SnapMirror active sync interoperability

05/15/2024 Contributors

SnapMirror active sync is compatible with numerous operating systems, application hosts, and other features in ONTAP.

Application hosts

SnapMirror active sync support applications hosts including Hyper-V, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), VMware, VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster (vMSC), Windows Server, and, beginning with ONTAP 9.14.1, Windows Server Failover Cluster.

Operating systems

SnapMirror active sync is supported with numerous operating systems, including:

AIX (beginning ONTAP 9.11.1)
HP-UX (beginning ONTAP 9.10.1)
Solaris 11.4 (beginning ONTAP 9.10.1)

AIX

Beginning with ONTAP 9.11.1, AIX is supported with SnapMirror active sync. With an AIX configuration, the primary cluster is the "active" cluster.

In an AIX configuration, failovers are disruptive. With each failover, you will need to perform a re-scan on the host for I/O operations to resume.

To configure for AIX host with SnapMirror active syn, refer to the Knowledge Base article How to configure an AIX host for SnapMirror active sync.

HP-UX

Beginning in ONTAP 9.10.1, SnapMirror active sync for HP-UX is supported.

Automatic unplanned failover with HP-UX

An automatic unplanned failover (AUFO) event on the isolated master cluster may be caused by dual event failure when the connection between the primary and the secondary cluster is lost and the connection between the primary cluster and the mediator is also lost. This is considered a rare event, unlike other AUFO events.

In this scenario, it might take more than 120 seconds for I/O to resume on the HP-UX host. Depending on the applications that are running, this might not lead to any I/O disruption or error messages.
To remediate, you must restart applications on the HP-UX host that have a disruption tolerance of less than 120 seconds.

Solaris

Beginning with ONTAP 9.10.1, SnapMirror active sync supports Solaris 11.4.

To ensure the Solaris client applications are non-disruptive when an unplanned site failover switchover occurs in an SnapMirror active sync environment, modify the default Solaris OS settings. To configure Solaris with the recommended settings, see the Knowledge Base article Solaris Host support recommended settings in SnapMirror active sync.

ONTAP interoperability

SnapMirror active sync integrates with components of ONTAP to extends its data protection capabilities.

FabricPool

SnapMirror active sync supports source and destination volumes on FabricPool aggregates with tiering policies of None, Snapshot or Auto. SnapMirror active sync does not support FabricPool aggregates using a tiering policy of All.

Fan-out configurations

In fan-out configurations, your source volume can be mirrored to a SnapMirror active sync destination endpoint and to one or more SnapMirror asynchronous relationships.

Diagram of a fan-out configuration

SnapMirror active sync supports fan-out configurations with the MirrorAllSnapshots policy and, beginning in ONTAP 9.11.1, the MirrorAndVault policy. Fan-out configurations are not supported in SnapMirror active sync with the XDPDefault policy.

Beginning with ONTAP 9.15.1, SnapMirror active sync supports automatic reconfiguration in the fan-out leg after a failover event. If the failover from the primary to the secondary site has succeeded, the tertiary site is automatically reconfigured to treat the secondary site as the source. Reconfiguration is triggered by either a planned or unplanned failover. Reconfiguration also occurs upon failback to the primary site.

For information about managing your fan-out configuration in earlier releases of ONTAP, see resume protection in the fan-out configuration.

NDMP restore

Beginning in ONTAP 9.13.1, you can use NDMP to copy and restore data with SnapMirror active sync. Using NDMP allows you to move data onto the SnapMirror active sync source to complete a restore without pausing protection. This is particularly useful in fan-out configurations.

SnapCenter

SnapMirror active sync is supported with SnapCenter beginning with SnapCenter 5.0. SnapCenter enables the creation of Snapshots that can be used to protect and recover applications and virtual machines, enabling always available storage solutions with application-level granularity.

SnapRestore

SnapMirror active sync supports partial and single file SnapRestore.

Single file SnapRestore

Beginning with ONTAP 9.11.1, single-file SnapRestore is supported for SnapMirror active sync volumes. You can restore a single file from a Snapshot copy replicated from the SnapMirror active sync source to the destination. Because volumes can contain one or more LUNs, this feature helps you implement a less disruptive restore operation, granularly restoring a single LUN without disrupting the other LUNs. Single File SnapRestore has two options: in-place and out-of-place.

Partial file SnapRestore

Beginning in ONTAP 9.12.1, partial LUN restore is supported for SnapMirror active sync volumes. You can restore a data from application-created Snapshot copies that have been replicated between the SnapMirror active sync source (volume) and the destination (Snapshot copy) volumes. Partial LUN or file restore may be necessary if you need to restore a database on a host that stores multiple databases on the same LUN. Using this functionality requires you to know the starting byte offset of the data and byte count.

Large LUNs and large volumes

Support for large LUNs and large volumes (greater than 100 TB) depends on the version of ONTAP you are using and your platform.

ONTAP 9.12.1P2 and later

For ONTAP 9.12.1 P2 and later, SnapMirror active sync supports Large LUNs and large volumes greater than 100TB on ASA and AFF (including C-Series).

For ONTAP Releases 9.12.1P2 and later, you must ensure that both the primary and secondary clusters are either All-Flash SAN Arrays (ASA) or All Flash Array (AFF), and that they both have ONTAP 9.12.1 P2 or later installed. If the secondary cluster is running a version earlier than ONTAP 9.12.1P2 or if the array type is not the same as primary cluster, the synchronous relationship can go out of sync if the primary volume grows larger than 100 TB.

ONTAP 9.9.1 - 9.12.1P1

For ONTAP releases between ONTAP 9.9.1 and 9.12.1 P1 (inclusive), Large LUNs and large volumes greater than 100TB are supported only on All-Flash SAN Arrays.

For ONTAP releases between ONTAP 9.9.1 and 9.12.1 P2, you must ensure that both the primary and secondary clusters are All-Flash SAN Arrays, and that they both have ONTAP 9.9.1 or later installed. If the secondary cluster is running a version earlier than ONTAP 9.9.1 or if it is not an All-Flash SAN Array, the synchronous relationship can go out of sync if the primary volume grows larger than 100 TB.