Has anyone installed, implemented, deployed Lotus Notes with a NetApp filer? I know there "SnapManager for Lotus Notes" doesn't exist so how can I do this with the same functionality and SME, and SMBR for that matter. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
Andrew,
I could be wrong, but without application-specific support to quiesce the Notes databases (which is what SME/SMSQL/SMO do), then you won't be able to get guaranteed consistent snapshots. In addition, even if you do get good snapshots, you would still need some level of application-specific software (like SMBR) that understands the Notes database format and has the ability to reach into a snapshot and retrieve specific pieces of information.
Without these application-specific pieces, you are left with the ability to take "ordinary" snapshots (I would assume of a LUN, since Notes probably doesn't support mounting databases over CIFS or NFS) and then using SnapRestore to restore those snapshots as needed. I'm not intimately familiar with Lotus Notes, but if you could restore the database from snapshot to an alternate location you could then use Notes-specific software to retrieve specific items from there.
Hope this helps, Scott Lowe Senior Engineer ePlus Technology, Inc. slowe@eplus.com Office: 919.326.3641 Fax: 919.326.3691 Mobile: 919.274.0462
On Dec 5, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Andrew Guerra wrote:
Has anyone installed, implemented, deployed Lotus Notes with a NetApp filer? I know there “SnapManager for Lotus Notes” doesn’t exist so how can I do this with the same functionality and SME, and SMBR for that matter. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
Andrew,
I worked with a customer here to deploy NetApp storage with their existing Notes on Windows installation.
The Notes databases are effectively files rather than open databases, so SnapDrive initiated snapshots are sufficient for recovery without having to quiesce them.
The implementation we used was a LUN mapped to the Windows host with SnapDrive. We then created a Windows Scheduled Task to take regular snapshots using SnapDrive. To recover an individual mailbox, you just mount the snapshot of the LUN and copy that users mailbox file out and back into the main LUN, to recover all of Notes to a point in time, you just shut down Notes and do a LUN SnapRestore then remount the LUN and restart Notes.
There used to be some TR's for Lotus Domino, but I can't seem to find them anymore.
Regards
Oliver Bassett Senior Systems Engineer
Infinity Solutions Ltd P O Box 3323, Auckland Ph: +64 9 921 8123, Mob: +64 21 574 994 Fax: +64 9 309 4142 www.infinitysolutions.co.nz
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Scott Lowe Sent: Wednesday, 6 December 2006 9:30 a.m. To: toasters@mathworks.com; Andrew Guerra Subject: Re: Lotus Notes
Andrew,
I could be wrong, but without application-specific support to quiesce the Notes databases (which is what SME/SMSQL/SMO do), then you won't be able to get guaranteed consistent snapshots. In addition, even if you do get good snapshots, you would still need some level of application-specific software (like SMBR) that understands the Notes database format and has the ability to reach into a snapshot and retrieve specific pieces of information.
Without these application-specific pieces, you are left with the ability to take "ordinary" snapshots (I would assume of a LUN, since Notes probably doesn't support mounting databases over CIFS or NFS) and then using SnapRestore to restore those snapshots as needed. I'm not intimately familiar with Lotus Notes, but if you could restore the database from snapshot to an alternate location you could then use Notes-specific software to retrieve specific items from there.
Hope this helps, Scott Lowe Senior Engineer ePlus Technology, Inc. slowe@eplus.com Office: 919.326.3641 Fax: 919.326.3691 Mobile: 919.274.0462
On Dec 5, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Andrew Guerra wrote:
Has anyone installed, implemented, deployed Lotus Notes with a NetApp filer? I know there "SnapManager for Lotus Notes" doesn't exist so how can I do this with the same functionality and SME, and SMBR for that matter. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
The information contained in this email is privileged and confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are asked to respect that confidentiality and not disclose, copy or make use of its contents. If received in error you are asked to destroy this email and contact the sender immediately. Your assistance is appreciated.
We've run Domino on NetApp via CIFS for years with very few problems. It was fully supported by Lotus, but I can't find the RedBooks on it anymore either.
