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SAN client with 5230 appliance

jeorainc
Level 4

Hi everyone,

I want to setup SAN client on a standalone wintel server to backup to 5230 appliance through SAN.

I have already connect port 1 of slot 5/6 (target mode) of fiber card to the SAN switches, and enabled FTMS on appliance.

Q1, For the standalone server with 2 FC port, should the zoning be like this?

hba1 sees port 1 of slot5/6

hba2 sees port 1 of slot5/6

Q2, will appliance handle multipath of SAN client? e.g. If I unplug a cable during backup, can it handle properly?

 

Thanks all!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Mark_Solutions
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Q1. Yes - sounds good as long as the multipathing is supported

Q2. Yes - as long as it is supported

Q3. That is the idea of a SAN Client - it just backs up its own data and sends it via the SAN

To see if it is supported take a look at the notes in the Snapshot Client Guide. In the 7.6 version of this pdf it is covered from page 150 onwards where it discusses "OS-specific configuration tasks" and "About dynamic multi-pathing"

It goes on through that section to discuss zoning etc as well

If in any doubt either test it out or raise a support call to clarify the options you have

Also note that once you have enabled FT on the appliance you get two ports put into target mode for use by FT - shown as green below

FT Ports.jpg

Hope this helps

View solution in original post

5 REPLIES 5

jeorainc
Level 4

And also Q3: Is it possible that I use SAN client to backup local drive? say, I have a standalone physical box with idle FC card, and I want the backup traffic for local drive through SAN but not LAN.

Mark_Solutions
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

Q1. Yes - sounds good as long as the multipathing is supported

Q2. Yes - as long as it is supported

Q3. That is the idea of a SAN Client - it just backs up its own data and sends it via the SAN

To see if it is supported take a look at the notes in the Snapshot Client Guide. In the 7.6 version of this pdf it is covered from page 150 onwards where it discusses "OS-specific configuration tasks" and "About dynamic multi-pathing"

It goes on through that section to discuss zoning etc as well

If in any doubt either test it out or raise a support call to clarify the options you have

Also note that once you have enabled FT on the appliance you get two ports put into target mode for use by FT - shown as green below

FT Ports.jpg

Hope this helps

CY
Level 6
Certified

Q1's configuration is not right, unless you have only one fabric. For FC SAN, you should have two separate fabrics for fault tolerance / high availablity - google "SAN fabric design" to see some design diagrams. The two target mode ports (on the NBU 5230 appliance) should be connected to the fabrics separately (e.g. port #1 of slot 5 goes to Fabric A, and the port #1 of slot 6 goes to Fabric B), as well as the HBA ports on your Windows server (e.g. HBA #1 connects to Fabric A, and HBA #2 connects to Fabric B). Therefore, your zoning should be:

Server HBA1 (single port) zones to NBU5230 slot5/port1

Server HBA2 (single port) zones to NBU5230 slot6/port1

If the zoning was done right, you should see 4 "phython drives" on your Windows server, as each SAN client connection provides 2 virtual devices.

Regarding Q2, it should handle multipath, but you will see backup failure (when the path failed during backup) and backup reattempt with the other/avaialbe path. Then if all FC paths failed, it should use LAN connection as the default SAN Client usage preference... unless you configured it to use Fiber Transport only.

Q3 is right, as Mark Solutions mentioned. smiley

jeorainc
Level 4

Thanks for your explanation.

For Q2, I would expect the backup can continue seamlessly, if a retry will occur then I have to modify the UAT test case.. 

 

Mark_Solutions
Level 6
Partner Accredited Certified

It will not be seamless - as it gets the communications broken - it will retry (according to the setting you have on the Master Host Properties) and best to use checkpoint re-start so that it resumes neatly

That way it can look fairly invisible but it will not be seamless