Back up file shares and disks

You can define backup policies to create backups of the volumes (file shares and disks) in your environment and remotely maintain multiple copies of the primary volumes.

Note Backups are automatically created on your system when you create or edit a backup policy for a volume. You cannot create a backup from the NetApp Service Engine interface. You can use the Backups API to create and manage backups for your volumes.

For information, see Backups API

Backing up your source volumes is enabled through the NetApp SnapMirror technology that is enabled with your Keystone subscription services. For information, see here.

When you create or edit a volume, you define its backup schedule. The backup is taken at the intended intervals and stored at a destination system. For backups to work, the SnapMirror relationship should be established with the destination environment. The replicated file shares and disks from different zones are stored on a dedicated backup storage VM (storage virtual machine, also known as SVM) on each cluster. Backups can be performed between two separate ONTAP clusters in different zones.

The standard backup policies supported by NetApp Service Engine are:

  • Adhoc

  • Daily

  • Weekly

  • Monthly

For backups being created at the backend, your volumes should be at an Operational state. For more information about object states, see Operational (for the source object of a backup) here.

If your volume does not follow the standard backup policies supported by NetApp Service Engine, you can raise a service request of the Non Standard Volume category to fix the issue.

You can view the list of backups created for your file shares and disks on the Backups page. Backups are displayed based on the selected tenant.

Edit a backup policy or schedule

When you create or edit files shares and disks, you can define their backup policies. Backups are taken at the backend based on the policies specified by you. For information, see: create a file share or create a disk.

Steps

  1. Enable Backup Policy.

  2. Specify the backup zone and the number of backups to be taken on an adhoc, daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis.

  3. Click Create.

Note You can also schedule backups by editing the backup policy for an existing file share or disk.

Modify or disconnect the source of a backup

For a selected backup object of a file share or disk, you can disable the backup or detach the backup object from its source and make it an orphan backup. This operation breaks the SnapMirror relationship with the source. You can also modify the number of backups to be taken on an adhoc, daily, weekly, and/or monthly basis.

Steps

  1. On the left navigation pane, click BACKUPS. You can see the list of backups created for all the objects in your environment.

  2. Locate the backup in the list (searching by the volume name) and click the edit icon, at the end of the row.

  3. Make changes to the backup source and the number of each type of backup as required.
    You can break the SnapMirror relationship with the source volume by changing the backup source to None (orphaned). The backups are retained as orphan backups for restoration even when the source volumes are deleted. The state of the backup object changes, and the status of the source volume (orphan or deleted) is appended to the source volume name on the same list.
    For information about object states, see here

  4. Click Done.
    The snapshot is modified. If you have broken the SnapMirror relationship with the source, that is, orphaned the backup object, the name of the Source in the Backups tab appears as deleted.

Note You can also break the SnapMirror relationship with the source volume by disabling Backup Policy for the volume from the Create Share/Edit Share and Create Disk/Edit Disk screens.

Request support for backup and restore

You can raise a service request to restore a file share or disk from a specific recovery point.

Steps

  1. Select SUPPORT from the left navigation pane and select Service Requests.

  2. Click New Service Request.

  3. Select Backup Restore as the category for the service request.

  4. Specify other details and proceed.

Remove a backup object

Deleting an unused backup volume increases your storage space. To delete a backup volume and recovery points of the deleted source, you should use the Backups API.

Note When a backup is deleted, all the recovery points for the backup are deleted. Also, even if you delete a primary file share or disk, the backup is retained as an orphan backup with all the recovery points for restoration.