Growing flex volume and on DR?

[PHANI6039]

Hi,

I has got a filer FAS 2050 with dual head. One of the volume got full and I am not sure where to start from

The filer (tap01a) is snap mirrored on to nas01a and the volume that was full is as below

tap01a> df -h apps

Filesystem               total       used      avail capacity  Mounted on

/vol/apps/               108GB      106GB     1997MB      98%  /vol/apps/

snap reserve              12GB     2112MB    10175MB      17%  /vol/apps/..

tap01a> vol status apps

         Volume State      Status            Options

           apps online     raid_dp, flex     nosnapdir=on

                Containing aggregate: 'aggr0'

tap01a> aggr show_space -h aggr0 

Aggregate 'aggr0'

    Total space    WAFL reserve    Snap reserve    Usable space       BSR NVLOG

         6206GB           620GB           279GB          5306GB             0KB

Space allocated to volumes in the aggregate

Volume                          Allocated            Used       Guarantee

vol0                                230GB          1548MB          volume

am4                                 500GB           229GB          volume

oracle2                             275GB           127GB          volume

apps                                120GB           108GB          volume

s3d1                                495GB           386GB          volume

s3d2                                495GB           359GB          volume

s2d1                                 50GB            15GB          volume

s2d2                                 50GB          5739MB          volume

gen2                                220GB            70GB          volume

isg1                                440GB           332GB          volume

isg2                                660GB           576GB          volume

isg3                                275GB           229GB          volume

isgscratch                          250GB          1709MB          volume

oracle_64                           275GB           144GB          volume

Aggregate                       Allocated            Used           Avail

Total space                        4341GB          2591GB           965GB

Snap reserve                        279GB            13GB           265GB

WAFL reserve                        620GB           393MB           620GB

From above I can see that apps volume is flex volume and presume it can be grown from available aggregate space (965GB) as indicated above by using below commands.

ex: # vol size <volume name> <+size>

tap01a> vol size apps +30g

Believe by doing the above step the size of the apps volumes will be increased to 150GB on tap01a. Do i need to do anything else here?

I believe we should perform the same steps on DR as well (nas01a) where the volume is read-only as below.

nas01a> vol status apps

         Volume State      Status            Options

           apps online     raid_dp, flex     nosnapdir=on, snapmirrored=on,

                           snapmirrored      fs_size_fixed=on,

                           read-only         guarantee=volume(disabled)

                Containing aggregate: 'aggr0'

Now my query is that does it allow me to apply the same steps which I am applying on tap01a as it shows read-only in the status?

Any advice or suggestion will be great.

Thanks,

Phani

[PHANI6039]

Hi,

I will be performing the below steps and let me know if I am missing anything

Here I am increasing at the destination location (nas01a) first as to prevent it from throwing errors while syncing the data regarding the size which should be equal or larger than the source location (tap01a).

Steps:

1.       Breaking the mirror temporarily as to make the volume read/write, currently in read only mode

                nas01a> snapmirror break apps

2.       Change the volume option for our apps volume fs_size_fixed to off to increase the size

                nas01a> vol options apps fs_size_fixed=off

3.       Increase the size of the volume

                                nas01a> vol size apps +30g

4.       Changing the fs_size_fixed back to on as previously

                                 nas01a> vol options apps fs_size_fixed=on

5.       Resync the mirror

                                 nas01a> snapmirror resync –S jv1hmdtap01a:/vol/apps

6.       Now I increase the size of volume at the source location (tap01a)  as below

                tap01a> vol size apps +30g

Could you please let me know if I am missing anything up here so that I can document it which becomes easier next time?

Thanks,

Phani

[matej]

Hi Phnai!

I guess that the procedure is just OK, but you should consider configuring thin provisioned volume on destination which is big enough to handle data grow at the primary side.

So you should change destination's volume gurantee to file (or none) and increase it much more than just 30GB (maybe a TB ).

Cheers,

Matej

[PHANI6039]

Hi Matej,

Thanks for the reply.

I am new to netapp. could you please let me know in detail.

At the destination end i can see the apps volume options as below and guarantee volume disabled.

nas01a> vol status apps

         Volume State      Status            Options

           apps online     raid_dp, flex     nosnapdir=on, snapmirrored=on,

                           snapmirrored      fs_size_fixed=on,

                           read-only         guarantee=volume(disabled)

                Containing aggregate: 'aggr0'

So what do you meant by "So you should change destination's volume gurantee to file (or none) and increase it much more than just 30GB" Cant expand into TB as havent got that much free space available in the aggregate (First post).

Thanks,

Phani

[bsti]

Now my query is that does it allow me to apply the same steps which I am applying on tap01a as it shows read-only in the status?

Yes, the command will run successfully, and you are taking the correct approach.  The only thing to keep in mind is that you will probably not see the volume space on the SM Destination change until you do an update from the source.

So what do you meant by "So you should change destination's volume gurantee to file (or none) and increase it much more than just 30GB" Cant expand into TB as havent got that much free space available in the aggregate (First post).

What this poster is advising you to do is to set the volume guarantee from "volume" to "none".  You do this will the following command:

vol options [vol name] guarantee none

Then he is recommending you set the volume size at your destination very large.  Since you enabled no volume guarantee, this means the volume won't actually occupy the size in the aggregate you specify until it's actually used.

Personally, I don't know that I recommend that approach.  You need to watch your volume and aggregate sizes very very closely when you thin provision, and doing this at the destination takes special care.  The approach does work and is effiicient but opens you to the possibility of accidentally allocating more space than you have and not being able to bring your volumes online.

Before even considering that, I'd resolve the guarantee-volume(disabled) status you see on the apps volume at your DR site.  The guartantee-volume(disabled) status of your volume apps means that you don't have enough space in the aggregate to set it to it's full size now.  This actually isn't a good thing.  I'd check the free space in the aggregate at your DR site and see if you can make some more space first. As it is now, if you fail over to your DR site, you will not be able to bring your apps volume online until you either set it to guarantee=none (thin provisioned) or shrink it.

If you are interested in thin provisioning, I'd highly recommend reading this and fully understanding it before implementing it in your environment:

http://www.netapp.com/us/system/pdf-reader.aspx?pdfuri=tcm:10-60390-16&m=tr-3965.pdfhttp://www.netapp.com/us/system/pdf-reader.aspx?pdfuri=tcm:10-60390-16&m=tr-3965.pdf