Tips & Tricks - Why Spend Out on Expensive Snap-Clone Backup Licences

[keithhp98]

Are you running your Nimble and Backup software on a budget ?

Do you have a media agent with a tape library attached ?

Is the media agent attached to the storage delivery network ?

Dont want to spend out on individual Media Agent and Intellisnap licences just yet ?

There is a way - Were doing it today !

1. Ensure that the volume to backup has a Volume to LUN ratio is 1:1. ( Primary and secondary volumes the script cant do - yet )

2. Connect your media agent to the iSCSI network - with all the required software and patches needed.

3. Ensure that the data you want to backup is a direct attached nimble volume - ie. SQL Backups LUN ( No VM Vols - havent tested/proved that yet ) and add it to a protection group so that the Nimble controls when and how-many snaps are available.

4. Let the protection group create your snaps.

5. Prior to the backup to tape job - clone the latest snapshot of the backup volume to a writable volume and assign it to the media agent.

6. Mount the volume in a sub-folder somewhere - or give it a drive letter.. ( I prefer mount points as I have 7 servers transferring to tape this way so far )

7. Point the backup job at the LOCAL disk - not the network share as per traditional backups.. ( No Backup agent needed - No intellisnap licence needed ) and backup the job direct to tape from the mounted Nimble volume - leaving the Host network free from bottlenecks.

8. Once complete - delete the cloned volume.

All this is done using the wonderful powershell modules available for the Nimble (PowerShell Module). The script I have written does more than just the above, as it works on config files and encrypts the nimble password to the user running the script, as well as lots of other diskpart stuff to automatically mount the volume on a folder and not the next drive letter windows feels like using.. and of course deletes the clone afterwards during the post backup phase.. but basically.. it does the following :

Import-Module Nimble

Connect-NSArray -SystemName $Array -Password $Password

$NewVol=get-nsvolume -name $VolumeNameToBackup | get-nssnapshot | select -first 1 | new-nsclone -Name $NewClonedVolumeNameThatsDifferent

Add-NSInitiatorGroupToNewVolume

Refresh-iSCSITargets

MapNimblePathsToNewVolume

MountVolumeOnFolder

The script is designed to be run as a pre/post backup script.. so is called using :

%SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe -file MapDrivesForBackup.ps1 -Task Mount -File "C:\Backups\MountServer1.xml" -LogFile "C:\Backups\Server1.log"

and retuns a non-zero exit code if enything goes wrong - so the backup doesnt complete with 0bytes backed up

   
Keith.

[gbennett130]

Can I please have a copy of the PS code?

[grafschaft-bera]

Hello Keith,

i would be very happy if you would provide your script here.

many thanks in advance

Hendrik Schulte

[dellee131]

How are you deleting the cloned volume?  Is there a script command to do that?

Del

[keithhp98]

Hi Del,

I should be able to get the code up soon..  Just been fixing the Nimble Module in GitHub so it runs with the latest 2.2 firmware on 2012R2 - and the firms got be running around the globe doing DC installs so not had a lot of time.

A: Yes..  It is scripted..  It was difficult to identify what volume to delete from the machine, matching partiiton>volume>diskid>scsiid>nimble volume prooved a little difficult!   So - I cheated.  Each time the script creates a clone of a snapshot - it creates an XML file in that volume after mounting it.  When the delete is called (after its been transferred to tape) the delete looks at the XML - gets the cloned volume name and just removes it.

Keith.

[keithhp98]

Hi Hendrick - sorry for the delay.. soon - promise..  now that I have got the module working with array firmware 2.2.X and 2012R2 - I can get the little bugs out the way and let y'all see the code.

cheers

Keith.

[keithhp98]

Gary - You will be the first to get a copy - promise