NetApp direct SAN mode and multipathing

[jyarborough]

I'm really hoping someone has done this before. I have a physical Veeam server that connects to a NetApp FAS2050A (active/active cluster) via FC. I do not have the multipathing software from NetApp and I've read on the forums that multipathing for direct SAN backups is not recommended. As an alternative, NetApp recommended that I use specific igroups and portsets to basically present the LUN's over specific FCP ports to prevent trespassing and not require multipathing. They would not help any further though and said I should contact Veeam to discuss their recommendations around this. Has anyone used this type of setup?

My main concerns are:
* I've read horror stories about corruption occuring.
* Do I make the igroup OS type vmware or windows?
* Do I enable/disable ALUA on the igroup?

Any help would be appreciated!

[homerjnick]

I have a Netapp N Series 3600 connected to an IBM Blade Center via FC. My Veeam B&R Server is a physical server (IBM Blade).

The Veeam server is 2008 and therefore I have installed Netapp Host Utilities 6.0 as we are on ONTAP version 7.3.4. The Host Utilities is a must...our ESXi 5 hosts have the VSC plugin too.

With this setup multipathing works a treat with no corruptions and the direct san backup method works, you need to set the igroup as Windows and ALUA is a MUST otherwise performance degrades considerably.

You must have the Host Utilities 5.3 or 6.0 though...if you have a Netapp SAN why can you not download the software you need from the Netapp site?

[jyarborough]

Thanks for the reply and the details! I can get host utilities, but NetApp indicated I should use their separately licensed DPM (hopefully that is the correct acronym) for the multipathing piece. From what I gathered from them, the host utilities did nothing for multipathing. Do you just use the built in Microsoft MPIO features?

[homerjnick]

I need to use the DSM for Windows 2003 which is a licensed feature but for Server 2008 the MPIO from Microsoft is built-in and works a charm...I have full redundancy and paths from my Veeam Blade Server to the SAN.

[jyarborough]

Working great! Thanks for taking the time to answer this!

[homerjnick]

No worries...whilst Host Utilities is not required for multipathing it does a whole load of optimisations for FC Adaptors correctly in Windows...

[awells]

Hello. I know this is an older thread but want to thank the folks for sharing the helpful information. I am hopeful to find a bit more information. Is it possible to present a NetApp FC LUN as read only to a Windows server for use with Veeam Direct SAN access for backups? (I am in the process of asking NetApp as well but curious to know if someone here has a quick answer).

More background - I am working with a NetApp FAS3250 with ONTAP 8.1.2 and a fibre channel fabric and a physical Windows Server 2012 R2 server. The NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool looks good for all the hardware and software components involved (including Host Utilities).

Curious to know about limiting access in an effort to help minimize accidentally initializing disks via the Windows Server.

Thank you.

[veremin]

Is it possible to present a NetApp FC LUN as read only to a Windows server for use with Veeam Direct SAN access for backups?

Starting from version 6.1, VB&R automatically sets SAN Policy to Offline/disables disk automount during installation of proxy server, preventing disks from being initialized. So, you should be safe, as the mentioned action allows you to avoid accidental disk corruption.

See this topic for further explanation.

Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

Also to be on the safe side you can limit the scope of allowed administrators on this machine who could potentially initialize the LUNs.

[awells]

Thank you v.Eremin and Vitaliy S for the replies. I am looking to put as many reasonable safe guards in place to help prevent an issue.