SnapCreator 4.1: Consistency group Snapshot with vFilers

[brauntisc]

Hi All

I have read the Release Notes of SnapCreator 4.1. Under Known limitations I found following line:

Consistency group Snapshot with vFilers is not supported

In the Release Notes of Snapcreator 4.0 this limitation is not described. Why is this limitation?

Is it right, that I don't have this limitation in 4.0?

In the Moment we have SnapCreator 3.5 with vfilers and CG Snapshots for Oracle DB Backups.

TIA

Thomas

[sivar · Accepted solution]

Hello Thomas,

You will still be able to run CG snapshots on vfilers.

The thing that is not supported is around wafl_sync along with CG snapshot, as enabled by this parameter below.

NTAP_CONSISTENCY_GROUP_WAFL_SYNC=Y

There are cases, where SC can issue a wafl_sync before a cg snapshot.

Since wafl_sync is not enabled at a vfiler level, and only available in pfiler level, having the above setting will cause SC to fail.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks,
Siva Ramanathan

[brauntisc]

Hi Siva

Thanks for your answer. This help me a lot.

When I understand your Explanation correct, we are not affected:

--> The Volumes are in the vfilers, but snapcreator communicate exclusively with the pfiler.

Is this correct?

regards

Thomas

[sivar]

Yes Thomas.

ONTAP supports cg-start and cg-commit at both pfiler and vfiler level.

Snap Creator also supports both pfiler and vfiler level.

Your current config should continue to work.

The only change that happened around 4.0p1d2 time-frame is the inclusion of NTAP_CONSISTENCY_GROUP_WAFL_SYNC

This is not supported at the vfiler level

As long as you leave NTAP_CONSISTENCY_GROUP_WAFL_SYNC=N you are fine

Thanks,
Siva Ramanathan

[brauntisc]

Hi Siva

Perfect.. Thanks for your explanations...

regards

Thomas

[steiner]

Personally, I would not use WAFL_SYNC anyway. I would be surprised if that’s every helpful, and it can cause delays and timeouts.