Question about snapshots

Hi

I just created a snapshot of an iSCSI volume and it looks good:

LV:lvia21vg0002
Größe:150.00 GB
Status:In Verwendung/aktiv
in Betrieb:0.23%

Looks good..

My question:
If I have a problem with the volume I am snapshotting and I want to restore a certain state - lets say the state of 2 hours ago.. How do I restore that state?

https://kb.open-e.com/index.php?View=entry&EntryID=60 does not give an answer to this - or maybe I just do not get it..

My Scenario:
Some XenServer Enterprise hosts using failover open-E DSS Storage (iSCSI Tagets)

Thanks in advance!
Philipp

You will have to create another snapshot as once the snapshot has been scheduled it will remain until the next snapshot scheduled time occurs.

So it is only possible to keep one snapshot of a volume at a time?
Sorry for these questions, I dont really get the whole idea..

Is there a chapter in the open-E manual describing this?

You can create many snapshots per logical volume and you can create many schedules for each snapshot.

So one snapshot can be scheduled for mon - fri at 2pm - 4pm and then create another schedule for that same snapshot for 4:01pm - 6pm and so on. Just dont overlap the same snapshot for the schedules.

Alright, if I get this right I may take a snapshot from 00:00 on monday to 23.59, one from 00:00 thuesday 00:00 to 23:59 and so on?

How about recovery? How do I tell the open-E Software to restore for example the snapshot taken on monday to the regular volume?

Thanks!

Sorry for my questions.. ESX with EMC2 is quite different.. this is a new "world" to me..

For NAS you will need to copy the files from the Snapshot and similar to iSCSI with the mounted Snapshot drive.

Thanks for your efford!

I will give the german support team a call on monday, I think it makes no sense to discuss this specific issue on the forums any further.. Especially because I do not know how to really articulate my problems in english..

But thanks for your support! Really, I really apreciate it!

Regards
Philipp

Dear Laxity,

Based on my experience, the best way is to schedule the snapshot is to do it in weekly base. Then, after it's done. Stop the schedule and mount the snapshot as a regular volume. Then copy the data to the volume and that's it... So it is very simple procedure.

For other snapshot time, you just run the schedule again.

It seems that you mixed up between snapshot and backup. Back is used to save the data till you decide to delete it manually -like archive- But snapshot is like a temporary backup. As it only saved till the second snapshot time starts.

Thank you all!

I have found the perfect backup solution for our environment. This software is able to back-up (full backup / incremental backup) our running xenserver hosts without downtime -> that was exactly what I was looking for.

The snapshot feature of the open-E Software did not do it for us, as xenserver refused to mount such a snapshot, as "linked to another SR that is already mounted".

Right. I had the same problem with other linux distributions besides xen. The thing is that it thinks the snapshot is exactly the same drive, which it is (i.e. the data is EXACTLY the same). This is hardly open-e's fault.

what was the backup solution that you have found??

thanks

r

Hi Rob

Here's the link:

http://www.mysoftit.com/en/cms/produ...der/index.html

Hi Laxity

There is a difference between a snapshot and backup

Check out the knowledgebase, I think this article would have helped you
http://kb.open-e.com/entry/60/

also search on shapshot for more articles


You could have also used the backup utility built into the Open-E software
you can use it to backup your data to tape or removable disk drives.