{"id":666,"date":"2014-07-25T14:07:05","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T18:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/?p=666"},"modified":"2014-07-25T14:16:09","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T18:16:09","slug":"use-hardware-vss-writers-in-dpm-2012-r2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/use-hardware-vss-writers-in-dpm-2012-r2\/","title":{"rendered":"Use hardware VSS writers in DPM 2012 R2:"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was trying to leverage our SAN hardware\u2019s snapshot capabilities for backup and restore purposes. I noticed that DPM is able to use hardware VSS writers instead of using the regular VSS software provider. The advantage is that snapping is done by the hardware\u2026.meaning it is much faster!<\/p>\n

Here is how I did it for our 3PAR 7400 SAN and our LeftHand P4000 SAN. The backup software I am using is SC DPM 2012 R2<\/p>\n

Steps to be taken on all backup servers, all Hyper-V nodes in the HV cluster and all Hyper- Standalone nodes:<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. Install DOT NET 3 from \u201cAdd Roles and features\u201d in Server Manager <\/p>\n

2. Install CLI tools for 3PAR. <\/p>\n

3. Install \u201cHardware VSS Provider\u201d for 3PAR <\/p>\n

4. Install LeftHand Application Aware Snapshot Manager (their VSS provider) <\/p>\n

5. Make sure both VSS providers authenticates properly with both SANs <\/p>\n

6. On an elevated cmd prompt run <\/p>\n

vssadmin list providers <\/p>\n

You should see the 3PAR Hardware VSS Provider listed (earlier it was not) <\/p>\n

\"clip_image002\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

Steps to be taken on the backup server running DPM:<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow instructions listed here: <\/p>\n

http:\/\/technet.microsoft.com\/en-us\/library\/ff634216.aspx<\/a> <\/p>\n

Note: On my DPM 2012 R2, we only had this file DatasourceGroupsSample.xml. I deleted it. <\/p>\n

Upon running a backup again, I see snapshots getting created in both the SANs. Yahoo! <\/p>\n

There is always something\u2026<\/h1>\n

There is still one problem\u2026the snapshots (even though they are on the SAN) get transferred over the regular TCP\/IP network to the backup server\u2019s local disk array. I want them to be transferred over Fiber Channel or iSCSI, depending upon the SAN\u2019s connectivity. At this point, I am searching for an answer to this last piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n

The documentation of both hardware VSS writers I implemented say that it is do-able\u2026.but DPM is not doing it, right now. If I find the solution, I\u2019ll post it here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was trying to leverage our SAN hardware\u2019s snapshot capabilities for backup and restore purposes. I noticed that DPM is able to use hardware VSS writers instead of using the regular VSS software provider. The advantage is that snapping is done by the hardware\u2026.meaning it is much faster! Here is how I did it for our 3PAR 7400 SAN and our LeftHand P4000 SAN. The backup software I am using is SC DPM 2012 R2 Steps to be taken on all backup servers, all Hyper-V nodes in the HV cluster and all Hyper- Standalone nodes:   1. Install DOT NET 3 from \u201cAdd Roles and features\u201d in Server Manager 2. Install CLI tools for 3PAR. 3. Install \u201cHardware VSS Provider\u201d for 3PAR 4. Install LeftHand Application Aware Snapshot Manager (their VSS provider) 5. Make sure both VSS providers authenticates properly with both SANs 6. On an elevated cmd prompt run vssadmin list providers You should see the 3PAR Hardware VSS Provider listed (earlier it was not) Steps to be taken on the backup server running DPM:   Follow instructions listed here: http:\/\/technet.microsoft.com\/en-us\/library\/ff634216.aspx Note: On my DPM 2012 R2, we only had this file DatasourceGroupsSample.xml. I deleted it. Upon running a backup again, I see snapshots getting created in both the SANs. Yahoo! There is always something\u2026 There is still one problem\u2026the snapshots (even though they are on the SAN) get transferred over the regular TCP\/IP network to the backup server\u2019s local disk array. I want them to be transferred over Fiber Channel or iSCSI, depending upon the SAN\u2019s connectivity. At this point, I am searching for an answer to this last piece of the puzzle. The documentation of both hardware VSS writers I implemented say that it is do-able\u2026.but DPM is not doing it, right now. If I find the solution, I\u2019ll post it here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[94,75,93],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-itsys","tag-backups","tag-san","tag-vss-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668,"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajdude.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}