Snapmirror to Tapes

[deygaurab]

Hi Friends,

I have to snapmirror snapvaulted data to tapes. There is a Tape library connected to the filer. Can I run a "snapmirror store" command to copy the data to the tapes?

Can someone advise the process to do achive it?

Cheers

Rahul

[deygaurab]

Anyone avaiable for suggestion?

[NAYABRASOOL]

Hi Rahul,

Please check if this link helps..

https://communities.netapp.com/thread/6948

Thanks,

Nayab

[deygaurab]

Thans Nayab,

Can snapvaulted data be snapmirrored to tapes?

Regards

Rahul

[scottgelb · Accepted solution]

Any volume can be snapmirrored to tape but the restore is the complete volume (no partial restore of the smtape image) and also the smtape restore is supported 2 major ONTAP revisions back... so if 8.1 now, 8.4 probably won't be supported.

[deygaurab]

Thanks Scott,

Filer A->(snapvault) ->Filer B->Snapmirror retrieve to tapes

In order to do this, do I have to put the destination volume in restrict mode and if so will it impact the existing snapvault relation between Filer A->Filer B ?

Cheers

Rahul

[radek_kubka]

If you mean the volume on Filer B, it doesn't need to be in a restricted mode for SMTape backup - you would restrict it only if doing SMTape restore.

[deygaurab]

Thanks Radek,

Is "snapmirror store" is the right command to Snapmirror the Filer B vol to tape? Also if I plan to schedule it once a week, updating the snapmirror.conf file on FilerB take care of it?

Cheers

Rahul

[radek_kubka]

Hi Rahul,

This doc offers a comprehensive info about SMTape:

https://library.netapp.com/ecm/ecm_get_file/ECMP1141752

The actual command for backing up a volume to tape is "smtape backup".

I don't think you can schedule it on the filer, but it can be done via external script.

Regards,
Radek

[deygaurab]

Thanks a lot Radek...

Cheers

Rahul

[scottgelb]

Depends on ONTAP version... the newer smtape backup is more flexible than prior ontap snapmirror store since a snapshot can be specified with backup (then it backs up from that snap back)

[deygaurab]

The only flip side I could see is I will have to manually switch the tapes as I do not have a backup software

Regards

Rahul

[UPADHYAYULA]

And if you are looking for granular recovery options like the ability to recover a file from tape without having to restore the entire volume back to NetApp, "dump" might be another option. Dump also allows to backup selectively (not necessarily the entire volume).