toasters December 2009

toasters@lists.teaparty.net

19 participants
15 discussions

Netapp and VMware... It's all so confusing!
by Timothy Hollingworth 01 Apr '10

01 Apr '10

So, say for example, I want to virtualize an Exchange server. Lets also say that I want to manage it via Snapdrive and SME. Lets also say, just for the heck of it, that I want both the new front-engined Acura NSX as well as the Porsche RC3. The cars aside, I would have to run iSCSI from within the VM, install and use Snapdrive from within the VM to provision LUNs, install Exchange and then use SME? It seems kind of silly to use iSCSI from within a VM if the ESX box were fiber attached to the Filer, just to be able to use Snapdrive and SME, no? I would love to be able to use the features of SD and SME within a completely virtual environment and am wondering what some real world implementations other VMware/Netapp customers are running. Do you run storage for the databases and logs in VMDK's and manage snapshots and backups from a VMware virtual machine perspective or do you manage them as iSCSI LUNs and use SD and SME? Or am I completely blind and missing something? Timothy L. Hollingworth Sr. Network Engineer, ePlus Technology Inc. 678.462.6698 (cell) AIM: HollingworthTim YIM: t_holling

11 15

RE: Does anyone know if the dedup is across the entire aggr or just the volume in 7.3.x?
by Page, Jeremy 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

We're at vSphere, it does support 64 (and that's what the NetApp tool recommends). It's probably over ambitious to get one vol per service but maybe one per customer (Engineering, Finance etc). That should keep the similar data together. We too are seeing 40% or so on our VM's. It looks like Aggr level dedup will be out with 8. ________________________________ From: Glenn Walker [mailto:gwalker@aetas.org] Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2009 2:32 PM To: Page, Jeremy Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: Does anyone know if the dedup is across the entire aggr or just the volume in 7.3.x? It isn't global dedupe, like Data Domain - I think that was one of the big benefits of the attempted purchase of DD. That said, it's still pretty good - even if only at the volume level. We're seeing tremendous savings of storage and no real performance impact. We've got VMWare over NFS in our environment and on average we're seeing about 45% dedupe rates - pretty impressive given the fact that the application files, temp files, and page files are all co-termed on the same VMDKs. At last count, we've deduped 20TB of storage. Keep in mind, volume per service may prove difficult as VMWare 3.5.X has a limit of 32 NFS-based datastores per server: if you run big clusters like we do, you'll probably run out of datastores if each volume is a separate service. VSphere is rumored to raise the limit to 64 I think. Glenn On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 1:39 PM, Page, Jeremy <jeremy.page(a)gilbarco.com> wrote: Does anyone know if the dedup is across the entire aggr or just the volume in 7.3.x? I'd like to break up my VMware environment so we have a volume per service (so SQL Warehouse volume, Call Center etc). This would be nice because we could delegate the rights to them, move them around if specific apps required more IO and aid in troubleshooting. The question I have is will this kill our dedup percentages? Please be advised that this email may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not read, copy or re-transmit this email. If you have received this email in error, please notify us by email by replying to the sender and by telephone (call us collect at +1 202-828-0850) and delete this message and any attachments. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and assistance. In addition, Danaher and its subsidiaries disclaim that the content of this email constitutes an offer to enter into, or the acceptance of, any contract or agreement or any amendment thereto; provided that the foregoing disclaimer does not invalidate the binding effect of any digital or other electronic reproduction of a manual signature that is included in any attachment to this email. Please be advised that this email may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not read, copy or re-transmit this email. If you have received this email in error, please notify us by email by replying to the sender and by telephone (call us collect at +1 202-828-0850) and delete this message and any attachments. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and assistance. In addition, Danaher and its subsidiaries disclaim that the content of this email constitutes an offer to enter into, or the acceptance of, any contract or agreement or any amendment thereto; provided that the foregoing disclaimer does not invalidate the binding effect of any digital or other electronic reproduction of a manual signature that is included in any attachment to this email.

