NetBackup and SnapManager for Oracle and Virtual Infrastructure

[jsuttoncs]

I was asked by a customer to backup the snapshots taken by SMO and SMVI to tape for longer term retention using NDMP.  All data is contained on LUNs stored on the a NetApp cluster.  The customer currently has NetBackup 6.5.3 for Solaris.  I know NetBackup pretty well, but I am honestly pretty weak on how NetBackup integrates with SMO/SMVI snapshots.  While I have used NDMP in the past to backup CIFS and NFS data, I don't think that NDMP is appropriate in this case, but I could be wrong.  From the customer's perspective, a LUN is just a file, so I should be able to back it up via NDMP.  But, I have found nothing that says NDMP exposes LUN snapshots, just clones.  And, if the LUN is active, you will not get an application-consistent backup anyway.

From my limited understanding, I would use SMO and SMVI to create an application consistent snapshot, then mount the snapshots to possibly a NetBackup Media Server and backup the filesystems from there.  Is that the correct way to do it, I don't know?  The problem with that is how do I know which LUN snapshot to mount, how do I know which snapshots are part of a larger volume, etc.  For instance, if I use Veritas Volume Manager to create a volume that consists of multiple LUNs that comprise a database filesystem, how do I know which LUNs comprise that volume and which snapshots make up that volume?  I assume I would have to write some pre and post backup script to interface with SMO and SMVI.

If someone could point me in the right direction, I would truly appreciate it.  I just need a way to back this information up to tape for longer-term retention.

[neto]

Hi Jamie

This is neto from Brazil

How are you?

IMHO, you have two options:

1) NDMP - you can use ndmp to backup the LUN (WAFL object) to tape. More details in TR-3665. Basically, SMO will create a consistent snapshot (backup) and using netbackup will be used to "move" this consistent snapshot to tape. As you can see here, you will backup the whole object and the restore needs to be executed the same way.

2) Clone - if you need granularity, you could use this option. Basically, you can use SMO to execute a remote clone to another server and use netbackup (integrated with RMAN (ASM) or file level (for example ext3) to "move" the needed files to tape. As you can see, using this option you will have granularity on the backup and on the restore as well.

Hope this helps. If you need anything more, please feel free to contact me.

All the best

neto

NetApp - I love this company!

SMO - my life!

[jsuttoncs]

Thanks!!!  I will look over a similar paper for SMVI as well.  If I have any problems, I will contact you.  The Appendix of the SMO whitepaper was helpful for creating backup scripts.  In essense, I see the process as this:

1.  Kick off the backup which fires off a backup script

2.  The script instructs SMO to perform a snapshot

3.  The script determines the last snapshot taken

4.  The script backs up the snapshot

5.  Either success or failure is returned to NetBackup

We will see.  But, what you sent me was a great start!  Thanks so much!

[neto]

Hi Jamie

This is neto from Brazil

How are you?

Glad to hear from you!

Hope that helps.

A new TR of SMO 3.0 is coming soon!

Stay tuned.

Count on me always if you need anything

All the best

neto

NetApp - my life!

[jsuttoncs]

Is SnapDrive absolutely required for SMO to work properly even when using NFS????

[neto]

Hi Jamie

This is neto from Brazil

How are you?

Yes. SDU (for Unix) or SDW (for Windows) is required for SMO (Unix) or SMO (Windows)

All the best

neto

[anzausupport]

Hi Neto,

We have an Oracle DB environment with 3 file system(dat,arc and ctl over  nfs) and taking SMO backup every 1hr duration and need to do cloning of prod after Business day. Now the cloned database, we want it to be read-only and to be integrated with RMAN. so that we can tape backup of cloned db and keep the tape for compliance reason. Is it a good idea

a) to directly cloned the prod db and take backup of snapshot as mentioned by you b). Also wanted to know, do we need ndmp protocol to take cloned napshot backup to tape ( HP data protector)

or

b) Integrate the clone DB with RMAN and trigger RMAN backup to fra area which can later send it to tape.

Version - SMO 3.3.

Thanks,
Ash