SharePoint Data Protection with AutoSnapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 Dell EqualLogic PS Series Using Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 with PS Series arrays to protect Microsoft SharePoint Server with online Smart Copies and recovery operations Dell Storage Engineering Daniel J.
Revisions Table 1 Document revision history Report Date Document Revision 1.0 December 2012 Initial Release 2.0 June 2014 Updated for SharePoint 2013 and HIT 4.7 THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. © 2013, © 2014 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
Configuration details Table 2 Software and firmware version specifications Vendor Model Software Revision Dell PS Series Array Firmware Version 7.0.3 and later Dell Host Integration Tools – Auto-Snapshot Manager Version 4.
Table of contents Revisions ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Configuration details ........................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Audience ..........................................................................................
B Command line options ........................................................................................................................................................... 34 B.1 C Troubleshooting tips ............................................................................................................................................................... 36 C.1 D E Scripting ASM/ME v4.7 ........................................................................................................
1 Introduction Microsoft SharePoint is a server application for enterprises that facilitate collaboration, provide full content management features, implement business processes, and provide access to information essential to organizational goals and processes. It provides an integrated platform to plan, deploy, and manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.
2 ASM/ME and SharePoint Server integration ASM/ME utilizes the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) architecture to provide application integration with SAN copy operations (see Figure 1). During the VSS operation flow, ASM/ME initiates the process by requesting the SharePoint VSS writers to prepare SharePoint farm data for a Smart Copy operation.
3 Using ASM/ME 4.7 with Microsoft SharePoint ASM/ME 4.7 supports Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and 2013. It can discover and manage an entire SharePoint farm, assuming that the farm components reported by the SharePoint VSS writer are stored on EqualLogic volumes. ASM/ME automatically discovers which hosts within a SharePoint farm require an ASM/ME installation. The SharePoint VSS writer is not enabled by default.
Figure 2 9 Farm hosts that require an ASM/ME installation SharePoint Data Protection with Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 Dell EqualLogic PS Series | TR1086 | 2.
4 Setup and configuration best practices This section details best practices for using Auto-Snapshot Manager with PS Series groups and SharePoint. SharePoint installation best practices are in Appendix D. 4.1 SharePoint VSS writer The administrator must enable the SharePoint VSS writer on an application host in the SharePoint farm. This writer host is the HIT group member where the farm appears as an application in the ASM tree view.
Snapshot Smart Copies use the snapshot reserve space allocated to the volume. This snapshot reserve value for each volume that makes up a SharePoint farm database can be monitored and changed. When a snapshot smart copy is used to restore a SharePoint farm database, the snapshot continues to exist and use the snapshot reserve for the volumes that make up the Smart Copy. Best Practice: Maintain keep counts for Snapshot Smart Copy schedules to minimize overusing the snapshot reserve.
4.6 ASM/ME GUI The ASM/ME GUI has been redesigned in version 4.7 of the Windows HIT kit for SharePoint (shown in Figure 3). The Hosts list (1) shows the hosts that have been added to the managed HIT Group. A HIT Group is simply a group of hosts managed by that instance of ASM/ME. With each host, supported component information is listed that includes SharePoint and SQL instances and databases, host volumes, collections, schedules, and existing Smart Copies as appropriate.
5 Overview of HIT Groups A HIT Group is a group of one or more hosts that is managed from ASM/ME. HIT Groups are useful because they allow managing multiple hosts from any machine that is running ASM/ME. For example, if an administrator has to manage and backup Microsoft SharePoint farm databases residing on multiple servers, they can create a HIT Group on a single instance of ASM/ME and manage multiple servers from there.
5.1.1 ASM/ME Backup Documents Backup documents are the link to recovery operations using ASM/ME and are vital to the Smart Copy restore process. They are XML documents that contain the metadata for the Smart Copy set and are by default stored in a local directory. For ASM/ME to perform a volume or database recovery operation, it needs the backup document associated for that Smart Copy set. Without the backup document, there can be no recovery operation with ASM/ME.
5.2 Smart Copy behavior with SharePoint There are two Smart Copy type options) that can be used with SharePoint (see Figure 6). Copy: This backup type creates a copy of the SharePoint farm database with associate logs, and specifies an out-of-band backup operation that has no effect on application log files or backup operations. Full: This backup type notifies the SQL Server that there was a backup operation. The operation applies a checkpoint and timestamp to the database log file. Figure 6 5.