Oliver is pretty much dead on. A few notes (really bad pun) from our experience:
Though not a traditional DB, you can still snap a Notes DB and get an inconsistent state. Domino will need to perform a consistency check when the DB is accessed the first time after a restore. This consistency check could take a long time if the DB has many docs in it. Mail files are typically not a problem, but application DB's can be a nightmare. The only way to get a true, consistent backup is to quiesce Domino and then snap the system; effectively treating it like a cold DB backup. I seem to remember that we did this via pre-backup scripts in Legato, but most backup packages should be able to do this for you too. There used to be issues with cluster-failover back in the day (R5 of Domino for sure, probably R6, not sure on R7). Specifically, if log.nsf lived on the NetApp and there was a failover, you could kiss your Notes instance good-bye. It would not come back on-line even if the filer did. The only way to recover would be a reboot of the Domino server. Domino writes to log.nsf almost nonstop and if it isn't there, Domino crashes. CIFS is not a tolerant protocol for this type of event. If we were running on *nix (NFS) rather that Windows (CIFS), this probably wouldn't have been an issue.
That's all I can remember for now.
Jeff Mery - MCSE, MCP National Instruments
------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Allow me to extol the virtues of the Net Fairy, and of all the fantastic dorks that make the nice packets go from here to there. Amen." TB - Penny Arcade -------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oliver Bassett" Oliver.Bassett@infinity.co.nz Sent by: owner-toasters@mathworks.com 12/05/2006 03:49 PM
To toasters@mathworks.com, "Andrew Guerra" aguerra@inxi.com cc
Subject RE: Lotus Notes
Andrew,
I worked with a customer here to deploy NetApp storage with their existing Notes on Windows installation.
The Notes databases are effectively files rather than open databases, so SnapDrive initiated snapshots are sufficient for recovery without having to quiesce them.
The implementation we used was a LUN mapped to the Windows host with SnapDrive. We then created a Windows Scheduled Task to take regular snapshots using SnapDrive. To recover an individual mailbox, you just mount the snapshot of the LUN and copy that users mailbox file out and back into the main LUN, to recover all of Notes to a point in time, you just shut down Notes and do a LUN SnapRestore then remount the LUN and restart Notes.
There used to be some TR's for Lotus Domino, but I can't seem to find them anymore.
Regards
Oliver Bassett Senior Systems Engineer
Infinity Solutions Ltd P O Box 3323, Auckland Ph: +64 9 921 8123, Mob: +64 21 574 994 Fax: +64 9 309 4142 www.infinitysolutions.co.nz
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Scott Lowe Sent: Wednesday, 6 December 2006 9:30 a.m. To: toasters@mathworks.com; Andrew Guerra Subject: Re: Lotus Notes
Andrew,
I could be wrong, but without application-specific support to quiesce the Notes databases (which is what SME/SMSQL/SMO do), then you won't be able to get guaranteed consistent snapshots. In addition, even if you do get good snapshots, you would still need some level of application-specific software (like SMBR) that understands the Notes database format and has the ability to reach into a snapshot and retrieve specific pieces of information.
Without these application-specific pieces, you are left with the ability to take "ordinary" snapshots (I would assume of a LUN, since Notes probably doesn't support mounting databases over CIFS or NFS) and then using SnapRestore to restore those snapshots as needed. I'm not intimately familiar with Lotus Notes, but if you could restore the database from snapshot to an alternate location you could then use Notes-specific software to retrieve specific items from there.
Hope this helps, Scott Lowe Senior Engineer ePlus Technology, Inc. slowe@eplus.com Office: 919.326.3641 Fax: 919.326.3691 Mobile: 919.274.0462
On Dec 5, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Andrew Guerra wrote:
Has anyone installed, implemented, deployed Lotus Notes with a NetApp filer? I know there "SnapManager for Lotus Notes" doesn't exist so how can I do this with the same functionality and SME, and SMBR for that matter. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
The information contained in this email is privileged and confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are asked to respect that confidentiality and not disclose, copy or make use of its contents. If received in error you are asked to destroy this email and contact the sender immediately. Your assistance is appreciated.
We have been running our Domino server with the data on Netapp for years. I can't remember ever having a problem restoring a database from a regular snapshot (after the occasional consistency check). We use a CIFS connection and it performs OK (we have a dedicated GB connection between the filer and the Notes server). Network interruptions are a killer for Domino (it doesn't like it when it can't find log.nsf, as someone mentioned), so the dedicated link is a great solution.
Moshe
Jeff Mery jeff.mery@ni.com Sent by: owner-toasters@mathworks.com 06/12/2006 01:06
To "Oliver Bassett" Oliver.Bassett@infinity.co.nz cc "Andrew Guerra" aguerra@inxi.com, owner-toasters@mathworks.com, toasters@mathworks.com Subject RE: Lotus Notes
We've run Domino on NetApp via CIFS for years with very few problems. It was fully supported by Lotus, but I can't find the RedBooks on it anymore either.
