SAN-NAS-DAS: 2015

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Difference between SnapVault and SnapMirror?

What does it mean that SnapVault is a backup solution?

Below diagram can help -

SnapVault

Example has few assumptions:

we’ve got filerX in one location and filerY in other location
that customer has a connection to both filerX and FilerY, although all shares to customers are available from filerX (via CIFS, NFS, iSCSI or FC)
all customer data is being transfered to the filerY via Snapvault

What we can do with snapvault?

as a backup solution, we can have a longer snapshot retention time on filerY, so more historic data will be available on filerY, if filerY has slower disks, this solution is smart, because slower disk = cheaper disks, and there is no need to use 15k rpm disk on filer that is not serving data to the customer.
if customer has an network connection and access to shares on filerY he can by himself restore some data to filerX, even single files
if there is a disaster within filerX and we lose all data we can restore the data from filerY

What we cannot do with snapvault?

in case of an disaster within filerX we cannot “set” filerY as a production side. We cannot “revert the relationship” making the qtree on filerY as a source, and make them read/write. They are snapvault destinations so they are read-only.
(having snapmirror license available on filerY we can convert Snapvault qtree to snapmirror qtree which solves that ‘issue’)

What does it mean that SnapMirror is a DR solution?
Lets add diagram :

SnapMirror

Example has few assumptions:

we’ve got filerX in one location and filerY in other location
that customer has a connection to both filerX and FilerY, although all shares to customers are available from filerX
all customer data is being transfered to the filerY via snapmirror

What we can do with snapmirror?

as a backup solution we can restore the accidentally deleted, or lost data on filerX, if the snapmirror relationship has not been updated meantime
if there is some kind or issue with filerX (from a network problem, to a total disaster) we can easily reverse the relationship. We can make the volume or qtree on filerY, as a source, and make it read-write, provide an network connection to the customer and voila – we are back online! After the issue has been solved we can resync the original source with changes made at the destination and reverse the relationship again.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Force deleting NetApp Qtree

Some times we might run in to issues deleting QTREE in NetApp, so let's see how can we force delete QTREE.

Here let's assume we are deleting qtree in volume1 which belongs to vfiler: vfiler1

Steps 1: Check if there are any CIFS shares related to qtree

>vfiler run vfiler1 cifs shares

cifs1$ /vol/volume1/qtree1
everyone / Full Control

Step 2: Delete CIFS1$ share before deleting QTREE

>vfiler run vfiler1 cifs share -delete cifs1$

Step 3: Go to Advanced mode

>priv set advanced

Step 4: Delete Qtree

>*vfiler run vfiler1 qtree delete "/vol/volume1/qtree1"

If above command give any error, go with force deleting qtree

>*vfiler run vfiler1 qtree delete -f "/vol/volume1/qtree1"

VNX/Celerra Multi path file system (mpfs) allocation.

Procedure might varies (VNX/Celerra)

If we are moving data from NetApp filer to VNX which is dedicated to NFS and CIFS and some of it is accessed by both cifs and nfs users. we may opt to choose mpfs setup on the clients and on VNX. create mpfs volumes share it using cifs and nfs and see the mpfs stats if the data is moving through mpfs. For that to be successful we need to install mpfs client software and need to have the usermappers setup on VNX and start testing from both the clients. Later on we can use emcopy or robocopy to copying data from NetApp to VNX

Step:1 Start MPFS service

server_setup server_2 -P mpfs -option start=32

Step:2 Create a new volume with a 256K stripe per EMC's recommendations

nas_volume -name mpfsvol -create -Stripe 262144 d54,d55,d56,d57,d58,d59,d60,d61

Step:3 Create a new metalvolume for the new volume:

nas_volume -name mpfsmtvol -create -Meta mpfsvol

Step:4 Create a new file system on this metavolume

nas_fs -name mpfs -create mpfsmtvol

Step:5 Create a new mountpoint

server_mountpoint server_2 -create /mpfs

Step:6 Mount file system

server_mount server_2 -option nolock,accesspolicy=NATIVE mpfs /mpfs

Step:7 Create new mountpoint for testing

server_mountpoint server_2 -create /mpfs/test

Step:8 Create CIFS share for this work

server_export server_2 -P cifs -n test$ -o netbios=server1 -comment 'MPFS CIFS Share for test' /mpfs/test

Step:9 Validate

server_mpfs server_2 -mountstatus | grep -i mpfs

server_df server_2 /mpfs

server_mpfs server_2

nas_volume -info mpfsmtvol

Step:10 Make sure system administrators are having MPFS client software installed!