7 7

RE: Fixing corrupted NTFS LUN's
by Suresh Rajagopalan 23 Dec '09

23 Dec '09

The LUN's are corrupt from the perspective of the HBA itself (any HBA), Emulex HBAanywhere reports the LUN size to be "Not available" and block size to be "Not available". Restoring from backup was the only workaround. I've not encountered a corruption like this kind before, 6 LUN's got lost in this manner. Suresh From: Darren Sykes [mailto:Darren.Sykes@csr.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 2:51 AM To: Michael Schipp; Suresh Rajagopalan; toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: RE: Fixing corrupted NTFS LUN's Hmmm, maybe I hadn't thought that one though - you're right in that you'd need an OS which saw the LUN before attempting to recover the partitions on it - assuming you're booting from iSCSI? If you're not, then my original advice stands. However, that's not to say you couldn't boot into Windows (by whatever means - another physical disk if necessary) then follow my advice re: FDISK /fixmbr or alternate commercial product. I wouldn't be too hopeful of Linux fixing it - I'd try Windows tools first as I'd think they'd have a better chance of recovering a Windows file system. The other option that we've followed in the past is recovering the partition table from a snapshot prior to the corruption, assuming you have one. We booted Linux, mounted the LUNS and literally did a direct copy of the MBR. From: Michael Schipp [mailto:mschipp@asi.com.au] Sent: 23 December 2009 10:21 To: Darren Sykes; Suresh Rajagopalan; toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: RE: Fixing corrupted NTFS LUN's If the disks (read LUNs) do not appear to windows as a disk then a Windows based disk recover tool will also not see the drive to recover - e.g. for these to work it would need to see a disk drive and see no or corrupt file/partition system to fix it. Suggest you look at an Linux boot CD/DVD that has iSCSI support to see if it can mount it as a NTFS volume. (follow Darren Sykes advise so as not to break it further) A quick google for a tool to recover LUNs does not look very promising - good luck and please post back if you do find something. From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Darren Sykes Sent: Wednesday, 23 December 2009 8:51 PM To: Suresh Rajagopalan; toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: RE: Fixing corrupted NTFS LUN's You'd think the LUNs are fine (and the fact they're actually just a file on the Netapp won't matter as it's a file system issue). I assume something like fdisk /fixmbr or the recovery console were no use to you (disclaimer: work on a flexclone or at least make sure you have a snapshot before trying that!)? There are commercial products (such as http://www.partition-recovery.com/) but I can't vouch for their effectiveness. From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Suresh Rajagopalan Sent: 23 December 2009 07:26 To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Fixing corrupted NTFS LUN's Following up on my post, we had HBA and path issues causing LUN corruption on several NTFS LUN's on the original host. As a result, we cannot even see a partition table on the LUN's. Are there any utilities to manipulate or repair NTFS LUN files (which are visible as flat files via the CIFS share to the volume)? Thanks Suresh From: Suresh Rajagopalan Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:38 PM To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Cannot see LUNs after server move We had a bunch of NTFS LUN's on a server that crashed (2003x64/Snapdrive 4.2.1). We are trying to move the LUNS to another server(Snapdrive 6/Win2k3x64). To do this we did the following: 1) Unmap old initiator from lun 2) Zone new server to the Netapp filer. 3) Try to use connect disk from new server to the lun 4) This gives a error saying drive notification timeout To debug this more, I opened Disk Management. The disks do not show up there either. But they show up as LUNs under Device manager. Why do the LUN's show up in Device Manager/Disk drives but not in Disk management? Thanks Suresh To report this email as spam click here <https://www.mailcontrol.com/sr/wQw0zmjPoHdJTZGyOCrrhg==> . Member of the CSR plc group of companies. CSR plc registered in England and Wales, registered number 4187346, registered office Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, United Kingdom ************************************************************************ ************ This footnote confirms that this email message has been scanned by PineApp Mail-SeCure for the presence of malicious code, vandals & computer viruses. ************************************************************************ ************

