ONTAP Snapshot for ContinuousDataReplicator

Overview

The ONTAP Snapshot is used to create Recovery Point snapshots of a destination. The destination is a UNC path to a NetApp file server in case of Windows and a mounted NFS export in case of Unix.

Configuration

The following must be done before using ONTAP Snapshot.

Verify System Requirements -- The source and destination computers must meet the System Requirements, and have a supported operating system platform and application server software for using ONTAP Snapshot with CDR. Refer to ContinuousDataReplicator -- Application Support and Snapshot Engines - Support.
Install the Software -- Install CDR software on the source and destination computer(s). For instructions, see Deployment - ContinuousDataReplicator.
Configure the Agent -- For Unix, right-click the Agent and select Properties. In the Authentication tab, click Filer Management. From the Array management dialog box, add the credentials for the user account to be used when using ONTAP snapshots.

Ensure that you provide the fully qualified domain name or TCP/IP address of the filer in the Control Device ID field.
Configure the Replication Set -- For Windows, for a destination computer to use ONTAP Snapshot to create Recovery Points, right-click the Replication Set on the source computer and select Properties. In the Replication Options tab, select ONTAP in the Select Snap Engine Type for Recovery Point Creation section. For Unix, the Snapshot engine is automatically selected based on your destination.

For more information about configuring, creating, and using Recovery Points with CDR, see Recovery Points.

Backing up Data from ONTAP Snapshots

Recovery Points created using ONTAP Snapshot can be backed up. For more information about performing backups of Recovery Points, see Backups of Recovery Points.

For information on restoring data that was backed up using ONTAP Snapshot, see Restore Data - ONTAP Snapshot.

Recovering Data from ONTAP Snapshot

Data from Recovery Points created using ONTAP Snapshots can be recovered in a variety of ways. For information on recovering data from ONTAP Snapshot, see Recover Replicated Data.

Considerations

Before using CDR with ONTAP Snapshot, review the following information:

Windows

One snapshot is created per CIFS share. If E: is mapped to \\me\CDR_1 and D: is mapped to \\me\CDR_2, there will be two snapshots created on the file server even if both UNC paths end up on the same volume. It may be useful, using this same example, to instead map D: to \\me\CDR_1\D and E: to \\me\CDR_1\E, so that only 1 snapshot is needed.
Auto-mounting of snapshots is not supported for ONTAP Snapshot. There is still a manual "mount" option which will show the UNC path for the snapshot, which can then be accessed.
Snapshots on the NetApp file server will be named cvcdr_<timestamp>_<number> , for example cvcdr_1189118004_1. If there are multiple shares used, then one snapshot will be created for each share and the <number> will be incremented for each. The corresponding CIFS share on the snapshot will be named 1189118004_1. This share will be in exactly the same place as the share being replicated to, meaning for example that if \\me\CDR_1 is for path /vol/myvol/dir1/dir2, then CIFS share 1189118004_1 will be on /vol/myvol/.snapshot/ cvcdr_1189118004_1/dir1/dir2.
NetApp file server destination should be a NTFS qtree.

UNIX

It is recommended that you add the local mount path of the filer to the list of FS to be auto-mounted on reboot. For instance, on AIX you need to add it to /etc/filesystems file and set the Mount to true. This will ensure that if the destination machine gets rebooted, the source machine will continue to replicate to the destination path on the filer and all the CRP snapshots will be automatically mounted.
To avoid the creation of additional folders on the destination machine, it is recommended that you turn on the nosnapdir option on the volume. To do so, run the vol options <volname> nosnapdir command on the ONTAP console.

License Requirement

To perform a data protection operation using this Agent a specific Product License must be available in the CommServe^® Server.

Review general license requirements included in License Administration. Also, View All Licenses provides step-by-step instructions on how to view the license information.