Data protection and recovery are two critical requirements to keep the lights on for your business and to keep your applications running smoothly. For Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP (FSx for ONTAP) workloads, the underlying technology that makes this possible is NetApp® Snapshot™ technology.
Snapshot technology provides a trusted way for quickly creating space-efficient and reliable point-in-time copies of data. However, at a large scale, Snapshot policy management is required for storage admins. One way that NetApp helps you address that is with NetApp Workload Factory.
In this post, I’ll take a look at Snapshot policy management with Workload Factory and give a detailed walkthrough of its capabilities.
Here’s what I’ll cover:
- A closer look at NetApp Snapshot technology
- Managing Snapshot copies and Snapshot policies using Workload Factory
- Snapshot management from the Volumes page
- Creating a Snapshot policy
- Assign Snapshot policies
- Other actions found on the Manage snapshots page
- Simplify Snapshot management with Workload Factory
A closer look at NetApp Snapshot technology
NetApp Snapshot technology creates point-in-time, read-only copies of data stored by ONTAP®-based storage services, including FSx for ONTAP. Creating a Snapshot copy does not affect performance, and storing subsequent copies consumes very little storage space. Snapshot copies are space-efficient since they update incrementally, making them faster to create and easier to maintain at scale.
A large part of what makes Snapshot technology so cost- and space-effective is that it employs pointers to actual data blocks rather than copying existing blocks. Instead of copying all the data blocks in a volume, a Snapshot copy uses block pointers to create a read-only view of the volume, enabling access to earlier point-in-time versions of data.
The key advantages of Snapshot copies are that they are near-instantaneous, storage-efficient, and reliable, and provide a robust, lightweight data protection option. This is helpful in common use cases such as quick data recovery and protection against accidental deletion or corruption.
Managing Snapshot copies and Snapshot policies using Workload Factory
Workload Factory is a free service for automating the creation, operation, and optimization of FSx for ONTAP workloads to align with AWS Well-Architected Framework storage recommendations and NetApp best practices. Workload Factory offers administrators a streamlined way for automating management of workloads using FSx for ONTAP storage across AWS accounts and regions. With its policy-driven approach, Workload Factory enables organizations with data protection and FSx for ONTAP file system management at scale.
Let’s take a detailed look at the snapshot management capabilities along with the new enhancements available in Workload Factory
Snapshot management from the Volumes page
Here’s how to manage your Snapshot copies from the Workload Factory Volumes page.
- From the Workload Factory home page, select the menu options in the upper-left corner (three-line icon), and then select the Storage option.
- Select FSx for ONTAP from the panel to the left, and you will see a list of your FSx for ONTAP file systems. Select the FSx for ONTAP file system you want to manage.
- In the FSx for ONTAP screen, select the Volumes tab, and you’ll see the list of all that file system’s volumes.
- In the Volumes list, you’ll find the Protection column. This column shows data protection statuses for your volumes. The camera icon indicates whether Snapshot copies are enabled, and the camera with a lock icon indicates if the Snapshot copies are immutable (i.e., they cannot be deleted).
- At the end of each volume row, you’ll find the three-dot icon. Select this icon and then select Data protection actions. Now select Manage Snapshots in the sub-menu.
- In the Manage snapshots page, you’ll find the list of snapshots. For each snapshot, its three-dot icon offers these options: Edit, Access, Restore, and Delete.
- If you select the Edit option, a pop-up menu opens where you can update the number of retention days and set the Snapshot to be immutable.
Creating a Snapshot policy
You can create Snapshot policies using Workload Factory. These policies apply to all the Snapshot copies created for that volume.
- As shown in the walkthrough above, go to the Volumes tab in an FSx for ONTAP file system and select the volume that will get the new Snapshot policy. In the menu options for that volume, select Data Protection actions → Manage Snapshots in the sub-menu.
- From the Manage snapshots page, select Manage Snapshot policy.
- You will be prompted in a dialog box that you are being redirected to the Snapshot policy management page. Select Continue to proceed.
- In the Manage Snapshot policies page, you’ll see the Snapshot policies list, and you will be able to create a new Snapshot policy with custom definitions.
To start, select the Create snapshot policy button.
- Enter the new snapshot policy name.
- Define the new policy schedule—Hourly, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly—and the number of copies for each schedule.
- Choose whether or not you want the policy to create immutable Snapshot copies and, if so, set their retention period.
- Next, decide whether to make the new Snapshot policy available across all storage VMs in your file system. Then, select Create to finalize setting up the new policy.
- You will now see the new policy listed in the Manage snapshot policies page.
Assign Snapshot policies
You can use Workload Factory to assign an existing Snapshot policy to a volume.
- Go to the Volumes tab in an FSx for OTNAP file system. Locate the volume you wish to assign a Snapshot policy to, then select its three-dot icon. From the drop-down menu, select Data protection actions, then, from the secondary drop-down menu, select Assign snapshot policy.
- In the Assign snapshot policy dialog box, find the policy in the Snapshot policy name drop-down list, and select Assign.
- To verify that the selected Snapshot policy was assigned to your volume, go back to the Volumes page and select the volume’s name. This will take you to the View volume details screen. Select the Protection tab, and you’ll see the assigned Snapshot policy name there.
- Other Protection details include the local Snapshot status, the percentage of the disk capacity reserved for Snapshot copies, and the total capacity reserved for Snapshots in GiB. Note that the Snapshot data is part of the volume quota. It means that if you have 1 TB for volume and 100 GB is reserved for Snapshots, then the usable capacity of the volume will be 900 GB.
Other actions found on the Manage snapshots page
The Manage snapshots page offers a number of granular options for managing Snapshot copies at the volume level rather than at the storage VM level.
Accessing a Snapshot copy
Select the three-dots icon for the snapshot you want to manage, and then select the Access option.
In the Access snapshot dialog box, select whether you wish to access using NFS or SMB protocol. In the command line, you’ll see the mount command that is compatible with the access protocol you selected. Select the Copy button. Now you can apply the mount command you copied and access the Snapshot copy in read-only mode, without needing to Restore it first.
If you want to enable access to all the volume’s Snapshot copies, you can toggle the Enable snapshot directory access option.
Restoring a volume from a Snapshot copy
Go back to the Manage snapshots page, and select the Restore option to create a new volume based on the Snapshot copy, or override an existing volume’s data with the Snapshot copy. Toggle the Restore as a new volume option to set up a new volume and provide a name for the restored volume.
If you choose to restore to an existing volume, you’ll need to acknowledge that any data modified in the volume after the Snapshot copy was created will be permanently deleted.
Deleting a Snapshot
You can also choose to delete a Snapshot using the Delete menu option. You will be prompted to type in the word “delete” to make sure the deletion is not accidental.
Simplify Snapshot management with Workload Factory
Workload Factory lets you view and manage FSx for ONTAP Snapshot copies from a consolidated view. It offers more control over how users can create and manage Snapshot copies.
Workload Factory has introduced some enhanced features that make Snapshot technology more versatile and space efficient, such as the ability to access data directly from Snapshot copies rather than restoring a full volume. Another option is to manage Snapshot copies at the volume level rather than at the storage VM level. These options simplify Snapshot management even for inexperienced users.
With Snapshot technology and the management capabilities available in the Workload Factory, organizations can be better prepared to recover their applications in the event of an unexpected data loss.
Make Snapshot management easier: Get started with Workload Factory now.
