Snapmanager Exchange Tape Archive not using NDMP

[terryzolinski]

Good day everyone,

I've been going over TR-4051 and I have come across a point I'm hoping someone can clarify. 

Your archive must include the following two components:

 The SnapInfo directory backed up directly from the Exchange server

 The Exchange data extracted from the LUN backed up by a Snapshot copy

Does this mean I need to archive to tape immediately after the snapshot operation? What I'm wondering is if I decide to push this to tape 2 weeks down the road, will the contents of the snapinfo directory be valid?

Thank you

[dmauro]

you need to backup snapinfo directory to tape, along with the edb and logs file paths, otherwise when you restore back from tape and you don't have a copy of the snapinfo directory at the time of the backup, SME will not be able to restore, as it does not have the metadata corresponding to the backups you have taken. At that point, you can onlly try to restore manually (without SME), by mounting the snapshots and copying the files, etc.

hope that helps,

Domenico

[terryzolinski]

Thanks for the info, this makes sense. I guess the question is why do we need to backup directly from the server vs. a mounted snap of the log LUNs? This seems to be the stick in the mud for me.

[terryzolinski]

The reason for SME needing to come straight from the server vs snap is that the data in the snap is prior to log truncation. The snap is taken at 11:00 pm, however the truncaton occurs after the backup, so about an hour later. The logs in the snap are therefore inconsistent.

I suppose you could take a snap of the snapinfo LUNs post backup, using the run after command and mount those. This all gets pretty messy to the point the best option is to archive to tape immediately after the backup runs, unfortunately.