Storage Foundation 8.0 Administrator's Guide - Windows
- Overview
- Setup and configuration
- Function overview
- About the client console for Storage Foundation
- Recommendations for caching-enabled disks
- Configure basic disks (Optional)
- About creating dynamic disk groups
- About creating dynamic volumes
- Set desired preferences
- Using the GUI to manage your storage
- Working with disks, partitions, and volumes
- Adding storage
- Disk tasks
- Remove a disk from the computer
- Veritas Disk ID (VDID)
- General Partition/Volume tasks
- Mount a volume at an empty folder (Drive path)
- Expand a dynamic volume
- Shrink a dynamic volume
- Basic disk and volume tasks
- Automatic discovery of SSD devices and manual classification as SSD
- Volume Manager space allocation is SSD aware
- Dealing with disk groups
- Disk groups overview
- Delete a dynamic disk group
- Detaching and attaching dynamic disks
- Importing and deporting dynamic disk groups
- Partitioned shared storage with private dynamic disk group protection
- Fast failover in clustered environments
- iSCSI SAN support
- Settings for monitoring objects
- Event monitoring and notification
- Event notification
- Configuring Automatic volume growth
- Standard features for adding fault tolerance
- Performance tuning
- FlashSnap
- FlashSnap components
- FastResync
- Snapshot commands
- Dynamic Disk Group Split and Join
- Dynamic disk group join
- Using Dynamic Disk Group Split and Join with a cluster on shared storage
- Dynamic Disk Group Split and Join troubleshooting tips
- Fast File Resync
- Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)
- Using the VSS snapshot wizards with Microsoft Exchange
- Using the VSS snapshot wizards with Enterprise Vault
- Using the VSS snapshot wizards with Microsoft SQL
- Copy on Write (COW)
- Using the VSS COW snapshot wizards with Microsoft Exchange
- Using the VSS COW snapshot wizards with Microsoft SQL
- Configuring data caching with SmartIO
- Typical deployment scenarios
- About cache area
- Configuring SmartIO
- Frequently asked questions about SmartIO
- Dynamic Multi-Pathing
- Configuring Cluster Volume Manager (CVM)
- Configuring a CVM cluster
- Administering CVM
- Access modes for cluster-shared volumes
- Storage disconnectivity and CVM disk detach policy
- Unconfiguring a CVM cluster
- Command shipping
- About I/O Fencing
- Administering site-aware allocation for campus clusters
- SFW for Hyper-V virtual machines
- Introduction to Storage Foundation solutions for Hyper-V environments
- Live migration support for SFW dynamic disk group
- Preparing the host machines
- Configuring the SFW storage
- Administering storage migration for SFW and Hyper-V virtual machine volumes
- Optional Storage Foundation features for Hyper-V environments
- Microsoft Failover Clustering support
- Configuring a quorum in a Microsoft Failover Cluster
- Implementing disaster recovery with Volume Replicator
- Troubleshooting and recovery
- Using disk and volume status information
- Resolving common problem situations
- Commands or procedures used in troubleshooting and recovery
- Rescan command
- Repair volume command for dynamic mirrored volumes
- Additional troubleshooting issues
- Disk issues
- Volume issues
- Disk group issues
- Connection issues
- Issues related to boot or restart
- Cluster issues
- Dynamic Multi-Pathing issues
- vxsnap issues
- Other issues
- CVM issues
- Appendix A. Command line interface
- Overview of the command line interface
- vxclustadm
- vxvol
- vxdg
- vxclus
- vxdisk
- vxassist
- vxassist (Windows-specific)
- vxsd
- vxedit
- vxdmpadm
- vxcbr
- vxsnap
- vxscrub
- sfcache
- Tuning SFW
- Appendix B. VDID details for arrays
Using the VSS Enterprise Vault Snapshot Scheduler wizard
Before you run the Enterprise Vault Snapshot Scheduler Wizard to schedule a snapshot set for a database, you must prepare a snapshot mirror for each of the volumes in the database.
You can then use the Enterprise Vault Snapshot Scheduler Wizard to schedule the initial snapshot set and to set up the schedule for keeping it refreshed.
The scheduling of snapshots can be done at the Enterprise Vault (EV) farm, sites, VaultStore Groups, Vault Stores, Partitions, or any component level. The Schedule Enterprise Vault Snapshot Wizard can be launched from any component of Enterprise Vault configuration.
When the scheduled snapshots occur, the snapshot mirrors are detached from the original volumes, creating separate on-host snapshot volumes as well as an XML file to store the snapshot volume metadata. The scheduled process integrates with VSS to quiesce the database and then simultaneously snapshot the volumes for Enterprise Vault components. This snapshot is done while the Enterprise Vault components are online and without disrupting the operations. It also allows the Enterprise Vault PowerShell cmdlet to put Enterprise Vault into backup mode. Backup mode ensures that no writes happen on Enterprise Vault components.
