cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Duplicate of Netapp Snapshots

Stefaan_M
Level 4
Partner
Hi,
 
my current setup:
 
Netapp FAS270
Netapp FAS3020
Netbackup 6.0 MP4
 
I've integrated NBU with Netapp so I can schedule and manage Netapp snapshots through NBU.  These snapshots are, off course, maintained on disk.  I was wondering if it is possible to duplicate the snapshots onto tape for offsite storage.  If so, how can I do this?
 
best regards
Stefaan.
3 REPLIES 3

Darren_Dunham
Level 6

@Stefaan Margot wrote:
 
I've integrated NBU with Netapp so I can schedule and manage Netapp snapshots through NBU.   

I'm sorry, can you explain more about that?  I was unaware that NBU had any tools to manage filer snapshots (other than performing backups).  Is this just part of base NBU?


These snapshots are, off course, maintained on disk.  I was wondering if it is possible to duplicate the snapshots onto tape for offsite storage.  If so, how can I do this?

I think that depends on what you're doing above.  Otherwise, you should be able to run a backup of a specific snapshot (/vol/<volume>/.snapshot/<mysnapshot>).  But they'll be a full backup of the filesystem seen by the snapshot, not some representation of the snapshot-specific blocks.

--
Darren

Stefaan_M
Level 4
Partner
Hi,
 
no, this is not a feature of Base Netbackup.  To enable the integration of Netbackup with Netapp, you need an extra license.  I'm trying to do a sort of staging for snapshots ... First make a snapshot or snapvault on the filer, then stage the data to tape. 
The advantage is that you have a backup in a snap and afterwards you can stage your backup so you can take the copy offsite.
Let me explain with a little example.  A company wants to take a daily snapshot/snapvault and a weekly copy offsite.  What I would like to do is to create a daily snapshot backup and a weekly "snapshot staging backup" so a weekly tape can be taken offsite.
 
best regards,
Stefaan

Darren_Dunham
Level 6
Ah..  This is the NDMP V4 Management Extension, I presume?  Per my understanding, all this really does is give NBU access to the snapshot management (create, delete snapshots) functions on the filer.  It doesn't change anything about how data is stored or accessed between a filer and NetBackup.

So if you want to backup or restore a snapshot (really the data visible via the snapshot), you have the same options as you do without the extension.  You can use NDMP to take a backup of the live filesystem (creating a temporary snapshot at the time of the backup), or you can backup a specific existing snapshot.  Note that unlike the way that the filer manages those snapshots, you can't back up only the "snapshot" blocks.  You'll be backing up that snapshot's view of the entire filesystem.

I think it'll depend on what you're trying to do to understand whether that's appropriate, or if it would simply be better to backup specific files or a simple incremental/differential backup of the live filesystem.  Under what circumstances would you need to restore from tape?

Make any sense?

--
Darren