RE: backing up Great Plains - toasters

23 Dec 2005


      Lori,
I'm not familiar with Great Plains but I think it sits on top of
SQLServer. So you should use SnapManager for SQLServer (SMESQL).
SnapManager knows SQLServer and how to put it into hot backup mode so
you can get a usable snapshot. SnapManager actually sits on top of
SnapDrive. SnapDrive works on Windows OS level to flush all the buffers
to disk for a coherent snapshot. However, if you try to use just
SnapDrive on SQLServer, you are still going to miss the memory buffer
and cache that SQLServer keeps.
You should use SMESQL if possible. This will allow you to take snapshots
on the fly. However, it will require you to have at least 2X the amount
of disk space that you are using for the lun. I heard some rumor about
7.x allowing for less than 2X the amount but I have yet to try that. It
does not look like you have enough disk space right now to run SMESQL.
So unless you can expand the volume, you will need to shutdown the
database and then take a snapshot. If you turn off space reservation for
the lun, you should be able to ndmpcopy the volume elsewhere.
Derek
-----Original Message-----
From: Lori Barfield [mailto:itdirector@gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 11:30 AM
To: Lai, Derek
Cc: toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: Re: backing up Great Plains
On 12/23/05, Lai, Derek Derek.Lai@onyxco.com wrote:
...
You are most likely running into problem with space reservation for 
luns. By default it is set to on. Do a lun show -v and send the
output.
fs03> lun show -v
        /vol/vol1/sql/sqldata.lun  429.0g (460656806400)  (r/w, online,
mapped)
                Serial#: hoh9OJ0o5Ttw
                Share: none
                Space Reservation: enabled
                Multiprotocol Type: windows
                Maps:
viaRPC.iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:oujisama.square-enix-usa.com=0
i'm getting an education today. :)
if i understood the NetApp tecchie correctly, there is space set aside
in the LUN for snapshot that the database itself reserves and is aware
of.  so snapshots from within the Snap Manager tool will use this space
and not the global snapshot space the filer OS uses.  (makes me wonder
why there is snapshot space on the filer at all, then).
a gent named paul asked this question:
...
Are they talking about shutting down the SQL server so the databases 
aren't active so they can be backed up?
i believe Snap Manager will quiesce the database and take a snapshot.
after that i am hoping i can just snapmirror that shot over to another
filer.  but just now someone told me that Snap Manager does not do this-
Snap Disk is what is used to take the snapshot and that's all.
and Alan sent me some links for how to resize the database.
thanks, Alan!  i see that's going to take some careful work so that
definitely comes later.  here's the df -r he recommended:
fs03> df -r
Filesystem              kbytes       used      avail   reserved  Mounted
on
/vol/vol0/            10485760     292748   10193012          0
/vol/vol0/
/vol/vol0/.snapshot    2621440      74476    2546964          0 
/vol/vol0/.snapshot
/vol/vol1/           901775360  561929340  339846020  108745792
/vol/vol1/
/vol/vol1/.snapshot          0    2366728          0          0 
/vol/vol1/.snapshot
indeed, snapshot is gobbled up.
...lori