Request for Single-Site Snapshots with IBM FlashSystem HyperSwap

[IngoD]

Issue:
Veeam 12.1 creates snapshots for IBM FlashSystem HyperSwap volumes on both mirror sites (i.e. within two I/O groups).
Since each IBM FlashSystem I/O group has its own snapshot bitmap-space which is limited, it would be beneficial in some customer situations to be able to have the snapshots created by Veeam only on one mirrored site, i.e. in a single I/O group, instead of on both mirrrored sites in order to save snapshot bitmap-space which could be used for other purposes (e.g. non-Veeam created snapshots or/and support for keeping more snapshots available on the system).

Notes:
The storage snapshots created by Veeam 12.1 are using snapshot-technology on the storage system (not FlashCopy but snapshots which are aka FlashCopy 2.0) since the IBM FlashSystem is running on microcode level 8.6.0.3 (storage-based snapshots are supported since V8.5.1)
The snapshot scalability of IBM FlashSystem 5200 is by design determined by a limited bitmap-space for each I/O group.
A HyperSwap volume is an active-active volume synchronously mirrored across IBM FlashSystem storage systems at two sites which are clustered together.
A HyperSwap volume consists of a master and an auxiliary volume whose site (I/O group) is determined at volume creation time and doesn’t ever change even if the primary role (source of replication) for a HyperSwap volume can change between the master and auxiliary volume.

Request:
For the mentioned storage snapshot scalability reason we would need a Veeam configuration which allows creating Veeam snapshots for HyperSwap volumes only in one of two I/O groups – i.e. in storage terms either for the „master“ volume or the „auxiliary“ volume of a HyperSwap volume but not for both.
Your help with enabling such a Veeam snapshot configuration (if needed possibly via a private fix) would be very appreciated.

P.S.: The customer has also opened a support case ID 07160795 for this request.

[rennerstefan]

Hi Ingo,

Thanks for sharing your feedback and the good write up. I’ll take the feedback to one of our next meetings to discuss.
Creating the snapshot only on one site would also mean that if this site crashes the customer will lose the snapshot, is that acceptable by the customer? If so what use-case is the customer using the snapshots for?

Thanks

[Andreas Neufert]

As the vendors usually write the integration themselves, it would be good if you could pass along this request to your IBM representative (that should forward to the product management of the storage system). They then can decide on the features that they want to implement over time.