Hi
We are (yet) a small NetApp shop with a single 1Tb 810 solution. And we are pretty happy with it :-)
Now, we have yet to establish backup and we have a pretty huge SAN (160Tb+) as well as a number (600+) unix servers we need to backup. For that, we use Networker with tape silos, and that works just fine.
For the NAS, we are now considering to either hook it into our existing networker infrastructure or to push in a R100 between. The R100 should then work as near-storage for san to provide a more flexible solution as well a faster restore times. The R100 will also work as backup server for a number of FreeBSD servers as well as a bunsh of servers, where Legato is not supported or not an option.
So far so good, but why stop here? So my question is, that can I use the R100 as a cold/hot standby and let it take over the job of the F810, if that should break hard some day? I understand, that I can not use it in a cluster setup, as the performance is rather different, but could it take over the IP adresses of the F810, export the same qtrees and just work, but of cause with reduced performance?
What is the required licenses to actually build this setup? And how close a mirror can I make it? Realtime?
Sorry if this is a basic question, but as I said, we are pretty new in the NetApp direction...
best regards, Karsten
So far so good, but why stop here? So my question is, that can I use the R100 as a cold/hot standby and let it take over the job of the F810, if that should break hard some day? I understand, that I can not use it in a cluster setup, as the performance is rather different, but could it take over the IP adresses of the F810, export the same qtrees and just work, but of cause with reduced performance?
Karsten,
As I understand it, the R100/R150 come with NFS licenses so you can backup Unix hosts to it. You can also use it for your standby purposes, but understand you'd have to reboot all your Unix hosts to be able to mount it. Just moving the IP address to another host (even if the data is snapmirrored) would give you stale NFS filehandles.
There is a workaround but it involves editing the disk labels on your Netapps and I would not recommend it.
What is the required licenses to actually build this setup? And how close a mirror can I make it? Realtime?
This is the other problem. If your data is updated frequently, even snapmirroring every minute would leave differences between the F810 and R100. As far as I know, Netapp does not yet have synchronous mirrors working to an R100.
/Brian/ --
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Brian Long -
Karsten Thygesen