SnapMirror® from NetApp has enabled dependable and efficient data duplication between storage units. The introduction of Cloud Volume ONTAP has expanded functionality, allowing for the integration of cloud-based devices into a replica topology. This substantially simplifies complex setups, such as cloud-onboarding of applications or establishing a fog disaster recovery (DR) scenario.
More information on how AWS snapshots help secure cloud deployments can be found here. Cloud Volumes ONTAP creates a virtual memory appliance on AWS using Amazon EC2 & Amazon EBS cloud resources. Just as on-premises solutions operate, a Cloud Storage ONTAP instance can serve as the gateway in a SnapMirror relationship. Users can synchronize data from on-premises, from cloud to online, cloud to on-premises, or cloud to cloud, with incremental updates to keep the data synchronized.
What are the capability of SnapMirror?
SnapMirror’s wide variety of capabilities and its connectivity with the other Storage Volumes ONTAP technologies make it a versatile and robust data replication solution. We’ll look at how NetApp duplication with SnapMirror functions, how to set it up, and the benefits of utilizing SnapMirror to duplicate your data to the AWS cloud. Data Replication with NetApp SnapMirror What is data replication, or does NetApp SnapMirror Reproduction with Amazon Web Services work? The technique of data from one location and duplicating it in another is known as data replication.
SnapMirror uses Cloud Volume ONTAP snaps to control data transfer from one place to another, as the name implies. To accomplish baseline synchronization, the system transfers a complete copy, based on a snapshot of the origin volume, to the destination. As data changes at the source, the system prepares the latest update and compares it to the base snapshot.
The altered blocks are then duplicated to the target, with the newer picture becoming the new baseline or newest shared snapshot. This makes it possible to repeat the operation and send incremental updates to the destination. When it establishes a SnapMirror relationship, the target volume enters an online noticed state, but it remains accessible.
How does it operate?
SnapMirror operates with physical storage blocks rather than files or other logical structures. The target volume is an exact clone of the source volume, including snapshots, quantity settings, etc. If the source volume uses Cloud Containers ONTAP space efficiency capabilities like data compression and deduplication, the duplicated volume will keep similar optimizations. When using SnapMirror to transfer large amounts of data to a DR environment, terminating the SnapMirror connection renders the destination disk readable, which is a common method for initiating a failover. SnapMirror intelligently facilitates the quick resynchronization of updated data back to the primary server, should it come back online later, and then proceeds to restore the original data.
You can use SnapCenter® in conjunction with SnapMirror to create duplicate application-consistent snapshots, such as those used for database backups. Because Cloud Volumes ONTAP backups synchronize with an application using the base storage, you can be confident that snapshot errors will not occur during I/O operations. This reliability distinguishes these tools and methodologies from alternative database replication options. SnapCenter can then instruct SnapMirror to use its consistent snapshot to synchronize all defined destinations after producing it. SnapMirror can also migrate databases to the cloud, including AWS data migration.
What’s the best way to set it up?
Step-by-Step SnapMirror NetApp NetApp Cloud Administrator is a web-based UI for installing Cloud Volume ONTAP to AWS and controlling your NetApp storage system on-premises and in the cloud. It’s simple to set up new SnapMirror relationships using this interface: drag and drop the origin ONTAP system in your ecosystem onto the destination to start the wizard, walking you through the remainder of the process.
The wizard will ask you to select the input and output volume for the current SnapMirror relation and other parameters like maximum download speed so that you can manage the network bandwidth utilized for synchronization. You’ll also need to choose a synchronization schedule, which you may do by selecting “One-time copy.”
Finally, the program will wish to review the configuration & confirm that you want to move forward. The progress of the AWS replicates and it may check data transfer using the dashboard once the SnapMirror connection forms.
Conclusion
SnapMirror is a powerful feature of Cloud Containers ONTAP that would be both flexible and simple to utilize, as we’ve seen. Whether you’re transferring your production apps to AWS or using Cloud Volume ONTAP for disaster recovery, SnapMirror can help you get your data where it needs to go as quickly as possible—for example, in big lift and shift Aws migrations.
SnapMirror also works well with other Storage Volumes with ONTAP capabilities. For instance, you can offload data straight to Amazon S3 by SnapMirroring data to a target disk in Cloud Containers ONTAP that leverages data tiering. For infrequently used systems, including disaster recovery (DR) scenarios, it can offer a very cost-effective solution.
