Hi Paul,
Welcome to the fellowship of the File ;-)
VFM which stands for Virtual File Manager is a storage virtualization
tool aimed at NetApp Filers and Windows servers (and a little bit to
Unix users). It's relies on Microsoft DFS (distributed file system)
which presents a logical view of the data to users, no matter where it's
physically located.
VFM (also known as StorageX) enhances greatly DFS by adding
functionality such as automated data migration, consolidation, life
cycle management and disaster recovery policies.
In your case, VFM would allow you to automatically manage the shares on
the NearStore, and in case of a failure of the FAS960, break the
SnapMirror and update the DFS tree so that Windows users accessing data
through DFS would be transparently redirected to the R150.
With such a solution, no need to play with DNS, WINS, etc.
I would suggest that you contact your NetApp representative or if you
have NOW website access, download VFM 4.0 documentation to make your
opinion on it.
Kind regards,
Michel
-----Original Message-----
From: Brubaker, Paul [mailto:paul.brubaker@attws.com]
Sent: mercredi 1 octobre 2003 21:07
To: Michel Geldenhuys
Subject: RE: DRP plan
Thanks for the reply Michel. I'm new to the Network Appliance
environment... what is VFM 4.0? Is this a Network Appliance product?
thanks again!
Paul M. Brubaker, Jr.
NDCO ESAM MS Server Distributed
AT&T Wireless - Harrisburg PA
e-mail: paul.brubaker(a)attws.com
office #: 717-526-5011
cell #: 717-578-2254
-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Geldenhuys [mailto:michel@geldenhuys.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 2:39 PM
To: toasters(a)mathworks.com
Subject: RE: DRP plan
I think VFM 4.0 would be a great tool for you since it automates all
this stuff (share creation, snapmirror break if needed, etc.)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com]
On Behalf Of Brubaker, Paul
Sent: mercredi 1 octobre 2003 19:50
To: toasters(a)mathworks.com
Subject: DRP plan
Anyone have a good Disaster Recovery Procedure for when the primary
filer would fail?
Our environment: OnTap 6.4.2 for F960 (primary filer) w/ R150
(nearStore) which contains snap mirrors of the F960 data volumes... all
in a Windows 2000 AD domain. Filers are used by CIFS clients only (9x,
NT4, W2k, XP).
If the F960 would "die", we would want to break the snap mirror to the
R150 and make this data read/write. Additionally, we thought we could
give the R150 a Netbios alias name equal to the F960. We probably would
have WINS and DNS changes to make as well and we would need to recreate
the shared folders and quota settings on the R150. We do snap mirror
the vol0 of the F960 to a volume on the R150. And, of course, how would
you revert back to the F960 upon it's "rebirth".
Anyone have experience or some "best practices" for such a process.
Thanks!
Paul M. Brubaker, Jr.
NDCO ESAM MS Server Distributed
AT&T Wireless - Harrisburg PA
e-mail: paul.brubaker(a)attws.com
office #: 717-526-5011
cell #: 717-578-2254