Data Backup and Recovery

Commvault Intellisnap Query

WAYNEWATKINS
3,702 Views

I have to do some Commvault configuration work for a NetApp CIFS setup. I was reviewing the Lab On Demand for Commvault, specifically the difference between Snap Backup and normal backup. While I see that the Snap Backup is quicker and efficient.  The Snapshot backup is on the primary NetApp. If I lose that snapshot, I cant restore from it? Plus I don't want to retain many backup copies on the Primary as it's not classed as the backup NetApp. If I use the normal backup process, I know it takes longer but the data is at my backup location. 

 

Therefore, would I use a Backup Copy job to copy the Intellisnap created snapshot to my backup location? 

 

Thanks

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

WAYNEWATKINS
3,589 Views

Hi,

 

Thank you for all your feedback. Much appreciated. I manually ran a Data Age job and the Snapshot copies were deleted successfully. On taking a closer look, I think it may have been down to my job setup. I was only doing incremental Snaps at the time and the next Full hadn't happened yet. I've messed around with settings and timings and can now see the data aging process running automatically as expected. It was all about timing!

 

Thanks

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6 REPLIES 6

pedro_rocha
3,649 Views

Hello,

 

If you lose the snap, you lose the backup.

 

It's best to run an aux copy to secondary storage or backup copy to tape, so you do not rely only on the primary snapshot copy (which indeed is on the same location as the data itself).

 

Regards

Pedro

WAYNEWATKINS
3,644 Views

Thanks Pedro.

I worked out by creating a Backup Copy job to shift the data to a secondary location.

Just one thing I'm struggling to workout, if you know. How does the retention of those snapshots on the primary source volume, created by Intellisnap, work? I'm messing around with the Retention-Data Aging settings in the properties of the Snap Primary copy job and have "Retain Snaps by Number of Jobs" currently set to 1 but not sure from this how many snapshots it will retain. My Snap Copy jobs run every hour and Backup Copy runs every 4 hours. Just messing around at the moment. But I can't see any snapshots purging yet.

 

Regards

 

 

pedro_rocha
3,639 Views
hi

Setting retain by job will retain only the specified number of jobs. But since you have backup copy, depending on the selection criteria for the backup copies, the snaps could be present for more time until they actually get copied to the other destination

Sent from my iPhone

WAYNEWATKINS
3,634 Views

Hi,

 

So I have Backup Copy Job set with Job Selection Rules-All Backups. Snapshot Copy set to Retain by Jobs = 1. I can see via the CV Jobs window that data has been copied to my secondary storage. However my snapshots are still on the source?

 

I was expecting the NetApp snapshot to go once the Backup Copy job is ran and data is my secondary location.

 

Thanks

pedro_rocha
3,627 Views

Hi,

This could be miscommunication from the media agent to the storage in order
to age the jobs.

I've seen similar issue where the media agent responsible to notify the
storage of aging was not being able to communicate accordingly with the
storage.

If you run a data aging job, it is possible to see on the MA logs if there
is any problem communicating with ONTAP. If this is the case, there is a
workaround where you specify which MA does this kind of communication with
the array:

https://documentation.commvault.com/commvault/v11_sp20/article?p=36943.htm

 

WAYNEWATKINS
3,590 Views

Hi,

 

Thank you for all your feedback. Much appreciated. I manually ran a Data Age job and the Snapshot copies were deleted successfully. On taking a closer look, I think it may have been down to my job setup. I was only doing incremental Snaps at the time and the next Full hadn't happened yet. I've messed around with settings and timings and can now see the data aging process running automatically as expected. It was all about timing!

 

Thanks

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