NetApp S500 & S550

[wowhead]

We've got one of each and IBM Blade Centers. We've got this "contraption" of a system in production but we're finding the vendor (us as well) just don't know enough yet. We're virtualizing everything using Xen. We're now wondering what our options are for mirroring the data between the NetApp devices. Anyone here have any experience doing such a thing?? We've got SnapMirror/SnapRestore but it doesn't seem like there are a lot of options as far as configuring/managing any type of replication. Are we missing a 3rd piece of software & is it me or is any kind of real information hard to find on this stuff?

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

snapmirror typically replicates on volume or qtree level, it moves changed blocks over IP to a remote netapp volume.It does not garantee by default application consistency. In order to get application consistency, you need :
- a software suite that takes care of the job for you ( like snapmanager for exchange from netapp)
- scripting : create a script that quiesces all applications, allowing to take a consistent snapshot
For vmware, netapp has snapmanager for virtual infrastructure,for Xen however this does not exist.

Snaprestore is used to restore single files from a previous snapshot, or can even revert a whole volume. Reverting a whole volume does not keep any snapshots that are taken on a later time then the snapshot you revert to,so beware !

rgds,

R.

NetApp Certified NCDA/NCIE-SAN

 

[wowhead]

What are people with Xen using then to mirror data across their SANs?

Thanks.