Oliver is pretty much dead on. A few notes (really bad pun) from our experience: 1. Though not a traditional DB, you can still snap a Notes DB and get an inconsistent state. Domino will need to perform a consistency check when the DB is accessed the first time after a restore. This consistency check could take a long time if the DB has many docs in it. Mail files are typically not a problem, but application DB's can be a nightmare. 2. The only way to get a true, consistent backup is to quiesce Domino and then snap the system; effectively treating it like a cold DB backup. I seem to remember that we did this via pre-backup scripts in Legato, but most backup packages should be able to do this for you too. 3. There used to be issues with cluster-failover back in the day (R5 of Domino for sure, probably R6, not sure on R7). Specifically, if log.nsf lived on the NetApp and there was a failover, you could kiss your Notes instance good-bye. It would not come back on-line even if the filer did. The only way to recover would be a reboot of the Domino server. Domino writes to log.nsf almost nonstop and if it isn't there, Domino crashes. CIFS is not a tolerant protocol for this type of event. If we were running on *nix (NFS) rather that Windows (CIFS), this probably wouldn't have been an issue.
That's all I can remember for now.
Jeff Mery - MCSE, MCP National Instruments
------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Allow me to extol the virtues of the Net Fairy, and of all the fantastic dorks that make the nice packets go from here to there. Amen." TB - Penny Arcade -------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oliver Bassett" Oliver.Bassett@infinity.co.nz Sent by: owner-toasters@mathworks.com 12/05/2006 03:49 PM
To toasters@mathworks.com, "Andrew Guerra" aguerra@inxi.com cc
Subject RE: Lotus Notes
Andrew,
I worked with a customer here to deploy NetApp storage with their existing Notes on Windows installation.
The Notes databases are effectively files rather than open databases, so SnapDrive initiated snapshots are sufficient for recovery without having to quiesce them.
The implementation we used was a LUN mapped to the Windows host with SnapDrive. We then created a Windows Scheduled Task to take regular snapshots using SnapDrive. To recover an individual mailbox, you just mount the snapshot of the LUN and copy that users mailbox file out and back into the main LUN, to recover all of Notes to a point in time, you just shut down Notes and do a LUN SnapRestore then remount the LUN and restart Notes.
There used to be some TR's for Lotus Domino, but I can't seem to find them anymore.
Regards
Oliver Bassett Senior Systems Engineer
Infinity Solutions Ltd P O Box 3323, Auckland Ph: +64 9 921 8123, Mob: +64 21 574 994 Fax: +64 9 309 4142 www.infinitysolutions.co.nz
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Scott Lowe Sent: Wednesday, 6 December 2006 9:30 a.m. To: toasters@mathworks.com; Andrew Guerra Subject: Re: Lotus Notes
Andrew,
I could be wrong, but without application-specific support to quiesce the Notes databases (which is what SME/SMSQL/SMO do), then you won't be able to get guaranteed consistent snapshots. In addition, even if you do get good snapshots, you would still need some level of application-specific software (like SMBR) that understands the Notes database format and has the ability to reach into a snapshot and retrieve specific pieces of information.
Without these application-specific pieces, you are left with the ability to take "ordinary" snapshots (I would assume of a LUN, since Notes probably doesn't support mounting databases over CIFS or NFS) and then using SnapRestore to restore those snapshots as needed. I'm not intimately familiar with Lotus Notes, but if you could restore the database from snapshot to an alternate location you could then use Notes-specific software to retrieve specific items from there.
Hope this helps, Scott Lowe Senior Engineer ePlus Technology, Inc. slowe@eplus.com Office: 919.326.3641 Fax: 919.326.3691 Mobile: 919.274.0462
On Dec 5, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Andrew Guerra wrote:
Has anyone installed, implemented, deployed Lotus Notes with a NetApp filer? I know there "SnapManager for Lotus Notes" doesn't exist so how can I do this with the same functionality and SME, and SMBR for that matter. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks
The information contained in this email is privileged and confidential and intended for the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are asked to respect that confidentiality and not disclose, copy or make use of its contents. If received in error you are asked to destroy this email and contact the sender immediately. Your assistance is appreciated.
-
Andrew Guerra -
Jeff Mery -
Moshe.Linzer＠winbond.com -
Oliver Bassett -
Scott Lowe