MSA2000 Snapshot initiated from OS

[Hake]

Is there an agent/sw available that initiate the snapshot from windows (not direct on the SAN Box).
We don't want to shutdown DB's etc on the host, before creating a snapshot.
I also tried the vss provider for the MSA but no success.

[Patrick Terlisten]

Hello,

why was the test with the VDS/ VSS Provider unsuccessful?

The VDS & VSS Provider for the MSA2000 should do what you're searching for.

Best regards,
Patrick

[Uwe Zessin]

Agree, the great thing with VSS is that it coordinates the requestor/writer/provider which is not done if you just initiate a snapshot on the array.

I would speed some time looking why VSS failed. Did work with it some time ago (not with a HP array) and I had to ask Microsoft for a hotfix.

[Hake]

Thank you for your replies.

But how can I initiate a snapshot from the OS
Using commandline in win2008 is not support (works only for the builtin shadow copy). When I use BackupExec 12.5 I get the error "The provider has reported a storage identifier that is not supported by VSS"

What software product can initiate the snapshot on the MSA.

Urs

[Uwe Zessin]

What does "vssadmin list providers" say?

[Hake]

C:\Windows\System32>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Provider name: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7

Provider name: 'HP StorageWorks MSA2000 Family VSS Provider'
Provider type: Hardware
Provider Id: {bd04cbf9-212c-4553-9ea5-c5bfb05ccc8f}
Version: 2.4.0.20

[Uwe Zessin]

Good. Now, did you create a snap-pool on the MSA2000 and made sure the (MSA)volumes to be used are master (and not standard) volumes?

[Hake]

Hallo Uwe
thank you for your fast response!

Here the volume mapped to the win2008 hosts. And I am able to create a snapshot on the MSA.

Urs

# show master-volumes
Vdisk Serial# Name
Size Status Snap-pool Name Snapshots Snap Data
Rollback
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
vdisk2 00c0ffd57494004841691a4a01000000 test_w2008
10.7GB Valid vdisk2_SP2 1 B


# show snapshots
Vdisk Serial# Name
Creation Date/Time Status Master Volume Name
Snap-pool Name Snap Data UniqueData SharedData
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
vdisk2 00c0ffd5749400484033574a01000000 test_w2008_SS1
FRI JUL 10 12:25:36 2009 Valid test_w2008