1 0

Re: Filers and anti virus software benefit
by Joel Krajden 19 Dec '09

19 Dec '09

Thank you for the feedback Glenn. We have decided that the overhead does is not worth the benefits. We have hundred of students compiling executables on a daily basis which would end up being scanned. Joel Quoting Glenn Walker <gwalker(a)aetas.org>: > We use it extensively, but I swear I think it's only added overhead. > > There are lots of issues wrt size of container, type of data, etc. In many > cases, the files need to be excluded (PST for example). Our particular > environment has virus scanning on laptops, servers, mail gateways, mail > servers, etc, so there seems to be little added benefit (as you mentioned, > zero day infections will not be stopped). That said, while we employ > several devices to perform this function (3 per cluster for home\shared - we > do _not_ scan application data), there seems to be no performance impact. > It's really an insurance policy, which is very cheap compared to how much > money is spent on all other infrastructure combined. But actually > beneficial? I don't really think so... > > Glenn > > On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 3:19 PM, Joel Krajden <joelk(a)encs.concordia.ca>wrote: > >> Most of our clients (1000) accessing the filers for home directory shares >> are protected with an anti virus tool that scans a file on opening. There >> are unmanaged clients which have access to the filers and they may or may >> not be protected with an anti virus that is up to date, but they only risk >> infecting their own files in general. >> >> Is there any real benefit to having virus checking implemented on the filer >> as well. Given that zero day infections will not be stopped, the additional >> cost of dedicated virus scanners and software licensing is significant, the >> performance hit with thousands of users will be high; what have other filer >> administrators used as arguments for or against using these products. >> >> Any experience from administrators where the product has been of value? >> >> >> Joel >> >> > -- | Joel Krajden | Rm: EV-7105, Tel: 514 848-2424 3052 | | Core Services Manager | | | Engineering & | Email: joelk(a)encs.concordia.ca | | Computer Science | www.encs.concordia.ca/~staffcs/joelk | | Concordia University | In a circus, the clowns are supposed | | Montreal, Canada | to make you laugh, not cry. |

