My Nimble Wish List

[J Benway]

My request was to support it when the DBs and logs are on vmdk on a vmfs volume similar to how veeam does.

jb

[jliu79]

ok, do you still need to install the toolkit in the Exchange VM for it to work?

[sgalbincea137]

Yes, you should have the toolkit installed so you have the Nimble VSS writer present in the VM.

[julez66]

Recent update to the Nimble wishlist.

Nimble Windows Toolkit version cannot be different than the Nimble OS version (older or newer).  If they are different then the VSS snaps fail completely which was confirmed by Nimble support.

The Nimble Windows Toolkit requires a reboot and the servers would need the reboot may not be able to be scheduled for maintenance the same time the Nimble OS can be updated.

Please fix this if possible.

[Nick_Dyer]

Hi Michael,

I had a chat with the VMware Plugin engineering team last week re appending zeros to the end of the volume name, and we've opened Request for Enhancement 57114 to track this requirement. If you (or anyone else to that matter) wish to increase focus from engineering please email support referencing this RFE to add your details.

[pfrisoli27]

• Exchange logs and datapoint recovery: For specific data point extractions, you can manually clone and present the clone as a Recovery DB, and then extract the needed data. Exchange aware recovery points without truncation can be done as long as the verify option is disabled on the Nimble scheduler. Your media server can then be used to provide the verify state. Nimble non-verify backups are considered an Exchange copy backup, whereas a verify is considered full backup which truncates the logs. NOS 2.1 allows for a verify with either database inclusion or exclusion (whereas only the log files would be verified). This allows for a faster verify and log truncation.
• Datapoint VM Recovery: Yes, mount the datastore clone, re-signature the clone, and then extract the necessary files for recovery. You will want to present to alternate guest if original vmdk is online, or remove original vmdk so not to cause a UUID conflict.
• Nimble Snapshot Awareness: Yes, Nimble is application aware with both VMware and Microsoft and you will want to spread out the scheduling so to avoid collisions with either the VSS writer or VCenter (VCenter call to VMTools). If the Volumes are directly mapped to the guest then Nimble and VSS will interact directly, if at the VMDK level and SQL/Exchange are present within the VM, the tools will communicate between the two and the snapshot will be a non-verify and treated as a copy, thus no log truncation.

[warkaj1]

Heck I'm willing to settle for something simple like being able to delete multiple volumes with the checkbox on the manage volumes tab. Right now I have to go into each one and delete it individually... real pain in the rear when dealing with a lot of volumes.

And the per VM snapshot... well we kind of do that now with VMWare replication from our Nimble to the Compellent we have with more space but less horsepower (great for dumping VM replicas, could run them in a pinch which is why it's DR).

[pfrisoli27]

Check with Support - they may have a script that could help with this process. thanks.

[BenLoveday]

Hmm, while I think of it, I'd like to see RBAC with LDAP/RADIUS support, not just the ability to create multiple local accounts. From a security and traceability perspective the local user accounts just doesn't cut it for me...still a step in the right direction though!

[rfenton4]

In a previous role (at a different company) Ben I had much debate around the merits of LDAP and Active Directory - what would your (or others) preference be for integration - Native AD (Most common but Windows only) or LDAP (Unix but requires more configuration to work with AD) ?