topic Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM in Active IQ Unified Manager Discussions

How to setup Snapvault with DFM

peter1965 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:38:27 GMT

Happy new Year and pardon the ignorance. Just a bit of confusion on my part - as I wish to setup snapvault backup jobs with ops manager / dfm. I am running version 4.02 and I have a fas6280 for the primary san and wish to snapvault to a v6210 san. The dataset would be snapped machines that are on NFS datastores for our esxi 4.1 virtual environment. I see a lot of the command line stuff but nothing with the gui. Once i have this implimented I wish to have other admins to have access to perform a restore if needed. I also have VSC installed where I can take advantage and perform snaps before the snaps would age off but before aging off I wish to have those snaps snapvaulted to the 6210..

thanks

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

SEANMLUCE — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:28:23 GMT

I believe this is currently the best solution as SnapVault is not currently integrated with the VSC: http://communities.netapp.com/docs/DOC-8720

I recently set this up for a customer and it works quite well once set up properly.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

peter1965 — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:08:32 GMT

Thanks. But I am already aware of this solution and using it. But I want to setup snapvault via ops manager so I can turn over a “GUI” type of way for a person to backup restore..

I tried importing the external relationship but that didn’t work out to well for me and I think that would only work for “viewing”. Then again I may be showing my ignorance of snapvault and ops manager comingled.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

SEANMLUCE — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:31:06 GMT

Ops Manager / DFM calls to the VSC for Snap operations and because SnapVault is not currently integrated with the VSC, there is no GUI solution.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

peter1965 — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:36:46 GMT

What if VSC wasn’t in the picture? Not saying I would go that route since VSC is pretty darn slick. Can DFM and snapvault work together in harmony?

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

SEANMLUCE — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:41:54 GMT

DFM/OM works fine with SnapVault on CIFS/NFS data and any other SAN data that has a Snap Product which integrates SnapVault. SnapManager for SQL and Exchange both have built in support for SnapVault for example.

For whatever reason, VSC supports SnapMirror, but not SnapVault. I have heard that SnapVault will be added to VSC in the near future.

the solution in my original post was created because of the VSC's lack of support for SnapVault.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

SEANMLUCE — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:45:11 GMT

Omitting VSC would give you inconsistent Snaps on your virtual machines as the VSC coordinates the VMware snapshot that is taken before the NetApp snapshot.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

peter1965 — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:45:47 GMT

Thank you Sean..

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

JANDREWARTHA — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:42:38 GMT

If you upgrade to OnCommand 5.0 (DFM 5.0) then you can create and manage SMVI snaps and SV them off directly. The UI for this is a bit weird, and in particular when you assign a storage service, don't set a schedule there, set the schedule in the OnCommand console webapp.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

SEANMLUCE — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:57:10 GMT

Could you elaborate on how this is done? What components are needed, etc... Or point us to some documentation.

Thank you!

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

JANDREWARTHA — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:44:16 GMT

You need OnCommand Core 5.0 and OnCommand Host 1.1. The documentation is pretty good for the installation (although I had trouble with SSL stopping the host packaging talking to the core server), you should pay attention to the upgrading to OnCommand Core and Host Packages section. The Guide to Common Workflows document is pretty basic, you'll probably need to play around with it a bit to get an idea of how it works. Basically OnCommand console is a new web frontend to DFM (although the old one is still there) that can manage SMVI backups directly and associate them (via the Management Console) with storage services. It's still a bit clunky but does basically work.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

tyrone_owen_1 — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:04:08 GMT

Word of caution with using OnCommand Core 5.0 and the Host agent - I've been told by NetApp PS not to use it because there have been so many issues.

I personally haven't looked into this in much depth, so cannot vouch from experience. Worth checking with NetApp before jumping in.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

JANDREWARTHA — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 04:57:42 GMT

Well, as I say, I've got it working in production. The main issue is OnCommand Host chews up RAM like nobody's business and sometimes doesn't go into compliance. Have you heard any specifics?

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

tyrone_owen_1 — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:30:52 GMT

No specifics, I was just told not to use it. Probably worth checking with NetApp.

I'll email NetApp PS and ask for an update - it would benefit me to have the VSC/SnapVault integration.

Re: How to setup Snapvault with DFM

JANDREWARTHA — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:35:39 GMT

After another problem I've been in contact with NetApp support and apparently OC Host won't receive any further updates. Which is a bit annoying as I've never used VSC/SMVI (this was a new site).

The main complaint I have is with ignoring extra datastores - if you don't do things in the right way when adding a new host with a vmdk in a datstore you want to ignore, it'll set up a snapvault for that datastore. This is also what got me into trouble - I storage vmotioned a non-independent disk into my transient datastore which I wanted to ignore. Setting it to ignored in the dataset confused the host agent and it then refused to snapvault, and also didn't properly record the backup in DFM and delete old snapshots. My other complaint is I've been unable to move it to a different host, I get a 403 error after authorizing it. There was the OC Host 1.0 problem involving upgrades from vSphere 4 to 5, but that was fixed in 1.1.