1 0

Re:
by Joel Krajden 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

You are correct and anyways migration would only work on the same filer. Sorry for suggesting a dead end. Joel Michael Barrow wrote: > 'snapmirror migrate' is only applicable for an existing SnapMirror > relationship. In this particular instance, the SnapMirror relationship > has effectively been torn down and a new relationship must be built. > > On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 5:56 AM, Joel Krajden <joelk(a)encs.concordia.ca > <mailto:joelk@encs.concordia.ca>> wrote: > > You might want to look at > > Solution ID: kb40272 > Last updated: 30 SEP 2009 > > Sample procedure using ' snapmirror migrate ' that avoids remounting > in a NFS environment > > > > Joel > > > John Stoffel wrote: > > "Fox," == Fox, Adam <Adam.Fox(a)netapp.com > <mailto:Adam.Fox@netapp.com>> writes: > > > Fox> VSM (and therefore SM2T) will preserve inodes, but it will > be up > Fox> to you to preserve the FSID of the original volume on east. If > Fox> you go into priv set advanced, you will find 'vol > read_fsid' and > Fox> 'vol rewrite_fsid' which can accomplish this. Be aware that > Fox> Rewriting the fsid requires the volume to be restricted and you > Fox> will need to rewrite the original one first to something > totally > Fox> different. FSIDs must be unique not only within a > controller but > Fox> within an HA-pair if you want failover to work properly. > > Ouch! Sounds funky and possibly trouble. > > While I don't have any common snapshots between west> and east> > filers, I do have some common snapshots on each filer for other > snapmirror relationships, since west> is also snapmirroring tools to > two other sites. > > Would it be possible to do the following: > > 1) quiece all snapmirrors of tools from west> to south> and > north> > - will this leave me with two snap shots for the west->north > pair, or will snapmirror automatically cleanup when done? > > 2) comment out tools entries on all filers: west, south, > north & > east. > > 3) on west> (my source), do 'snap rename > north(####)_tools.1234 \ > east(######)_tools.1234' > 4) on east> snapmirror resynnc tools > > - wait until competed > > 5) on west> snap rename east(######)_tools.1234 \ > north(######)_tools.1234 > 6) do snap update tools on east, north, south to make sure they > can all update again. > > 7) re-enable snapmirror.conf entries for tools. > > Or I wonder if I need to interrupt the west->north snapmirror in > progress, and make sure I only rename the more recent snapshot, so > that I still have valid snapshots between west->north, and now a > second one to re-purpose as my west->east pair base? > > Any hope? > Thanks, > John > > > > Fox> While these commands are perfectly safe when used properly, > they are > Fox> guns so point them away from you (i.e. know what you're > doing before you > Fox> it or you could have a disruption you don't want). > > Fox> -- Adam Fox > Fox> Systems Engineer > Fox> adamfox(a)netapp.com <mailto:adamfox@netapp.com> > > > Fox,> -----Original Message----- > Fox,> From: John Stoffel [mailto:john.stoffel@taec.toshiba.com > <mailto:john.stoffel@taec.toshiba.com>] Fox,> Sent: Monday, > December 07, 2009 5:50 PM > Fox,> To: toasters(a)mathworks.com <mailto:toasters@mathworks.com> > Fox,> Subject: Redoing snapmirror to a destination > > > Fox,> Guys, > > Fox,> Do to stupidity on my part, I managed to accidently delete > a snapshot > Fox,> on the source side of a snapmirror pair, so that > snapmirror can't > Fox,> continue. It's not critical, it's just our tools area, > which isn't > Fox,> updated frequently. > > Fox,> So now I want to re-snapmirror, but I want to limit the > downtime of > Fox,> the clients on the destination side as much as possible > when I switch > Fox,> them to the new re-snapmirrored volume. > > Fox,> Currently, my clients mount east:/vol/tools, so what I'd > like to do > Fox,> is: > > west> snapmirror store tools rst0a,rst1a > > east> vol create tools .... > east> vol restrict tools > east> snapmirror retrieve tools_new rst0a,rst1a > > Fox,> Now for the tricky part: > > east> nfs off > east> vol rename tools tools_old > east> vol rename tools_new tools > east> nfs on > east> exportfs -a -v > > Fox,> so that all my clients see (on a read-only volume) is a > quick outage > Fox,> or pause in NFS traffic, then they just continue on using > tools and > Fox,> such as usual. > > Fox,> Or will I be forced to reboot all of my client machines > one by one? > Fox,> Which will be truly truly truly painful... > > Fox,> The general snapmirror update and cleanup of the old volume is > Fox,> trivial. It's limiting the outage to my clients that I > worry about. > Fox,> Thanks, > Fox,> John > Fox,> John Stoffel - Senior Staff Systems Administrator - > System LSI Group > Fox,> Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. - > Fox,> http://www.toshiba.com/taec > Fox,> john.stoffel(a)taec.toshiba.com > <mailto:john.stoffel@taec.toshiba.com> - 508-486-1087 > > > > > > > > -- > | Joel Krajden | Rm: EV-7105, Tel: 514 848-2424 3052 | > | Core Technologies Mgr | | > | Engineering & | Email: joelk(a)encs.concordia.ca > <mailto:joelk@encs.concordia.ca> | > | Computer Science | | > | Concordia University | In a circus, the clowns are supposed | > | Montreal, Canada | to make you laugh, not cry. | > > > > > -- > Michael Barrow > michael at barrow dot me > -- | Joel Krajden | Rm: EV-7105, Tel: 514 848-2424 3052 | | Core Technologies Mgr | | | Engineering & | Email: joelk(a)encs.concordia.ca | | Computer Science | | | Concordia University | In a circus, the clowns are supposed | | Montreal, Canada | to make you laugh, not cry. |

1 0

Netapp blog
by Patrick van Helden 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

For some time now I have been adding items regarding issues and fixes with Netapp systems into a blog type format for myself. I have posted this blog online so everyone can enjoy! http://netappfas.blogspot.com/ netappfas.blogspot.com For now I have only migrated the old articles but am planning to add new ones regularly. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Netapp-blog-tp26727926p26727926.html Sent from the Network Appliance - Toasters mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

