topic Re: Unable to discover external relationship created for vfiler in Active IQ Unified Manager Discussions

Unable to discover external relationship created for vfiler

vemery999 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:48:14 GMT

Hi,

I'm encountered a problem to discover external relationship.

I use lrep_reader and lrep_writer to do the baseline transfer between a windows box with OSSV and a vFiler.

1) on primary OSSV server SRVVS04:

lrep_reader -f vFilerA -q /vol/SRVVS04_D/qtree_SRVVS04_D -o J:\SRVVS04_D@0 SRVVS04:D:\

2) on extract temporary PC tempPC

lrep_writer J:\SRVVS04_D

3) on secondary vFilerA

snapvault start -S tempPC:J:\SRVVS04_D /vol/SRVVS04_D/qtree_SRVVS04_D

snapvault modify -S SRVVS04:D:\ /vol/SRVVS04_D/qtree_SRVVS04_D

snapvault update /vol/SRVVS04_D/qtree_SRVVS04_D

All work fine in CLI, snapvault status show me the transfer progression correctly.

After, I would like to monitor this relationship and import it to DFM protection manager. But nothing. No external relationship discover, after many "dfm host discover..."

I read, in another communities articles: http://communities.netapp.com/thread/14722, that DFM doesn't discover relationship created in vFiler context

.........

Are these relationship created using the vfiler interface or pfiler(vfiler0) interface.

If it’s the earlier one then DFM doesn’t discover.

..........

So to try, I launch the "snapvault start" from the hosting filer (vFiler0) instead the vFilerA. => Protection manager immediately discover the relationship. But the relationship is between OSSV and the hosting storage. Not between OSSV and the vFilerA. It's not what I want.

On another side, if I try to create the relationship directly in Protection manager "without baseline transfert", I always have the same problem. Protection manager try to create the relationship between the OSSV and the hosting storage, instead the vFiler. Even if I set for secondary storage, a qtree owned by the vfilerA.

Any ideas?

Any explanation?

Thanks

Unable to discover external relationship created for vfiler

niels — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:12:22 GMT

Hi vemery999,

unfortunately there is no solution to your problem.

As you already found out, Protection Manager does not discover or support relationships from/to/between vfilers.

To work with PM all relationships have to be tied to vfiler0.

regards, Niels

Re: Unable to discover external relationship created for vfiler

vemery999 — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:26:28 GMT

Hi Niels

Thanks for your reply. Do you know if this features will be available in next release of DFM ?

So I will use the CLI interface to manage this kind of relationship.

I’m evaluating DFM and PM and I would like to know if it’s the solution for what I need to do. I need to know what I can do with vFiler and DFM.

Yet I can see vFiler unit in DFM. I can configure vFiler or qtree owned by vFiler in a dataset primary data or secondary storage. What is the point if I cannot create relationship and use protection policy?

I know that I can create, manage and migrate vFIler between hosting storage. But what else?

Can I mirror an entire vFiler to a DR site on another hosting storage and use the DR vFiler if the mirrored vFiler no longer work for any reason?

Thanks for your explanation? Perhaps have you a good documentation that explains the possibilities between DFM and vFiler?

Regards

Vincent

Re: Unable to discover external relationship created for vfiler

niels — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:15:25 GMT

Hi Vincent,

I'm not in product management so I've no idea if and when this will get into the product.

The reason why vfilers are not supported was the lack of vfiler APIs when Protection Manager was originally designed and build.

Generally using vfilers and PM together does work, as long as one can live with the fact that relationships are tied to vfiler0.

Data is still only accessible via the vfiler. The replicated data is only using the network interface of vfiler0 instead of the one of the vfiler.

The problem is just import of the vfiler relationships. If you let PM create and manage the relationships from the OSSV client to the vfiler, then it will work (given the above mentioned "rerstrictions").

PM also does not support vfiler DR. You'd have to replicate the primary vfiler to a secondary vfiler and use the DR mirror policy, but after DR failover the secondary vfiler will still be its own instance and clients will have to be "re-routed" to it (e.g. by DNS aliases).

regards, Niels

Re: Unable to discover external relationship created for vfiler

vemery999 — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:29:19 GMT

Niels

Thanks a lot for all your comment.

I will configure the vFiler relationships trough the CLI environment and find a solution to monitor the lag.

Regards

Vincent