pruning remote snaps initiated by snapmirror configuration

[NBGZIEGLERH]

Hi,

I'm using snapcreator 4.0 with db2 interface and snapmirror update procedure. Therefor I'm also transfering the local snaps to the remote site to get a db2 consistency copy. Unfortunately the snaps on the remote site are not pruning withn  the given  deletion age.

Do parameters for automatically deletion only working on local site?

How can I handle this?

[ktenzer]

You must be using qtree snapmirror? If you were using volume snapmirror then you would always have same snaps on primary and secondary. SC supports snapvault and snapvault is more geared to handling backup. SC does not really support qtree snapmirror, yes it works but SC provides no mechanism to delete the snapshots on secondary.

Your options are

1) use snapvault

2) continue to use qtree snapmirror and setup a new config. Point it at the secondary, set NTAP_SNAPSHOT_DISABLE=Y so config takes no snapshots and set retention. This config should then just delete older snapshots. I have never tried this but in theory it could work.

3) use SC in combo with protection manager and have protection manager handle deletion on secondary snapshots.

Let us know which option you prefer and how it works

Regards,

Keith

[NBGZIEGLERH]

Keith,

thank you very much for the fast reply. Yes we are using qtree based snapmirror because it's given by the application path. Also we are not able to use snapvault, because it's more an DR than a Backup solution. Why do the snapshot names differ on both sides using QBSM?

I'm thinking about 2nd option you mentioned. But just for my understanding .. why is it not possible to make the snapmirror update between quiesce and unquiesce of the database? So I wouldn't  need to transfer the snaps.

Thanks and regards,

Harald

[ktenzer]

As I mentioned SC does management of snapshots on secondary for snapvault. If you are using volume snapmirror there is no mgmt as snapshots are same on both primary and secondary. If this is a DR solution I would recommend volume snapmirror. Qtree snapmirror is the same thing as snapvault, only reason why you would use qtree snapmirror over snapvault imho is you dont have license for snapvault.

As I said SC does not support mgmt of snapshots on secondary in case of qtree snapmirror.

If you dont have SC send snapshot then there will be no snapshot on secondary and everything will be only updated in base line snapshot. I guess you could do that and then have SC do snapshots which would capture changes from baseline and then delete them.

Keith

[NBGZIEGLERH]

Hi,

I used option 2) with new config and NTAP_SNAPSHOT_DISABLE=Y. I'll schedule this once a day and should be fine ....

I know that a volume based snapmirror is easy to handle .... but pls. keep in mind that many customers don't want to have all snapshots from source volume on target site for DR and some infrastructures may have a different qtree layout on primary and target.

Thanks

Harald

[ktenzer]

Good point we will look into this again and see if we can support snapshot mgmt for qtree snapmirror.

Thanks!

Keith

[NBGZIEGLERH]

Thanks a lot. Thinking about a combo between DR and backup functionality:

- Creation local snaps on primary site retention 2 days.

- QBSM to 2nd site with different retention e.g. 31 days.

- Snapshots on 2nd site can be used for ndmp backup or cloning for nonproduction usage (test / sandbox / quality )......

This configuration was created several times specially in a SAP environment with Oracle / DB2 and ASE databases.

Until now I had to create several configs to do that so a QBSM integration will help a lot.

Additionally a scheduler with more functionally in terms of chains (pre/post job) will help to configure such processes more easier. I know scheduler is not a full blown job scheduler like other products, but a little bit pre and post will help .

Thanks

Harald