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ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 10

Granular datastore protection eligibility criteria

Contributors jani
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Use granular datastore protection to protect selected VMFS datastores in a host cluster instead of protecting the entire cluster.

Granular datastore protection is available with ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere 10.6 and later. This feature provides datastore-level protection planning instead of cluster-wide selection.

This feature enables you to:

  • Protect only selected datastores in a host cluster.

  • Group selected datastores into protection groups.

  • Apply SnapMirror relationships and policies at the protection-group level.

  • Use different protection approaches for different datastore groups in the same cluster.

This feature supports only VMFS datastores that use iSCSI or FC protocols.

You can use the following policy types for eligible datastores:

  • AutomatedFailOverDuplex (AFD)

    • Uniform host configuration: Hosts at both sites can access protected datastores.

    • Non-uniform host configuration: Host access is scoped to site-specific hosts.

  • Asynchronous: The target site maintains an asynchronous copy for recovery.

Fan-out protection can combine AFD between primary sites and asynchronous replication to a third site.

Eligibility evaluation

Eligibility is evaluated in two stages: listing and selection.

Datastores are listed for granular datastore protection only when they meet all of the following criteria:

  • Datastore type is VMFS.

  • Protocol is iSCSI or FC.

  • The datastore is mounted only on hosts in the selected host cluster.

  • ONTAP tools can evaluate the datastore for protection when the datastore is in the selected host cluster in vCenter Server.

After a datastore is listed, it is selectable for protection only when all of the following requirements are met:

  • The datastore is not already protected.

  • The datastore remains mounted only within the selected host cluster.

  • Source and target SVMs are peered and onboarded in ONTAP tools.

  • ONTAP version is 9.15.1 or later.

  • Only 2x2 and 4x4 source and destination cluster node combinations are supported.

  • MetroCluster configurations are not eligible.

  • The FlexVol volume or LUN backing the datastore is not part of an existing consistency group.

  • The FlexVol volume or LUN backing the datastore is not part of an existing SnapMirror relationship.

Consider the following operational limits and behavior:

  • Configure cluster proximity before you configure datastore protection.

  • A single host cluster can use either uniform or non-uniform AFD configuration, not both.

  • Moving datastores between protection groups is not supported. Unprotect and then protect again in the target group.

  • Cross-SVM protection in the same host cluster, with one source and multiple different targets, is not supported.

  • Custom asynchronous policies are not supported. Use the default ONTAP asynchronous policy.

  • In tertiary or asynchronous-only configurations, asynchronous relationship cleanup is manual.

  • Trigger failover from ONTAP System Manager. Configure ONTAP Mediator outside ONTAP tools.

When you upgrade from ONTAP tools 10.5, existing host cluster protection configurations are migrated to granular datastore protection format. After upgrade, verify protection groups and datastore membership.

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