Multi-Volume Backup Recommendations

[igritsak55]

Hi All,

I just recently started using Nimble storage and have moved our SharePoint server to the SAN. 

There is an update I need to install on SP so for something like this I would usually shutdown the two VM's used for SP (one for SP, one for its DB) and make a copy of them so that I have a full clean copy and if something goes wrong I just put the copy back.  We can afford the down time on this and the server is pretty recently deployed. 

Now that I have my SP on the SAN and it's spread across multiple volumes I am wondering what the best way to make a backup of all volumes at the same point in time would be so that I can roll back if needed.  Seems like taking a snapshot of the volumes is the best option but I know it's not as simple as just creating a manual snapshot especially with one of the volumes hosting the db. 

Thanks for your help.

Ihor

[eysfilm136]

My suggestion would be:

- On the Nimble, created a Volume Collection that contains all your SP servers.  (on web gui go to... Manage > Protection > Volume Collections)

  -- Make sure that it's setup to synchronize to vCenter (or VSS - pending how your setup is)

  -- Add in a regular schedule if you want. [Highly recommended]

  -- Add in all the required SharePoint volumes.

- Once it's created click the 'Validate' button to make sure that everything will work properly.  If it does then keep going, if not troubleshoot the errors.

- When your ready to do your backups, click the 'Take Snapshot Collection....' button and in a couple seconds you have a live backup.

If all goes south with your SP updates you can just click the 'Snapshots' tab and click the 'Clone' button and restore anything that is required.

Just a heads up though that I'm not running SP in our environment so if there are any SP guru's out there that can correct me please do.

This is the steps I use for all our other server updates.

Hope this helps,

†Shawn

[rlovett51]

Just remember, if you just click 'Take Snapshot Collection' rather than having the snapshots taken via scheduled Volume Collections you will NOT have 'application consistent' snapshots as VSS would not be invoked.

As stated in Wen Yu's article, VSS 101 and Design Considerations in VMware environment (Part II) | super sonic dog (S.S.D).

"ONLY a scheduled snapshot operation in a Volume Collection would invoke VSS quiescing, a manual snapshot that you take from vCenter Server Nimble plugin and/or Nimble UI would NOT trigger the VSS requestor to request for application quiescing"

I recommend reading all the articles on Wen's site, super sonic dog (S.S.D) | blog for anything technical, helped me understand the 'shadowy' technology that is VSS tremendously.

-Ray

[igritsak55]

Thank you both for your responses, glad to have some more info on this.