How to Convert a CDOT SnapMirror to SnapVault Relationship

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In this post here I talked about setting up a SnapVault relationship (XDP SnapMirror), and post-initialization, creating a load of Snapshots to simulate a decently long SnapVault retention. This is because CDOT SnapVault only starts bringing across Snapshots with the desired label, after the time of initialization. But what if we’ve got genuine historical Snapshots we want to bring across?

The answer is to SnapMirror first and then convert the SnapMirror to a SnapVault!

A question arises ... will our carried across labelled Snapshots get deleted as per the SnapVault retention? The answer is YES (as we want) and a proof below!

Note: Below we also include ‘How to Convert a CDOT SnapVault to SnapMirror Relationship’ - which is perfectly possible!

The Lab

Clusters       SVMs
========       ====
PRICLU1        PRICLU1V1
PRICLU2 (SV)   PRICLU2V1

Walkthrough

Create Schedules

For the experiment, we create a 1 minutely schedule on both clusters

cron create 1minutely -minute 00,01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59

Snapshot Policy

The schedule is used to create a 1minutely Snapshot Policy on the Primary Cluster

PRICLU1::> snapshot policy create -policy 1minutely -vserver PRICLU1 -schedule1 1minutely -count1 90 -snapmirror-label1 1minutely -enabled true

Create Volumes

A test volume is created on the Primary Cluster with the 1minutely Snapshot Policy

PRICLU1::> vol create -vserver PRICLU1V1 -volume v_TEST01 -aggregate aggr1 -size 10g -junction-path /v_TEST01 -space-guarantee none -snapshot-policy 1minutely

And a DP volume is created on the SnapVault Cluster

PRICLU2::> vol create -vserver PRICLU2V1 -volume v_TEST01 -aggregate aggr1 -size 10g -space-guarantee none -snapshot-policy none -type DP

SnapMirror

On the SnapVault Cluster, a SnapMirror relationship is created and initialized

PRICLU2::> snapmirror create -source-path PRICLU1V1:v_TEST01 -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01 -type DP -schedule 1minutely -policy DPDefault
PRICLU2::> snapmirror initialize -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01

A snapshot-count shows the volume already has 15 snapshots!

PRICLU2::> vol show -volume v_TEST01 -fields snapshot-count
vserver   volume   snapshot-count
--------- -------- --------------
PRICLU2V1 v_TEST01 15

Create a SnapVault Policy

We create a Snapshot policy that collects only 30 of the 1minutely Snapshots!

PRICLU2::> snapmirror policy create -vserver PRICLU2 -policy 1minutelyX30
PRICLU2::> snapmirror policy add-rule -vserver PRICLU2 -policy 1minutelyX30 -snapmirror-label 1minutely -keep 30

Convert SnapMirror to SnapVault

We convert the SnapMirror to a SnapVault using the 30 x 1minutely Snapshot retention policy. The following commands are run on PRICLU2::>

snapshot show -volume v_TEST01 -snapmirror-label 1minutely
snapmirror break -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01
snapmirror delete -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01
snapmirror create -source-path PRICLU1V1:v_TEST01 -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01 -type XDP -schedule 1minutely -policy 1minutelyX30
snapmirror resync -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01
snapshot show -volume v_TEST01 -snapmirror-label 1minutely

Output:

See that before breaking the SnapMirror we have 34 Snapshots. After recreating and resyncing as an XDP (SnapVault) relationship, we have only 30 Snapshots as per our SnapVault policy! And checking later reveals it is maintaining only 30 Snapshots as desired!

PRICLU2::> snapshot show -volume v_TEST01 -snapmirror-label 1minutely
                                                                   ---Blocks---
Vserver  Volume  Snapshot                        State        Size Total% Used%
-------- ------- ------------------------------- -------- -------- ------ -----
PRICLU2V1
         v_TEST01
                 1minutely.2014-07-03_1958       valid        68KB     0%   29%
...
                 1minutely.2014-07-03_2031       valid        76KB     0%   31%
34 entries were displayed.

PRICLU2::> snapmirror break -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01
PRICLU2::> snapmirror delete -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01
PRICLU2::> snapmirror create -source-path PRICLU1V1:v_TEST01 -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01 -type XDP -schedule 1minutely -policy 1minutelyX30

PRICLU2::> snapmirror resync -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01

Warning: All data newer than Snapshot copy snapmirror.1bf1a3bf-f990-11e3-9873-123478563412_2147484686.2014-07 03_203100 on volume PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01 will be deleted. Verify there is no XDP relationship whose source volume is "PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01".  If such a relationship exists then you are creating an unsupported XDP to XDP cascade.
Do you want to continue? {y|n}: y

PRICLU2::> snapshot show -volume v_TEST01 -snapmirror-label 1minutely
                                                                   ---Blocks---
Vserver  Volume  Snapshot                        State        Size Total% Used%
-------- ------- ------------------------------- -------- -------- ------ -----
PRICLU2V1
         v_TEST01
                 1minutely.2014-07-03_2002       valid        72KB     0%   26%
...
                 1minutely.2014-07-03_2031       valid        76KB     0%   27%
30 entries were displayed.

How to Convert a CDOT SnapVault to SnapMirror Relationship?

This is illustrated by an example working from the above

PRICLU2::> snapmirror break -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01

Error: command failed: "snapmirror break" not supported for "XDP" relationships.

PRICLU2::> snapmirror delete -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01
PRICLU2::> snapmirror create -source-path PRICLU1V1:v_TEST01 -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01 -type DP -schedule 1minutely -policy DPDefault

PRICLU2::> snapmirror resync -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01

Warning: All data newer than Snapshot copy 1minutely.2014-07-03_2031 on volume PRICLU2V1:v_TEST01 will be deleted.
Do you want to continue? {y|n}: y

PRICLU2::> snapshot show -volume v_TEST01 -snapmirror-label 1minutely
                                                                   ---Blocks---
Vserver  Volume  Snapshot                        State        Size Total% Used%
-------- ------- ------------------------------- -------- -------- ------ -----
PRICLU2V1
         v_TEST01
                 1minutely.2014-07-03_1958       valid        68KB     0%   29%
...
                 1minutely.2014-07-03_2051       valid        76KB     0%   31%
54 entries were displayed.

See that we’ve now got 54 snapshots, way more than the previous SnapVault’s retention of 30!

Something Interesting

You can’t break a SnapVault destination volume and make it read/write.

PRICLU2::> snapmirror break -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_PKD

Error: command failed: [Job 118] Job failed: Cannot break volume "PRICLU2V1:v_PKD". Breaking a vault destination volume is not supported.

PRICLU2::> snapmirror delete -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_PKD
PRICLU2::> snapmirror break -destination-path PRICLU2V1:v_PKD
[Job 118] Job is queued: snapmirror break for destination "PRICLU2V1:v_PKD".

Error: command failed: [Job 118] Job failed: Cannot break volume "PRICLU2V1:v_PKD". Breaking a vault destination volume is not supported.

But, what if we converted it back to a SnapMirror?

YES, that will work, as long as you’ve not done a SnapMirror release on the source Cluster (which I found deletes the snapmirror. snapshots and makes it not possible to resync). Then a break and it’s read/write!

THE END

Comments

  1. An IT Dude17 September 2014 at 15:23

    Just an FYI, the only reason you were able to convert the snapvault back to the mirror is because this was initially a snapmirror relationship where you did not delete the common snapshot. Unfortunately it seems you cannot convert a vault to a mirror when the initial configuration was a vault. So, if you started with a Snapvault and want to convert to a snapmirror, it means you need to re-seed the relationship from the source, basically starting from scratch.

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