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Dell FluidFS V3 NAS Solutions For PowerVault NX3500, NX3600, And NX3610Administrator's Guide

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Managing NDMP

Snapshots integrate into the Shadow Copies and previous versions features of Windows. This restore option allows clients to restore a file using previous versions.

The FluidFS cluster supports Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP), which is an open standard protocol that facilitates backup operations for network attached storage, including FluidFS cluster NAS volumes. The FluidFS cluster supports NDMP versions 2, 3, and 4. NDMP should be used for longer‐term data protection, such as weekly backups with long retention periods.

The FluidFS cluster supports only a three‐way backup, wherein a supported, third‐party Data Management Application (DMA) server mediates the data transfer between the FluidFS cluster and the storage device. The FluidFS cluster supports full backup, incremental backup, differential backup (dump levels 0‐9), and Direct Access Recovery (DAR).

A FluidFS cluster includes an NDMP server that performs NAS volume backups to an external DMA server. The FluidFS cluster does not use a dedicated address for backup operations; any configured client network address can be used. Data is sent over Ethernet.

After you configure and start NDMP in a FluidFS cluster, the NDMP server monitors the client network for backup requests from the DMA servers. The DMA server then accesses (mounts) the NAS volumes that it intends to back up and initiates the backup operations. Multiple NDMP backups can run at the same time.

To minimize the impact of NDMP backup processing on system performance, schedule NDMP during off‐peak times.
This figures shows the NDMP management process.

The following steps are involved in backing up NAS volume data using NDMP:

  1. The DMA server creates a connection to the FluidFS cluster IP address.
    • NOTE: NDMP does not provide High Availability (HA). If a backup session is interrupted due to connection loss, the session is terminated.
  2. The NDMP server on the FluidFS cluster creates a temporary snapshot of each NAS volume that the DMA server designated for backup. Alternatively, when performing a backup of replication target NAS volumes, the FluidFS cluster does not create a dedicated NDMP snapshot. Instead, it uses the base replica snapshot from the last successful replication.

    Temporary NDMP snapshots are named using the following format:

    ndmp_backup_<session_ID>_<controller_number>
    • NOTE: Manually deleting the temporary snapshot will immediately terminate the current backup session. The error on the DMA application will be dataunavailableor internal.
    • NOTE: If a backup session is terminated with an error, the temporary snapshot might remain, and can be safely deleted manually.
  3. The NDMP server copies the NAS volume data to the DMA server.
  4. After receiving the data, the DMA server moves the data to a storage device, such as a local disk or tape device.
  5. Once the backup completes, the NDMP server deletes the temporary snapshots.

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