To schedule a snapshot for a selected component
- Using the VEA console, navigate to the Storage Agent node in the tree-view and expand the Enterprise Vault nodes under Applications.
- Right-click the appropriate Enterprise Vault node and click Schedule Enterprise Vault Snapshot in the context menu.
- In the wizard, review the Welcome page and click Next.
- On the Select Components page, select the Enterprise Vault components you want to snapshot. Select the snapshot type and give it a name.
Specify the following and click Next to continue.
Select component for snapshot operation
Select the EV components you want to snapshot. You can select EV Farm, sites, Vault StoreGroups, Vault Stores, partitions or any component.
Additionally, you can also use the keyboard shortcuts to select EV components.
Ctrl+ A selects the entire EV farm along with sites and components. Use Ctrl+Click to select EV components of your choice. Use Ctrl+Shift+Arrow Up, Down keys to select components located at the upper and lower hierarchies in the EV farm.
Directory
The XML file is stored by default in the directory shown on the screen.
In a clustered server environment, the XML file must be saved on shared storage to be available from all nodes in the cluster.
Note:
The XML file for the snapshot must be stored separately from the volumes that are included in the snapshots, otherwise a restore fails.
There are two ways to change the XML file location.
First, edit the directory path in the Directory field for this wizard screen. Second, change the XML file location. Use a text editor to create a text file named redirect.txt. This text file should contain a single text line specifying the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path to the location of the XML file, for example, \\ServerName\SharedFolderName. Save the redirect.txt file in the default directory, for example: C:\Program Files\Veritas\Veritas Volume Manager\VSSXML.
Note:
You must not use the volume name or volume path in the redirect.txt file that is involved in the snapshot. If the volume name or path for the snapshot is used, then a restore fails.
Snapshot set
Enter a name for the snapshot set, for example, billing or accept the default name. The wizard generates a default snapshot set name that includes the term "SnapshotSet", component name, date, and time. Example: SnapshotSet.EV.20091001.124837.
Note:
If multiple components are selected, "EV" is used in the default snapshot set name instead of the component name.
Select snapshot type
Select the snapshot type.
You can specify that snapshots be created as either a Full backup or Copy backup type. Either type can be used to restore a Enterprise Vault component.
Full Backup
A full snapshot affects the sequence of backups and is used when replay logs are needed while restoring.
If you want to replay logs in SQL Server as part of restoring a database, a Full backup needs to have been created earlier. When replaying logs, you can replay from the time of the last Full backup.
Copy
A Copy backup does not affect this sequence of log replay and therefore is often used as an "out of band" copy for purposes such as testing or data mining.
- In the Schedule Information panel, on the General Options tab, specify the following:
Name of this schedule
Enter a unique name for the snapshot set schedule.
This name identifies the snapshot schedule if you later want to view information about the snapshot status. A default name consists of the VSS writer name and a numbered suffix that increments with each schedule.
Description of this schedule
Optionally, enter a description to help you identify the schedule when you view information about the snapshot status.
Start Time
The time of the day to begin taking snapshots.
End Time
The time of day to end taking snapshots.
If a snapshot is in progress it is completed but a new one is not started after the end time.
Schedule takes effect on
The date on which the specified schedule takes effect. The default is the current date.
Restart task every
The interval between snapshots, in minutes.
For example, if the interval is 360 minutes and you schedule a snapshot start time of 12:00 P.M. and an end time of 7:00 P.M., the snapshot occurs twice. If no interval is specified the snapshot occurs once.
Every
Enable the Every option to have the snapshot schedule continue to occur. Otherwise the schedule applies only for one day.
Specify the number of days before restarting the snapshot schedule.
For example, 1 day would mean that the schedule takes effect daily, 2 days would mean every other day.
Start On
If you enable the Every option, specify the starting date.
Pre Command
Optionally, specify the full path of a command script to run before the scheduled snapshot occurs.
Post Command
Optionally, specify the full path of a command script to run after the snapshot is complete.
- To specify run days for the schedule, make selections on the following tabs:
Days of Week
Select one or more days on one or more weeks of the month.
You can click a button at the top of the column to select the entire column or a button to the left of a row to select the entire row. For example, clicking First schedules the snapshots to occur on the first occurrence of all the week days for the month.
Days of Month
Select one or more days of the month. You can also check the Last Day check box to schedule the snapshot for the last day of each month.
Specific Dates
Select one or more specific dates to include in or to exclude from the schedule.
Excluding a date takes precedence over days scheduled on the other tabs. For example, if you schedule every Monday on the Days of Week tab, and you exclude Monday October 9 on the Specific Dates tab, the snapshots are not taken on October 9.
If two schedules overlap for the same snapshot set, only one snapshot is taken. For example, if you select every Thursday plus the last day of the month, and the last day of the month occurs on Thursday, only one snapshot is taken on Thursday.
- Click Next.
- Review the snapshot set and schedule details and click Finish.
More Information