1 0

Re: migrating a volume with snapmirror
by Joel Krajden 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Wonder if you can put the source volume into restricted mode first and migrate will the open read or write simply continue if the FSID are identical. It should but I have never tried it. Joel Ed Wilts wrote: > On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 7:56 AM, Joel Krajden <joelk(a)encs.concordia.ca > <mailto:joelk@encs.concordia.ca>> wrote: > > You might want to look at > > Solution ID: kb40272 > Last updated: 30 SEP 2009 > > Sample procedure using ' snapmirror migrate ' that avoids remounting > in a NFS environment > > > Unfortunately, it only works if all NFS access has stopped. If you > have just one host out there that you forgot about that is doing I/O to > the volume, it's remount time and users grumbling about stale handles. > > .../Ed > > Ed Wilts, RHCE, BCFP, BCSD, SCSP, SCSE > ewilts(a)ewilts.org <mailto:ewilts@ewilts.org> > Contact Me Linkedin <http://www.linkedin.com/in/ewilts> > > -- | Joel Krajden | Rm: EV-7105, Tel: 514 848-2424 3052 | | Core Technologies Mgr | | | Engineering & | Email: joelk(a)encs.concordia.ca | | Computer Science | | | Concordia University | In a circus, the clowns are supposed | | Montreal, Canada | to make you laugh, not cry. |

2 1

Redoing snapmirror to a destination
by John Stoffel 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Guys, Do to stupidity on my part, I managed to accidently delete a snapshot on the source side of a snapmirror pair, so that snapmirror can't continue. It's not critical, it's just our tools area, which isn't updated frequently. So now I want to re-snapmirror, but I want to limit the downtime of the clients on the destination side as much as possible when I switch them to the new re-snapmirrored volume. Currently, my clients mount east:/vol/tools, so what I'd like to do is: west> snapmirror store tools rst0a,rst1a east> vol create tools .... east> vol restrict tools east> snapmirror retrieve tools_new rst0a,rst1a Now for the tricky part: east> nfs off east> vol rename tools tools_old east> vol rename tools_new tools east> nfs on east> exportfs -a -v so that all my clients see (on a read-only volume) is a quick outage or pause in NFS traffic, then they just continue on using tools and such as usual. Or will I be forced to reboot all of my client machines one by one? Which will be truly truly truly painful... The general snapmirror update and cleanup of the old volume is trivial. It's limiting the outage to my clients that I worry about. Thanks, John John Stoffel - Senior Staff Systems Administrator - System LSI Group Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. - http://www.toshiba.com/taec john.stoffel(a)taec.toshiba.com - 508-486-1087

7 7

Filers and anti virus software benefit
by Joel Krajden 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

Most of our clients (1000) accessing the filers for home directory shares are protected with an anti virus tool that scans a file on opening. There are unmanaged clients which have access to the filers and they may or may not be protected with an anti virus that is up to date, but they only risk infecting their own files in general. Is there any real benefit to having virus checking implemented on the filer as well. Given that zero day infections will not be stopped, the additional cost of dedicated virus scanners and software licensing is significant, the performance hit with thousands of users will be high; what have other filer administrators used as arguments for or against using these products. Any experience from administrators where the product has been of value? Joel

3 2

Covert IBM N Series to NetApp Solution
by ifstat 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Ok, I'm sure this has been covered somewhere during the years, and I'm well aware that this is taboo in terms of the NetApp IBM partnership, but I would like to attempt or rather investigate the following: 1. Reconfigure an IBM N3700 to FAS270, initializing the disks and deploying NetApp Data ONTAP, does anyone know if the underlying hardware (firmware) will accept this. 2. Add NetApp disks and shelves to the system, ie grow with NetApp directly and not neccessarily IBM. Anyone attempted this your info would be helpful. We are not concerned about the support agreements, financially NetApp is cheaper and easier, so in this day and age it all about the MONEY:). -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Covert-IBM-N-Series-to-NetApp-Solution-tp26690019p266… Sent from the Network Appliance - Toasters mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

3 2

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

toasters December 2009