SMVI without Snaprestore or FlexClone

[acistmedical]

Our reseller sold us a license of SMVI that we will use for NFS datastores, vm's backups, we use vCenter 4u1 and ESXi 4u1

However, we dont have SnapRestoe of FlexClone license, so the questions are:

1. Will single file restore work?

2. How will i be able to restore entire VM without SnapRestore?

Thanks

[radek_kubka]

Not good news I am afraid - from TR-3737 (http://www.netapp.com/us/library/technical-reports/tr-3737.html), page 6:

In addition, the following licenses are required:
• SnapRestore
[...]
• FlexClone
- FlexClone is required for mount operations of NFS datastores. FlexClone is not required for NFS VM
in-place VMDK restores (SMVI uses ZAPIs). FlexClone is required for out-of-place NFS VMDK
restores. Also FlexClone is optional for mounting VMFS datastores. SMVI uses LUN Clone when
FlexClone is not available.
- For SMVI versions 1.2x, FlexClone is needed only if you want to perform NFS datastore mounts. For
2.0, FlexClone is required for NFS datastore mounts and NFS Single File Restore operations, since
the SFR workflow internally mounts NFS datastores.

Regards,

Radek

[acistmedical]

Ok, so no file level restore without flex clone, got it.

But the rest is kind of confusing, we will be using SMVI 2.0, so, without the snap restore, will I be able to do any restoral at all?

If yes, what type, what's the difference between in place, out of place, etc?

Is any of that possible without snap restore, or can I only take a snap shots without the restore any option.

[amritad · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Flexclone is required for 3 operations in SMVI

1) Single File restore (only affects SMVI 2.0)

2) NFS datastore mounts - if you're trying to mount NFS datastores using the mount button of SMVI( this is true for SMVI 1.2 and 2.0)

3) Out of place NFS VMDS restores - i.e you are trying to restore the VMDK's in an NFS datastore to a different datastore (only affects  SMVI 2.0)

Apart from the above operations all backup and restore operations will work perfectly for 1.2 and 2.0 even without flexclone

Explanantion of out-of-place estore

VIRTUAL DISK RESTORE

SMVI 1.x allows restore at datastore and virtual machine granularity. Restore enhancements in SMVI 2.0

extend restore granularity to one more level adding the capability to restore individual virtual disks (VMDKs)

of a VM.

This feature also allows disks to be restored to a different datastore. This is referred to as out-of-place

restore. This allows VM administrators to test the consistency of the disks before attaching the disk to the

VM. SMVI doesn’t attach the restored disks automatically if the VMDK is removed from the current

configuration of the VM or restored to a different datastore. Out-of-place restore copies the virtual disk files

to the destination datastore after which users have to attach the disks manually.

Does this make sense? Also if you wish to understand the exact technology please check table 2 of the SMVI best practices guide.

http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3737.pdf

And I will change the wording in the BPG for FlexClone requirements I understand it is confusing

Regards

Amrita

[acistmedical]

Thats a great post, now i understand all if it.

Thanks