Mark,
You may be able to use RDM's in physical compatibility mode
with FC or if you are running ESX 3.5+ you can look into NPIV( NPIV requires an
RDM mapping and it gives you a virtual HBA to work from within the
guest OS).
If you are not familiar with RDM's ( Raw device Mapping)
within ESX take a look at the Admin guide. RDM's allow you to map LUNS directly
to the guest OS whether it be iSCSI or FC. These drives appear to be local to
the guest OS.
I do not see why Snapmanager would not work in this
scenario. Admittedly, It has been a while since I configured Snapmanager
so I may be missing something. But as far as the guest OS is concerned it would
look the same whether you mapped a RDM or attached to a LUN via
FC.
Hi
Nils,
you
wrote:
> For every
customer a different scenario offcourse, but you can install MS iSCSI Initiator
in
> a VM, stack SnapDrive on top of that, and
in this way run SnapManager for Exchange.
> Basically, you connect a dedicated LUN from
within the VM directly to a NetApp, and not
> use any VMWare functionality (except for OS
disks) to run Exchange.
>
> This way you have your snapshotted LUNs and
you can back them up any way you like.
I'm
afraid I wasn't fully clear. We just replaced a FAS940c by a 3070c which is
attached to the
(already existing) FC fabric. The FAS940c wasn't.
That's why we used iSCSI for our other
customers in the past. But now we would like to get the storage from the FC
fabric.
The problem, as I see it, is that afaik
there is no
way to attach the
fabric to the guest OS directly,
as
you'd need a FC HBA inside the VM.
From the point of view of the guest OS, the storage
that is attached to the ESX looks just like
an
ordinary hard drive. And I suppose SnapDrive won't
work if there is no LUNs for it to see.
However, to keep the Exchange storage groups consistent when doing back
up, you need to start
the
backup from within the guest OS. We might use the NT backup mechanism, though -
but I'm
not
yet sure if that's our best bet.
> There are many
variation to this theme, and I heard rumours that NetApp is working
on
> expanding possibilities
of SnapManager for VI and SnapDrive, but I'm sure your SE
will
> have
more information on that
;)
I hope so -
but I figured I had better try to check the possibilities there are so
I'd be able to
ask the right
questions ;)
Kind
regards,
Mark Neis
--
Mark Neis
System
Administrator
GISA GmbH
Chemnitztalstr. 13
09114 Chemnitz
Tel.
+49.(0)371.482.6737
Fax +49.(0)345.585.100.6737
GISA GmbH -
Geschäftsführer: Michael Krüger; Sitz der Gesellschaft: Halle (Saale);
Registergericht: Amtsgericht Stendal; Handelsregister-Nr. HRB 208414; UST-IdNr:
DE 158253683
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