NetApp – Snap Manager for Virtual Infrastructure (SMVI)

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Chetan Pisal — Leave a comment

1. What is NetApp SMVI?

· SMVI is NETAPP solution to streamline protection of your Virtual environment.

· This will help you to streamline and automate your virtual machine backup process.

· NETAPP’s Snapshot technology will enable you to create point-in-time copies of your VMs or entire datastores.

· It allows restore at any level of granularity – VM, disk (VMDK), or guest file.

· The entire processing happens on storage systems, freeing your servers resources to run application.

2. Architecture – NetApp SMVI

· SMVI co-exist with Virtual Center and uses API to communicate with Virtual Center to provide requests to the ESX servers for their respective Virtual Machines.

· Virtual Center communicates with the ESX servers for all management functions, and uses resident agents in the ESX servers.

· SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure uses ONTAP API to scheduleSnapshots and SnapRestores functions in the NetApp platforms, as well as invoking SnapMirror for replication of these Snapshots which can be directed at a DR site.

· Snapshots always happen at the Datastore levels, but restores can be done at the individual Virtual Machine level.

3. How Backup Happens using SMVI?

The virtual administrator requests a backup of VM1 and VM2
Virtual Center communicates with the appropriate ESX server which will place VM1 and VM2 in “Hot Backup” mode
Redo-Logs get created by VMware for these VMs and the VMDKs are now frozen and all writes happen on the Redo-Logs for these Virtual Machines.
SnapManager for VI can now initiate Data ONTAP Snapshots via the ONTAP APIs and the Snapshot of the entire datastore where these Virtual Machines reside is taken.
Once the ONTAP Snapshot is completed, SnapManager for VI informs VC to take these VMs from the “Hot-Backup” mode and the Redo-Logs are applied to their corresponding VMDK(s) and normal operation resume

4. SFR (Single file restore)

Restore Agent (RA) will be deployed on VM

Restore Agent (RA) on guest VM to browse disks containing files to be restored

RA Enables guest OS to:

· Scan for new storage (attached disks)

· Mount disk(s) to active file system

RA Enables requester to:

· See list of all backups for the source VM¹

· Mount a disk (VMDK) from a backup to the guest VM

· Copy selected files to appropriate locations within active file system

5. SFR Use cases

· Self-Service Restore

End user can see the list of all backups for his machine.

Once mounted, user can use standard tools (like EXPLORE or DIR & COPY commands) to browse contents of mounted disks and copy files over.

· Technical Details

For self-service SFR sessions, SMVI server just creates an entry into VM Guest Access List. This list basically defines which VM can see which backups.

RA actively communicates with SMVI server to show list of backups and perform mount/unmount operations.

· Limited Self-Service Restore

No network connectivity between destination VM and SMVI server. This could be either due to specific company policies or requirements for specific environment like hosting provider.

SMVI admin mounts disks from selected source VM backups to destination VM

Requester can browse all mounted disks, select files from any disks, and restore them to any location within active file system

· Administrator-assisted Restore

Typically used where company policy prohibits self-service restore.

SMVI admin acts on behalf of the user and places files to be restored in accessible location.

Requester copies files to be restored from accessible location to any location within the active file system.

6. SFR Compatibility

· Upgrade/downgrade.

– SFR will work with backups created by SMVI 2.x and later

– SFR will be disabled for backups created by SMVI 1.x

· Compatibility

– VMware® infrastructure 3.5.x and later

– Data ONTAP® 7.2.3 and later (FAS)

– Data ONTAP 7.2.4 and later (vFiler®)

7. Licensing

SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure will only function within a NetApp storage environment. SMVI requires that the primary storage, where the virtual machines actually reside, and the secondary storage used as the SnapMirror destination run Data ONTAP® storage software. These storage systems can be either Data ONTAP-specific physical storage systems or vFiler units. SMVI supports Data ONTAP 7.2.x and 7.3.x on physical storage systems and 7.2.4 and above or 7.3.x on vFiler units. In addition, the following licenses are required:

· SnapRestore

· The required protocol license (NFS, FCP, iSCSI)

· SnapMirror (if required)

· 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 LUNClone 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.