Adding new Host to existing EVA 6000 - Platform kit? Drivers?

[Frank Andrews]

Michael, could I have your thoughts on VSS?

I mentioned this earlier -

The client has previous clusters which which I believe use VSS but I'm not allowed to access them due to their security policy.

On the new clusters I have -

c:\ local OS
d:\ DVD
f:\ SQL_DATA (500GB from EVA)
g:\ SQL_BACKUP (500GB from EVA)
h:\ SQL_LOGS (200GB from EVA)
q:\ Quorum (1GB from EVA)

I believe they use VSS to replicate from SQL_DATA to SQL_BACKUP and then data protector takes backups from SQL_BACKUP to tape.

I've never used or configured VSS before, do you have any thoughts on this? I believe it may need HP drivers also?

[Mike Bollman_1]

Steven,
It sounds like your team is just doing a sql dump from the productin data volume to the backups volume. If that is the case then VSS is not involved. You just then configure your backup software to backup the backups LUN and off you go. However, if you are trying to "hot" backup or snap the SQL data volume then yes you need VSS. In addition since you are running this on the EVA you will need a hardware provider from HP, I believe. I know at one point HP had a utility named dbutil that would "suspend" writes to a SQL DB and allow a snap to occur. We played around with it about 4 years ago, but could never get it to work properly. I'm not sure how it is today. They also have a tool named AppRM that will snap SQL databases on the fly.

hope this helps.

[Frank Andrews]

On the VSS issue, one of my problems on this project is they won't allow me to access the older servers to check the configuration.

VSS is mentioned in some of the old documentation, in that it is scheduled to copy data for backup. Unfortunately the docs are very high level and they don't specify it in any detail at all.

I guess if I can't find anything out about their old VSS scheme, theres no harm in loading the HP VSS provider so that the servers are prep'd for VSS to be configured later?

[Mike Bollman_1]

unfortunately I'm not very knowledgable on VSS. Like I said we tried playing around with it and did not have much luck.

If I were you I would talk to the DBA and the backup guy and determine what they are expecting.

I would bet they are just doing dumps to disk and then blowing that down to tape. If so you are all set.

[Frank Andrews]

I now have the relevant software loaded and working. Thanks Michael!