Our databases are on RDMs, actually all our VMs are on RDMs.
I'm working on migrating to NFS/IP storage and SMVI is part of that
design.
-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Hallmark [mailto:matt@cosmictoaster.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 4:00 PM
To: Ken Williams
Cc: Bill Holland; toasters(a)mathworks.com
Subject: Re: SMVI - Limitations?
Are your databases on VMDK's, RDM's or are you using an iscsi initiator
in the VM?
Thx,
Matt
On Jan 8, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Ken Williams wrote:
> In our environment if we perform a VMWare snapshot of a SQL or Oracle
> database it will crash. So we've actually set policy so those do not
> get snapshots.
>
> From: Bill Holland [mailto:hollandwl@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 3:43 PM
> To: Ken Williams; toasters(a)mathworks.com
> Subject: Re: SMVI - Limitations?
>
> I've been experimenting with SMVI some and it appears to work hand-
> in-hand with vCenter. Essentially, it takes a VMware snapshot,
> followed by a filer snapshot (and snapmirror update if you tell it
> to), then deletes the VMware snapshot. The VMware snapshot before the
> filer snapshot ensures the volumes are quiesced and buffers flushed
> before the filer snapshot to ensure consistency.
>
> I think you'll still have to place your databases in hot backup mode
> before taking a snapshot.
>
> Currently our Oracle and SQL data, index, redo, and archives exist on
> iSCSI LUNs with SnapDrive for Windows. As we progress with VMware, we
> will likely place our OS and Applications either on NFS volumes or
> VMFS formatted iSCSI LUNs. We will then continue to use SnapDrive for
> Windows to manage our database LUNs as this is something we are
> familiar with and are very comfortable with our current recovery model
> in regards to the databases themselves. Plus we often wish to take
> snaphots on them several times a day during our production cycles.
> Simply go into hot backup mode, take snapshot of all but archive
> volumes, exit hot backup mode, snapshot archive volume. It happens so
> quickly our users never notice it and we have recovery points at key
> times during our production cycle should something go wrong during one
> of the daily operations. This is for Oracle. Our SQL databases are
> small and not mission critical so simply taking a filer snapshot and
> letting SQL do its crash recovery if we restore a snapshot works fine.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ken Williams
> To: toasters(a)mathworks.com
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 2:41 PM
> Subject: SMVI - Limitations?
>
> We're making the plunge to move to NFS and SMVI (from RDM backed luns
> and homegrown snapshot management scripts).
>
> Does anyone know of any limitation to how many VMs can exist in a data
> store that SMVI is snapping? Is there any impact when snapping virtual
> machines (outside of SQL/Oracle VMs)?
>
> __________________________________________________________
> Ken Williams
> Storage Administrator, Business Technology Operations Sacramento
> Municipal Utility District
> E-Mail: kwillia(a)smud.org
> Phone: (916) 732-6744
> Cell: (916) 240-4213
>