name>

Below is the snippet from the NMSDK DOC.

is-application-managing-primary-backup-retention

boolean
optional

If this input is true, Protection Manager does not enforce retention settings in the policy on the primary backups. Application is responsible for deleting primary backups, possibly by invoking dp-backup-version-delete API.

If this input is false, Protection Manager deletes the primary backups according to the retention settings specified in the policy.

Always present in the output.

Default is false.

Regards

adai

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

adaikkap — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:28:11 GMT

BTW I got an update from one of our Subject Matter Expert that SnapManagerExchage does not use the above said attribute instead rely upon backup version with retention type set to unlimited and managed by SnapManager and not Protection Manager.

Regards

adai

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

RFRANGEUL — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:29:01 GMT

Hello,

I ran the dfpm backip list command and you will find below the result :

C:\>dfpm backup list 3450

Backup Id Backup Version Retention Type Node Name Description

--------- --------------------- -------------- -------------------- -------------------

83240 19 May 2012 19:30:23 unlimited Primary data 05-19-2012_19.30.22

83247 19 May 2012 19:30:23 daily Backup 05-19-2012_19.30.22

83146 18 May 2012 19:30:21 unlimited Primary data 05-18-2012_19.30.20

83155 18 May 2012 19:30:21 daily Backup 05-18-2012_19.30.20

83047 17 May 2012 19:30:19 unlimited Primary data 05-17-2012_19.30.19

83067 17 May 2012 19:30:19 daily Backup 05-17-2012_19.30.19

82969 16 May 2012 19:30:21 daily Backup 05-16-2012_19.30.20

82959 16 May 2012 19:30:21 unlimited Primary data 05-16-2012_19.30.20

82876 15 May 2012 19:30:23 daily Backup 05-15-2012_19.30.21

82866 15 May 2012 19:30:23 unlimited Primary data 05-15-2012_19.30.21

82773 14 May 2012 19:30:23 unlimited Primary data 05-14-2012_19.30.22

82783 14 May 2012 19:30:23 daily Backup 05-14-2012_19.30.22

82689 13 May 2012 19:30:24 weekly Backup 05-13-2012_19.30.22

82551 11 May 2012 19:30:22 daily Backup 05-11-2012_19.30.21

82460 10 May 2012 19:30:24 daily Backup 05-10-2012_19.30.23

82367 09 May 2012 19:30:22 daily Backup 05-09-2012_19.30.21

82274 08 May 2012 19:30:27 daily Backup 05-08-2012_19.30.26

82184 07 May 2012 19:30:23 daily Backup 05-07-2012_19.30.22

82097 06 May 2012 19:30:24 weekly Backup 05-06-2012_19.30.22

81856 03 May 2012 19:30:27 unlimited Primary data 05-03-2012_19.30.26

81522 29 Apr 2012 19:30:32 weekly Backup 04-29-2012_19.30.31

81236 25 Apr 2012 19:30:27 unlimited Backup 04-25-2012_19.30.26

80952 22 Apr 2012 19:30:29 weekly Backup 04-22-2012_19.30.27

80814 20 Apr 2012 19:30:30 unlimited Backup 04-20-2012_19.30.28

80712 18 Apr 2012 19:30:50 unlimited Backup 04-18-2012_19.30.42

80628 17 Apr 2012 19:30:36 unlimited Backup 04-17-2012_19.30.33

80535 16 Apr 2012 19:30:32 unlimited Backup 04-16-2012_19.30.29

80430 15 Apr 2012 19:30:25 unlimited Backup 04-15-2012_19.30.24

79813 08 Apr 2012 19:30:30 unlimited Backup 04-08-2012_19.30.26

I noticed some "unlimited" retentions for the Backup data.

What does it mean?

Will the associated snaphosts be deleted?

Rgds

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

adaikkap — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:02:47 GMT

When the retention is unlimited the retention setting does not apply. It can only be deleted manually by a user and not based on retention settings.

Regards

adai

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

RFRANGEUL — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:43:38 GMT

Do you know the command to use?

My version of DFPM is 4.0 :

C:\>dfpm version

dfpm 4.0.0.6973 (4.0D13)

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

adaikkap — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:16:58 GMT

For version 4.0 there only exists a api and not CLI. Starting version 5.0 we have a cli as well for the same.

API:dp-backup-version-delete

CLI:

[root@10 ~]# dfpm backup delete help

NAME

delete -- Delete a backup version.

SYNOPSIS

dfpm backup delete [ -p ] <backup-id>

DESCRIPTION

Delete a backup version given its id.

Use the -p option to set the allow-deferred-delete flag to true.

[root@10 ~]#

Regards

adai

Re: Protection Manager and SnapManager for Exchange

kryan — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:43:54 GMT

To elaborate on Adai's comment, DFM/OnCommand will never automatically delete any backups marked unlimited.

The SME created primary node backups should be type unlimited as SME handles the retention of those backups. The backup node backups should have a retention type other than unlimited unless you specifically want them to be available indefinitely. You should configure SME with the retention style of those backups within the scheduled SME backup task as it tells DFM to transfer the primary backups and create the secondary backups.

To remove the old backups, delete the snapshots from the filer and DFM will detect they are gone during the next monitoring cycle. Or if they are already deleted from the filer but still present in DFM, use the API or CLI (5.x and higher) to remove the backups from DFM.