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  1. Home
  3. NetBackup™ Snapshot Manager for Data Center Administrator's Guide
  5. Storage array plug-ins for Snapshot Manager for Data Center
  7. Dell EMC Unity Array
  9. Supported Snapshot Manager for Data Center operations on the Dell EMC Unity array
NetBackup™ Snapshot Manager for Data Center Administrator's Guide

Supported Snapshot Manager for Data Center operations on the Dell EMC Unity array

NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center performs the following operations on the Dell EMC Unity.

Table: Snapshot Manager for Data Center operations on Dell EMC Unity array

Snapshot Manager for Data Center operation

Description

Discover assets

In a NAS environment, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center discovers all the NAS servers, NFS exports, SMB shares, NAS file system, and file system snapshots as assets. NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center calls an SDK method that internally calls the array's API to retrieve the assets mentioned in the list. For NAS discovery, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center doesn't skip any assets. For example, if the current file system shares NFS and SMB in total are 100, and the snapshot count is 21, then you can find 100 directories and 21 file systems in the NetBackup.

In a SAN environment, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center discovers all the volumes, consistency groups, and their corresponding snapshots as assets.

Note:

NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center discovers all snapshots in a NAS and SAN environment, but it can operate on only those snapshots that it creates itself.

Create snapshot

In a NAS environment, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center calls an SDK method to create a snapshot of a file system. When a snapshot is initiated, a redirect-on-write (ROW) snapshot of the entire file system is created. The API returns the snapshot details.

In a SAN environment, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center creates a snapshot of a volume and consistency group using the SDK. When a snapshot is initiated, a redirect-on-write (ROW) snapshot of the volume or the consistency group is created.

The snapshot name and retention period are not set on the array for these snapshots. A typical snapshot created by NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center has the following naming convention:

NB<unique_21digit_number>

No other entity apart from this snapshot is created on the array as a snapshot-related activity.

Delete snapshot

In a NAS environment, when a snapshot is deleted, Snapshot Manager for Data Center calls the SDK with the required snapshot details and deletes the file system snapshot.

In a SAN environment, when a snapshot is deleted, Snapshot Manager for Data Center calls the SDK with the required snapshot details and deletes the volume or consistency group snapshot.

Restore snapshot

For NAS, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center does not support PIT restore on file system, NFS share, and SMB Share.

For SAN:

  • PIT restores for volume snapshot restores the volume to the snapshot state.

  • PIT restores for a volume inside the consistency group is restored to the PIT snapshot state.

Note:

The latest snapshot is not required for PIT. You can perform the restore operation with old snapshots related to the file system.

Export snapshot

In a NAS environment, when a snapshot export is initiated:

  • For NFS share snapshot, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center creates a new NFS share from the file system snapshot and adds host permission for accessing the exported NFS share. The target host is assigned read-only root permissions on the exported NFS snapshot share. NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center also prepares a path to the share level. For NFS shares, the export path is created with: <NAS-server-ip>:<share_name>. The rules for the hosts are added as a read-only root on a particular share.

    Note:

    Host access is added for a list of hosts present as target in read-only root mode.

  • For SMB share snapshot, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center creates a new SMB share from the file system snapshot and adds user permission and domain for accessing the exported SMB share. Users are assigned read-only permissions on the exported SMB snapshot share. NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center also prepares a path up to the share level. For SMB shares, the shares are created using the path \\<NAS-server-ip>\<share_name>\ and backup is performed.

    Note:

    User permissions are added for a particular SMB share in read-only mode.

In a SAN environment, when a snapshot export is initiated:

  • The volume and consistency group snapshots are directly attached to the target host.

  • The export operation is supported using the following the Fibre Channel (FC) protocol.

Deport snapshot

In a NAS environment, when a snapshot is deported:

  • For NFS share, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center removes host permissions added to the NFS share and deletes the NFS share created.

  • For SMB share, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center removes user permissions added to the SMB share and deletes the SMB share created.

In a SAN environment, when a snapshot is deported:

  • For volume snapshots, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center detaches the volume snapshot from the host.

  • For consistency group snapshots, NetBackup Snapshot Manager for Data Center detaches the consistency group snapshot from the host.

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