Future of VSC6

[elhefe1982]

Dear All,

We have a small environment with just 3 vmware hosts, approx 150 virtuals and recently got a FAS2600.

I downloaded VSC7 and was suprised that the backup option was completely removed. Then I read about Snapcenter 3.0 and the VMWare plugin but unfortunately, this is really not an option for small companies.

We have VMWare essentials and upgrading VMWare just to support VMotion which is required for the snapcenter vmware plugin would cost us more then the whole NetAPP system.

So I will try to go back to VSC6.2 and hope it works well with the latest vcenter 6.5 and ontap 9.2 but I am concerned about the future. Will NetAPP continue support for VSC6 versions or perhaps have plans to put backup back into the VSC?

[AlexDawson]

Hi there,

I'm not in a position to comment on VSC plans, but I don't believe our usual practice is to support multiple generations of products in such a way.

I'm more interested in how you're using VSC right now - are you using it to make quiesced snapshots of each VM? without any form of snapmirror/snapvault? If so, Veeam might be a good option to look at. There is a free version which has very good functionality.

Otherwise, just taking snapshots using the built in snapshot scheduling of ONTAP is always an option. I ran a 1800 VM environment like this for several years - the VMs were crash consistent (vs quiesced), but in those three years we only once had an issue where the most recent snapshot did not work.

[elhefe1982]

Hello Alex,

Thank you for your reply, it is very unfortunate that the old backup functionality is removed.

The snapshots I normally use are indeed quiesced snapshots and at this site, there is no snapmirror/snapvault involved. We do maintain several netapps at customers where we do use SnapVault to store the Snapshots elsewhere and for a longer period of time where also vmware essentials is used.

So our best options are probably to use either Veeam or the build in option of the NetApp as you suggested. I will try to test Veeam to see what is included in the free edition.

Regards,

Sander

[AlexDawson]

No problem - you can still use snapmirror/snapvault with the built in snapshot functionality, and while Veeam can orchestrate it, I know remote replication is not part of the free edition.

I should also clarify that "crash consistent" is not a uniform term - I mean a snapshot that is consistent to the point in time of a crash.