Using OSSV w/Windows host to Snapvault the targets vols of Snapmirrors

[markryanwillis]

I'm sure this has been asked at some point, but could not find anything close to what I'm trying to accomplish, so please be kind.

I have a Volume Snapmirror relation between two sites that works well. Within these Volume I have QTREES built that contain LUNs, which are being used a mapped devices on a Windows server at the Source site. I have used OSSV for Windows on this sever and have used Snapvault at the Destination site to vault these LUNs into a QTREE, giving me WALF/NAS ability to read all the files the Windows filesystem created. Everything is good in the world. I have several remote sites and would need to have a server with OSSV running in order to get all those Volumes(LUNs) to the destination.

What I would like to do instead is have a single Windows server at the destination site and use that as sort of a clearing house to get the source volumes(luns) snapvaulted into a WAFL format at the destination site. It would appear not possible with my limited testing in that the OSSV Windows would like to create a OSSV_DATAbase or something on these LUN's within a volume that is read-only. I really can't break the mirror every time I want to vault at the destination as the snapmirror transfers are async scheduled every hour and wish to capture those SM update using the OSSV Windows snapvaulting when they finish.

With that said, I'm just wondering if cloning these volumes on the destination and referencing those readwritable clone is the only way to accomplish this? I haven't worked with clones much (I'm sure thats about to change) and was wondering once built, will they reflect all the snapmirror changes at the destination after each update?

Is there perhaps another approach I should look at?

In summary, I wish to limit the number of OSSV Windows client to one and be able to use that to vault the snapmirror targets. I was able to bypass the Windows OSSV and do a Snapvault right on the same controller to a target volume from the snapmirror target volumes, but looking at the result only found a file for each lun, which I assume is a file representation of the lun, so that wasn't of much use. The thing is however, that worked, so apparently the Windows OSSV client is the only one wanting to write a file on the source device?

I would be very thankful for any insight on what I'm trying to accomplish.

Thank you!

-m

[aborzenkov]

If LUN in snapmirror destination has to be available read-write, you need to either break mirror or use flexclone to create writable LUN. That's correct. I do not have practical experience with OSSV so I do not know whether it tries to access LUNs read-write and can it be changed.

Volume FlexClone is based on specific snapshot. This is snapshot is not updated anymore. So if you want to access newer LUN version, you need to unmount LUN, destroy flexclone, create new flexclone based on more recent snapshot and mount LUN again.

Have you looked at SnapProect? It sounds like it does exactly what you need - offering file based restore (with history, file browsing etc) together with disaster recovery (SnapMirror).

[paulstringfellow]

I’m a bit confused on what you are trying to do…

OSSV is an agent for backing up windows file data on non NetApp based servers…this data Is then stores in raw format at the snapvault destination, so you can read files etc at this destination in the raw file format that they came in.

If you’re windows server has LUNS provision from a filer, then use snapdrive on those devices to snapshot and mirror the LUNS back to the target filer…on the target file you would be able to connect to those LUNs via another SnapDrive server to read content and recover files if necessary…

When NetApp provision a LUN in a volume, then the LUN is indeed stored as a .lun file… that’s not to do with SnapVault, that is the way NetApp deliver LUNS in a SAN environment, the only way to look at the content of a LUN is to map it to a server and see the content that way… snapshot copies of LUNS can be mounted and read in the way the active system can be…

If you want read/write copies of this data, be it Vaulted or mirrored then you will need to flexclone it to provide a writeable copy of a snapshot… depends what you want that for though…if you are just using it to recover data then a read only copy is fine…

In the end snapshots are just backups…vaulting and mirroring them are just sending copies to alternate locations…

If you want to backup non NetApp based data…then OSSV is great or something like Syncsort or Commvault are even better… SnapProtect is great for data catalogues etc (as has been suggested) however SnapProtect only protect NetApp based data, so doesn’t do an OSSV type job…

Hope that helps…

Paul…

[markryanwillis · Accepted solution]

Paul,

Yes, I have considered using a Windows OSSV server at the snapmirror target to access those luns and recover at the file level. There would be many, many LUN's, but that is doable. Can't FlexClone as those clones would need to be updated with every snapmirror. As far as the Commvault protect product, I fully agree. However I think Netbackup 7.5 might offer additional benefits, but that is down the road and will most likely be integrated and replace most of what we are doing today if that pans out. I will most likely do (as you suggest) with the single OSSV server mounting those snapmirror LUNS R/O or just place OSSV on the remote servers that are hosting the LUNS. Thanks for the feedback!

[paulstringfellow]

Hi Mark,

Glad that helped, or at least confirmed your thinking…

Sounds like a backup catalogue is the answer, be that Netbackup…I’d also look at www.syncsort.com<http://www.syncsort.com> and check out their NSB solution, that integrates very well with NetApp and will give you all you need.

Good luck…drop me a line if you want to bounce around anymore idea, happy to help if I can.

Regards

Paul.