Netapp SnapVault or OSSV software is another technology similar to the famous Netapp snapshot feature. This is a block-level incremental backup technology that allows you to backup all the typical types of clients, Windows, All flavors of Unix, VMWare and in some cases database servers. What this software does and what is really quite cool is it creates a full point-in-time backup copy of the filesystems on it’s own disk based storage. The best way to describe this product really is to say that the Netapp SnapVault is a heterogeneous disk-to0-disk backup solution.
The Netapp SnapVault product provides an excellent backup solution. In the event of a massive data loss from a corruption of some kind on your filer, the backed up data can be restored from the SnapVault filer very quickly. This can greatly reduce the downtime. SnapVault has some big advanges over traditional tape backups. The big one bing tape related. You don’t have to worry about meida errors or problems with finding off robotics tapes or even offsite tapes. Even the cost of tapes and possibly even the cost of an entire tappe backup system if you chose to buy a tape sile and software. The recovery time for restores is very fast compared to tape in most cases. Backup windows are slmost a thing of the bpast. Depending on how much data changes on your filer, backups could have almost not impact. The SnapVault configuration consistes of two devices or two entities. There is the notop of a SnapVault client as well as a SnapVault storagte server. A snapVault clien in this casse can be a Netapp filer and also could be a MS Windows or Unxi server. Those are the client who have data that needs to be backed up. This SnapVault storage server has to be a Netapp filer. This is where the data gets sent to and * backed up*.
Two Types of Backups
Netapp to Netapp Backups – As the name implies, this type of backup involves to Netapps. One being the actual backup server. The
Server to Netapp Backups – The Open System SnapVault client software provided by Netapp needs to be installed on the client. The Netapp SnapFault client software, the actual *backup server* or the SnapVault server can retrieve the data from the client. The SnapVault software protects client by maintaining multiple *snapshoted* versions of read-only copies on the SnapVault server. The replicated data found on the SnapVault server can be and is accessed by the client by either NFS or CIFS. This allows the client systems to restore either entire folders or down to a single file.
- A SnapVault replicates the data from a primary system path to qtrees on a SnapVault secondary filer.
- A filer can act as a primary, a secondary or both. Possibly depending on its licenses, but I don’t think this needs to be licensed anymore.
- The primary system can either be a filer or an open system with a SnapVault agent installed on it.
- When the primary system is a filer, the path to be replicated can be a qtree, non-qtree data on a volume, or a volume path.
- The SnapVault secondary manages a set of snapshots to preserve old versions of the data.
- The replicated data on the secondary may be accessed via NFS or CIFS just like regular data.
- The primary filers can restore qtrees directly from the secondary.
- When the initial full backup is performed, the SnapVault filer stores the data on a qtree and creates a snapshot image of the volume.
When SnapVault is setup, initially a complete copy of the data set is pulled across the network to the SnapVault filer. The first baseline or *backup* could take quite a while time to complete depending on the amount of data to be processed. But each subsequent backup will only transfer only the data blocks that has changed since the previous backup. SnapVault creates a new Snapshot copy with every transfer, and allows you to keep a large number of copies according to a schedule configured by the backup administrator. Each backup copy uses disk space, which is directly proportional to the amount of data blocks which have changed from the previous copy.
Setup of a Netapp Filer to Filer SnapVault Configuration
The source filer, the filer with the data to be backed up. Assuming no licenses needed.
Enable the SnapVault feature.
myfiler> options snapvault.enable on
myfiler> options snapvault.access host=mydestfiler
My destination filer configuration. Again, assuming no license. This is where all the backups are done.
mydestfiler> options snapvault.enable on mydestfiler> options snapvault.access host=myfiler
It’s best to disable regular snapshots on the destination volume . So disable the snaphots as follows:
mydestfiler> snap sched storage_vault 0 0 0
Start SnapVault Process
We have to fire off our first or initial backup. This is the initial baseline, or full backup. It will be a biggy. The command sets the source as myfiler:/vol/mydata/qtree_2do and sends it to the mydestfiler:/vol/storage_vault/qtree_2do.
mydestfiler> snapvault start -S myfiler:/vol/mydata/qtree_2do mydestfiler:/vol/storage_vault/qtree_2do
I should note that if YOU DON’T DO A START as in the snapvault start command, your schedules will not run. I show some schedule samples below. Now you can watch the status of the first full backup, as I said it could take a while. This can be run on either Netapp filer. Use the following command:
mydestfiler> snapvault status
SnapVault Scheduling
All that’s left to do is setup a schedule on the destination filer for regular backups using the snapvault snap sched command. Use schedule names prefixed with sv_ for SnapVault. Below we create the schedule – 1 hourly, 2 daily and 2 weekly SnapVault . The syntax is confusing…. But here is how it looks:
snap sched [ -f ] [ -x ] [ -o options ] [ volname [ snap_name [ schedule ]]] , also remember X@ = equals the # of snapshots
Execute SnapVault backups mon-fri and keep 24 copies of snapshots, transferring data begins at 2 am
mydestfiler> snapvault snap sched storage_vault sv_daily 24@mon-fri@2
Here is a working example. The commands below shows how to create hourly, daily & weekly SnapVault snapshots.
mydestfiler> snapvault snap sched storage_vault sv_hourly 1@0-22 mydestfiler> snapvault snap sched storage_vault sv_daily 2@23 mydestfiler> snapvault snap sched strorage_vault sv_weekly 2@21@sat
This will display your SnapVault schedule.
myfiler> snapvault snap sched
Get a list of all SnapVault snap’s
mydestfiler> snap list
If you have to modify a SnapVault schedule, you need to use the -x flag. This must be done on the source system.
myfiler> snapvault snap sched modify -x storage_vault sv_daily 4@mon-fri@2
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