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Scheduling a refresh of an snapshot
Hello Everyone:
The last week, we create an Consistency Group and a Snapshot set for him. The Snapshots volumes were presented to AIX Test Server and customer could recognize the snapshot volumes in the OS and start up the Oracle DB.
Now, Customer is asking a refresh of the snapshot. In the last two days, we did tests with the refresh option in the GUI for the Snapshot Set and everything worked so very well.
The only point, is that we don't see any option to schedule the refresh of the snapshot set .... I did a SR and the answer was "not possible schedule a refresh of snapshot", only possible by demand using the GUI.
We're requiring run the refresh every Sunday at 4:00 am. Somebody, can say me if there is any way to schedule the refresh by cron using CLI ? ... or any other method ??
Thank you in advance for your help.
scotthoward
64 Posts
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May 21st, 2016 01:00
The reason we don't support a scheduled refresh from within XtremIO is that a refresh will normally require more than just action on the array - it'll need you to do some stuff on the host first.
Before you refresh a snapshot you will need to make sure that nothing on the host has it mounted in any way. This isn't a requirement on the array side (the refresh will work regardless), but if the host is still using the device when it's refreshed (eg, the filesystem is still mounted, or Oracle ASM still has the diskgroup mounted, etc) then the host will see this as data corruption - as the data on the LUN changed without it's knowledge.
Thus a typical refresh operation (on any array, not just XtremIO) will look something like :
* Stop any application using the LUNs being refreshed (eg, Oracle)
* Unmount filesystems/diskgroups/etc using those LUNs
* Refresh
* Re-mount the diskgroups/filesystems/etc
* Restart the application
If you want to schedule this there's really 2 options, either script it yourself (including all of the steps above in the script) with the refresh step being done using the XtremIO API, or use EMC AppSync which will handle most/all of it for you.
If you want to script it, https://blog.docbert.org/xtremio-snapshot-refresh/ would be a good place to start (especially the link at the very bottom to details on using the API).
If you want to look at AppSync talk to your EMC account team. An AppSync Starter Bundle (up to 20 mounted copies - far more than enough for most people) is included free with XtremIO.
OctavioG1
40 Posts
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May 24th, 2016 10:00
Hi Avi:
Yes ... now I have two sources:
the First mentioned by you: RestAPI guide and the provided by Scott: https://blog.docbert.org/xtremio-snapshot-refresh/
I should say, that I'm not expert using API.. but I have a good experience with shell scripting. So i'll do my best effort.
Thank you ...
Kumar_A
727 Posts
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May 24th, 2016 10:00
If you are looking to script the whole process, the recommendation would be to use the RestAPI interface for doing snapshot and refresh operations. Have you looked at the RestAPI guide for XtremIO on the Support website?
OctavioG1
40 Posts
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May 24th, 2016 10:00
Thank you Scott, so much .
Yes, we already, have the script with all the steps and command in order to get the database down and vg deactivated before to do the refresh of the snapshot. Actually, the script was being used previously with RecoverPoint Instructions.. So, I'm looking for the best "method" to include in the script the instructions for the refreshing of the XtremIO snapshot set. Looks like CLI, would be the recommended. The script has been running from an AIX Server.
Question: Could use XtremIO API in an AIX Server ... is there any procedure or document describing that process ?? ..
Thank you in advance
OctavioG1
40 Posts
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May 25th, 2016 13:00
Hello Everyone..
Scott and Avi:
Just want to let you know, that today we install the curl application in the AIX Server, where the snapshots volumes are being presented and I used the instructions provide by the API guide and the Scott blogs. Then I add the api instructions with curl to the script where all process is executed: shutdown of database, shutdown asm, etc.. we did three tests and everything is working very very fine... Really easy to use REST API with XtremIO ...
Thank you so very much for your comments here .. they were very helpful and the best I have script working with XtremIO.
Kumar_A
727 Posts
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May 26th, 2016 10:00
Great – thanks for the update