Netapp ONTAP 9.3 support

[Eric from Paris]

Hello, does VEEAM backup support Netapp ONTAP 9.3 ? I can't find any document about it.

[foggy]

Hi Eric, just three days since the release, we need some time to check and decide on support of the new stuff, as usual (there are some major enhancements in the data protection area). So stay tuned.

[Pat490]

if I remember correct, Veeam 9.5 Update 2 brought Support for OnTap 9.1 and no news in release note for NetApp in Update 3!
So not even 9.2 is officially supported, right?

[foggy]

NetApp ONTAP 9.2 was released after U2, so we did regression of it with U2 and claimed support after that.

[dharenkamp]

Is there any compatibility document / matrix where the supported versions are listed?
I think compatibility was announced in an email but there is no official statement.
So customers often asking about supported versions.

[foggy]

Hi Daniel, no, currently we do not have such a compatibility document.

[funkybass303]

Hi everyone,

Be careful with ONTAP update with Veeam. I can't clearly remember the exact version but I encountered a failure when I updated my netapp arrays to 9.2 prior waiting for the official compatibility support announcement. I was unable to drive my snapshots!

I'm waiting for veeam official acquitmement to upgrade to 9.3

[foggy]

I encountered a failure when I updated my netapp arrays to 9.2 prior waiting for the official compatibility support announcement. I was unable to drive my snapshots!

Could you recall the cause of this failure and how it was later addressed? Thanks.

[funkybass303]

VBR was unable to connect to SVM trough HTTPS services, I was unable to display my arrays volume from VBR

[foggy]

And how did you manage to solve the issues? Have you contacted support with this?

[funkybass303]

No I did not contact the support, I have downgraded the Netapps and I have wait for the update to be available. In these type of cases, I assume the fact that I was responsible to haven't read the releases notes correctly
Anyway the most important is to remember that it is mandatory to wait for GA before attempting these kind of upgrades!

[Tim783]

Hi,

Just wondering if there is any update on ONTAP 9.3 support?

Thanks

[foggy]

Full support for ONTAP 9.3 is planned for the next update.

[segfault]

Define "Full support"

Will 9.5u3 work with 9.3 but just not with some new 9.3 features?

In another thread, the next update is not scheduled to drop until the 2nd half of the year. So 3 -> 9 months from now. I really don't like the though of having to wait that long to take advantage of some of the performance improvements in ONTAP 9.3.

[nhwanderer]

Similar question here to segault. I'm running Ontap 9.1, and 9.2 isn't a long term support release so it's only supported for about a year, so I'd like to jump to 9.3 . If I go 9.2, it may be possible I'm out of support from NetApp before Veeam supports 9.3 .

[foggy]

In our testing, we discovered that ONTAP 9.3 introduces one issue that results in decreased performance of backups from NFS datastores. Other than that, ONTAP 9.3 looks safe to deploy. Thanks!

[nhwanderer]

Thank you! Very helpful.

[foggy]

The issue turned out not to be 9.3-specific (and shows up on ONTAP Select only), so it is safe to say ONTAP 9.3 is fully supported by Veeam B&R 9.5 Update 3.

[Pat490]

Wouldn't it be nice to add the official Ontap 9.3 support to the release notes of VBR Update 3?
https://www.veeam.com/kb2353

[foggy]

Hi Patrick, this KB contains Update 3 release notes, while ONTAP 9.3 support is not a feature that was introduced by this particular update. It is mentioned in the Veeam B&R v9.5 release notes though. Thanks.

[Pat490]

Hi foggy,
perfect! thanks for the info. My bad that I did not see that before myself

[orb]

fair warning, I

I have open a case today (Case # 03033158) about 2 separate installed from scratch systems running ONTAP 9.3P4 / vSphere 6.5U1g / Veeam 9.5U3
DNS PTR / .snapshot directory are corrects but the job fails during validation process as it can't find nfs export in the DB
Snapshot can be created manualy from the Veeam console but it fails to link the host where the machine is currently running, colum returns 'unknown'

last know working system ONTAP 9.2P3 / vSphere 6.5U1f / Veeam 9.5U3 works as expected.

Oli

[foggy]

Hi Olivier, let's see if support confirms the issue. We're monitoring the case, thanks for the heads up.

[Pat490]

thanks for the warning Olivier!
As long as this issue is related to nfs, I am save as we do not use it. But I will watch this thread to see what support says about this issue before we do the upgrade

[foggy]

It turned out to be a DNS resolution issue, nothing ONTAP 9.3-specific.

[orb]

@Foggy indeed !

Maybe I should elaborate a little, the first one was easy, the second one was more trickier to find.

The first one, it was a misconfiguration no search domain was set by the customer.

The second one happened because all DNS request was going through a firewall cluster. The firewall had routing rules for domains but it had no rules for PTR (arpa) zone so all request were dropped by the system. As second case notes, always rescan first the vSphere before rescanning the storage.

Now all customers are enjoying ONTAP9.3P5 with Veeam, reporting no other problems.

Oli

[Seitjan]

VBR was unable to connect to SVM trough HTTPS services, I was unable to display my arrays volume from VBR

Suddenly! We've faced the same failure after upgrading NetApp from 9.8P13 to 9.11.1P7
We have strange behavior: Veeam (11.0.1.1261 P20230227) sometimes successfully connects to ontap cluster (ontapi), sometimes with error: insufficient privileges user does not have access
All required permissions were set by documentation https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... tegration-

And we've opened a support Case #06028549

[rennerstefan]

Hi,
did you get this resolved yet?
What makes me think is that "sometimes" it connects successfully, sometimes with errors. that sounds to me a little bit like some kind of authentication error e.g. because of a timeout on netapps authentication service or so. On the veeam side of course we are waiting to be authenticated.
Did you try it with the full admin user for test purposes? I don't think it makes much difference as you say it sometimes works but would be worth checking.
Also, are you authenticating with an ontap local or domain user?
Last question, did NetApp check their logs as well? as you are saying that it only happens since you updated from 9.8 to 9.11 there may be something in their OS.
Looking forward to hear back from you and continue to work with our support as needed.
Thanks

[Seitjan]

Problem resolved. I'm very happy Because I spend a lot of time and nerves working with our storage admin (he's very disgusting man).

Unfortunately, I didn't find out what exactly the problem was, because of storage admin don't want to investigate.
What we did:
- NetApp local user - it works fine.
- Updated NetApp to next version: Release 9.11.1P9
- Deactivated "Create required export rules automatically"
- Tuned some NetApp caches for NFS and credential

And other useful links to take into account:

- Kerberos. We have NFSv3 and domain service account. And I found out that NFSv3 uses Kerberos only partially.
https://kb.netapp.com/Support_Bulletins ... tins/SU530
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120
https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/nfs ... quirements

- Namespaces for NFS
https://www.veeam.com/blog/netapp-nfs-v ... ry_systems
https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/nfs ... -task.html

- NFS caching
https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/nfs ... -task.html
https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/nfs ... rence.html
https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/nfs ... ncept.html

- Export policy
https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/nfs ... ncept.html


P.S We have DR site with NetApp 9.8P13. All this time that service account worked perfectly there.