Step:11 Verify stats if data is going through fiber channel interface or via CIFS

mpfsctl stats

DFM threshold values set from DFM server

These are some commands on how to set DFM alerts

From DFM server:

C:\Windows>dfm eventtype modify -v Critical aggregate-full
Event "aggregate-full" was left unchanged.
C:\Windows>dfm eventtype modify -v Error aggregate-almost-full
Modified event "aggregate-almost-full".

C:\Windows>dfm option set aggrFullThreshold=95
Changed aggregate full threshold (%) to 95.

C:\Windows>dfm option set aggrNearlyFullThreshold=90Changed aggregate nearly full threshold (%) to 90.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Moving Vfiler from one filer to another

Pre-requisite:

Required checklist info to implement changes

To move vfiler

· Filer name

· Aggregate name

· Make sure to setup DR replications after moving vfiler to new filer?

Start replicating volumes:

(Example: we are moving labvfilerfrom lafiler1 to labfiler3. Here labfiler1 DR is labdrfiler1 and labfiler3 DR is labdrfiler3)

1. ssh to labfiler1 to get volume info for labvfiler

labfiler1> vfiler status -r labvfiler

labvfiler running

ipspace: vfilers1

IP address: 10.10.1.2 [vif1-110]

Path: /vol/labvfiler [/etc]

Path: /vol/labvfiler_vol1

Path: /vol/labvfiler_vol2

Path: /vol/labvfiler_vol3

Path: /vol/labvfiler_vol4

UUID: 2a0000d6-4594-1ew1-9e2f-007891w2fc3

labfiler1> vol size labvfiler

Warning: Volume 'labvfiler' has fs_size_fixed option set. The file system

size may differ from the volume size.

See 'vol status -b' for more detail.

vol size: Flexible volume 'labvfiler' has size 5g.

labfiler1> vol size labvfiler_vol1

vol size: Flexible volume 'labvfiler_vol1' has size 2202g.

labfiler1> vol size labvfiler_vol2

vol size: Flexible volume 'labvfiler_vol2' has size 1975g.

labfiler1> vol size labvfiler_vol3

vol size: Flexible volume 'labvfiler_vol3' has size 1714g.

labfiler1> vol size labvfiler_vol4

vol size: Flexible volume 'labvfiler_vol4' has size 3319g.

2. Once you collect volume info, ssh to labfiler3 and check on which aggregate has enough space

3. Create NEW volumes on labfiler3 and start replicating

Ø vol create volumename –s none aggrname XXXg

Ø vol restrict volumename

Ø snapmirror initialize –S source:volumename destination:volumename

labfiler3> vol create labvfiler -s none aggr0 5g

Creation of volume 'labvfiler' with size 5g on containing aggregate

'aggr0' has completed.

labfiler3> vol create labvfiler_vol1 -s none aggr0 2202g

Creation of volume 'labvfiler_vol1' with size 2202g on containing aggregate

'aggr0' has completed.

labfiler3> vol create labvfiler_vol2 -s none aggr0 1975g

Creation of volume 'labvfiler_vol2' with size 1975g on containing aggregate

'aggr0' has completed.

labfiler3> vol create labvfiler_vol3 -s none aggr0 1714g

Creation of volume 'labvfiler_vol3' with size 1714g on containing aggregate

'aggr0' has completed.

labfiler3> vol create labvfiler_vol4 -s none aggr0 3319g

Creation of volume 'labvfiler_vol4' with size 3319g on containing aggregate

labfiler3> vol restrict labvfiler

Volume 'labvfiler' is now restricted.

labfiler3> vol restrict labvfiler_vol1

Volume 'labvfiler_vol1' is now restricted.

labfiler3> vol restrict labvfiler_vol2

Volume 'labvfiler_vol2' is now restricted.

labfiler3> vol restrict labvfiler_vol3

Volume 'labvfiler_vol3' is now restricted.

labfiler3> vol restrict labvfiler_vol4

Volume 'labvfiler_vol4' is now restricted.

labfiler3> snapmirror initialize -S labfiler1.rr.snd.com:labvfiler labfiler3:labvfiler

Transfer started.