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  1. Home
  2. NetBackup™ Snapshot Manager for Data Center Administrator's Guide
  3. Storage array plug-ins for Snapshot Manager for Data Center
  4. Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon)
  5. Supported NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center Operation on DELL EMC PowerScale (Isilon)
NetBackup™ Snapshot Manager for Data Center Administrator's Guide

Supported NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center Operation on DELL EMC PowerScale (Isilon)

Snapshot Manager for Data Center performs the following management operations on the Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon):

Table: Snapshot Manager for Data Center operations on Dell EMC PowerScale (Isilon) plug-in

Snapshot Manager for Data Center operation

Description

Discover assets

NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center discovers all the NFS exports, SMB shares, and their snapshots along with some of their directory metadata from all the Access Zones the user has privileges to access or view. By default, a DELL PowerScale cluster has a Single access zone known as the System Access Zone and unless you have additional Access Zones, all the NFS export and SMB Shares are in this default Access Zone. The multiple access zone can be mapped to the same or different Groupnet (Groupnet -> Subnet -> Pool). During discovery, the Snapshot Manager for Data Center also associates the relevant SmartConnect of a pool to its NFS export or SMB share.

NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center also discovers all the nested NFS exports and SMB shares irrespective of the depth at which they are created. Mentioned below are a few examples of nested shares discovered by Snapshot Manager for Data Center: ["/ifs/test_fs1", "/ifs/test_fs1/test_fs2", "/ifs/test_fs1/test_data/test_fs3", "/ifs/smb_03/test_data/dir01"]

The discovered NFS export and SMB shares must have valid underlying filesystem paths. The filesystem directory path must be shared by NFS export, and SMB shares.

Create snapshot

To create a snapshot, Snapshot Manager for Data Center initiates a POST REST API call on the nfs_export with the required information and the snapshot name. The API returns the details of the snapshot.

A typical snapshot created by Snapshot Manager for Data Center has the following naming convention:

SnapNB-NB<unique_21digit_number>

Delete snapshot or replicated snapshot

To delete a snapshot, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center calls the REST API with the required snapshot details. You can see a confirmation when the snapshot is deleted successfully on the array.

Restore snapshot

Snapshot Manager for Data Center uses the JobAPI to revert a snapshot.

To revert a snapshot that contains a directory, it is recommended that you create a SnapRevert domain for a directory.

To revert a snapshot, perform the following steps:

  1. Create a SnapRevert domain for the directory.

  2. Create a snapshot revert job.

Export snapshot or replicate snapshot

  • When a snapshot export operation is initiated for NFS, a new export is created over the snapshot path:

    ("/ifs/test_fs/.snapshot/NB15985918570166499611/") with the backup host added as a Root Clients with read-only permissions.

  • When a snapshot export operation is initiated for SMB, a new share is created over the snapshot path:

    ("/ifs/test_fs/.snapshot/NB15985918570166499611/") The user and the domain provided while exporting the snapshot is added with privileges to access the SMB share created.

    The user must be in the domain specified.

Deport snapshot

When a snapshot deport operation is initiated, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center deletes the NFS export or SMB share created over the snapshot path at the time of the export operations.

Create snapshot diff

Snapshot Manager for Data Center uses the JobAPI to create a change list between snapshots.

To create a change list, perform the following steps:

  1. Use JobAPI to create a job for creating a change list between snapshots.

  2. Use get_changelist_entries API to fetch change list entries between snapshots

Note:

The following important points:

  • The get_changelist_entries API is available for OneFS version 8.2.1 and above only.

  • As for creating a change list we make use of JobAPI. The job engine allows 3 different jobs to run simultaneously. There is a way to allow multiple instances of the ChangelistCreate job to run simultaneously if needed. The job engine still limits the number of jobs to 3 and some care must be taken so this does not adversely affect the cluster.

    To allow multiple instances of the change list run the following commands in the CLI:

    • isi_gconfig -t job-config jobs.types.changelistcreate.allow_multiple_instances=true' (the default is false)

    • isi_gconfig -t job-config jobs.types.changelistcreate.allow_multiple_instances'

Replicate snapshot

NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center creates, and replicates snapshots based on the backup selections in the policy. For these backup selections, you need to set up a SyncIQ policy on the DELL EMC PowerScale (Isilon). NetBackup only supports synchronize action for the SyncIQ policy.

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