August 20, 2012 at 10:11 am
Would DFS replication actually work where the data resides on our primary Netapp filer and would be replicated to a DR ( mirror ) Netapp filer? Yes we are a windows shop and sql runs on server 2008, but wasn't sure DFS would function if the data is actually on Netapp filers.
August 20, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Indianrock (8/20/2012)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771058.aspx%5B/quote%5D
What do you mean with this statement: 'the data resides on our primary Netapp filer'. Are you presenting LUNs to a specific server and accessing the image files from those LUNs - or are you accessing the image files from a UNC path presented off the Netapp?
If the latter, I would recommend using Netapp replication to replicate the image files to your DR system. As long as you have Netapp as the solution at your DR site it is a much better and easier to manage configuration.
I believe DFSR can work with UNC shares also - but then you have to have a server running the service to manage the replication.
I have the same scenario here...we have image files on our NAS and use replication at the storage level to copy the files across to our DR site. It allows us to maintain access to the files even when the server that 'manages' the image files is offline.
Jeffrey Williams
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
― Charles R. Swindoll
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August 20, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Gazareth (8/20/2012)
Indianrock (8/17/2012)
That makes it sound like DEV database IO would be affecting prod database IOTo a point, yes. But I'd be impressed if you were hitting the dev server hard enough to see any affect on prod.
It really depends on how you are implementing the solution. If you are using Netapp mirroring - and presenting to the dev servers from that then you wouldn't be hitting the production system. If you are 'restoring' from the snap manager backup - it is the same as restoring from native backups. You are creating a new database on a separate system with its own data and log files.
If you are using the snapshot directly - then yes, you would be accessing the production systems. I doubt this is what you are doing though.
Going back to the original question - you really cannot use the snap manager backups directly to build and refresh your DR site. To be able to do that, you have to implement Netapp mirroring and replication to get the data to the DR site and available to be restored. That would essentially be the same thing as database mirroring - just done at the SAN level instead of through SQL Server.
Either way, you have 2TB of data that has to be copied over to the DR site and then kept in synch with the production system. That cannot be done using snapshots (normal snap manager backups).
Jeffrey Williams
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”
― Charles R. Swindoll
How to post questions to get better answers faster
Managing Transaction Logs
August 20, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Thanks for all the input, I have a lot to digest. Our "DBA manager" just told me he didn't want me involved in backups at all. At the headquarters office , where he is, storage people handle all of that. So for now the details of getting from our current sql server native backups to something else will have to be ironed out by management. We might wind up on EMC.
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