Best Practice: Maintain keep counts for Smart Copy schedules to minimize overusing the snapshot reserve. Side-by-side restores of Snapshot Smart Copies are best used as temporary copies of databases. For long-term use of a Smart Copy, use Clone Smart Copies. Clone Smart Copies are exact copies as the original volume or object. When a clone Smart Copy is created, a new volume appears in the Group Manager GUI with the date and timestamp of the Smart Copy operation.
Figure 7 17 Create Smart Copy schedules SharePoint Data Protection with Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 Dell EqualLogic PS Series | TR1086 | 2.
6 Creating SharePoint farm Smart Copies The specific business needs of a company determine the type of Smart Copy that ASM/ME needs to create. 6.1 Use snapshot Smart Copies to achieve fast recovery of SharePoint Content. Snapshots consume minimal storage resources, and enable quick roll back to the original volumes for a complete recovery strategy. Use clone Smart Copies to create a copy of SharePoint Content for longer durations.
Optionally, create a schedule to create SharePoint component Smart Copies. By choosing the Configure New Schedule option from the dynamic toolbar, the new schedule can be named and a configured to include a repeating Smart Copy schedule. If notifications are not set up, the schedule service requests that this to be configured prior to creating the schedule. Either decline the request and continue with the Smart Copy schedule, or create a schedule and then click Next to proceed.
6.2 Displaying Smart Copies To display information about the Smart Copy set, expand Smart Copies in the Hosts tree and select a Smart Copy object. The ASM/ME Smart Copy information appears in the right-hand side if the window (Figure 11). Figure 11 20 ASM Smart Copy window SharePoint Data Protection with Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 Dell EqualLogic PS Series | TR1086 | 2.
7 Restoring SharePoint with Smart Copies There are various methods used to restore and recover SharePoint using Smart Copies. The underlying PS Series architecture can either restore volumes from a Smart Copy (Restore All or Restore Selected Database) or mount a Smart Copy online to a host as a new volume (Restore as New). The different SharePoint component restore possibilities for these operations are listed in Table 4.
Smart Copy Type SharePoint Component Type Data Restoration Options Clone (continued) Search service application (SSA) Mount Restore SSA Search database Mount Restore As New Database Other databases Mount Restore As New Database Entire SharePoint farm Mount As Read-Only Clone Restore Selected Database Clone and Restore As New Individual content database Mount As Read-Only Clone Restore Selected Database Clone and Restore As New Set of all content databases Mount As Read-Only Clone Restore Sele
23 Clone and Restore As New: Clones a database from a replica Smart Copy and restores it as a new database for a side-by-side restore. The advantage of using a clone is that it does not disrupt ongoing data replication from the base volume to the replica. The replication process continues while the clone is used for Recovery. Restore Search Service Application (SSA): The SSA is restored to the point of the Smart Copy creation.
8 Availability of SharePoint data restoration operations Within the ASM GUI, some data restoration operations may only be initiated from certain HIT Group members: 8.1 The Restore Selected Database, Restore SSA, and Restore All operations must be initiated in the ASM/ME GUI on the HIT Group host where the SharePoint VSS Writer is running.
Figure 13 Snapshot Smart Copy Restore options with ASM/ME Figure 14 Snapshot Smart Copy Restore options with ASM/ME SharePoint Data Protection with Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 Dell EqualLogic PS Series | TR1086 | 2.
8.2 Restore All/Restore Selected Content Database(s) restore Both Restore All and Restore Selected Content Database perform a restore of the data in the Smart Copy set and bring the SharePoint Farm content database(s) online. The Restore All process takes all the corresponding content databases and volumes offline, restores the content databases back to the time of the Smart Copy, and brings the volumes and content databases back online to the SharePoint farm.
8.3 Restore Search Service Application In the event the search database becomes corrupt, the Restore Search Service Application (SSA) can be used to bring the search service database and indexes back (see Figure 16). Restore steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The SSA will be deleted if it is online. The search databases and indexes will be restored. All original hosts in the SSA must be online. The SSA will be restored within SharePoint using the original topology.
8.4 Restoring a database from a SharePoint Smart Copy as a new database This procedure restores a database from a Smart Copy as a new database for a side-by-side restore, or clones a database from a replica Smart Copy and restores it as a new database for a side-by-side restore. 1. Navigate to the SQL host where you want to perform the Restore As New operation. The SQL Server Writer must be running. 2. In the Tree Panel, expand the Smart Copies node for that SQL host. 3.
Figure 18 Select Database(s) 6. Specify where to mount the volume. You can mount a volume to the default mount folder, specify a different mount folder, or mount the volume to the drive letter of your choice. The default mount folder is C:\ProgramData\EqualLogic\Mounts. A subfolder will be created for each volume in the Smart Copy. 7. To specify a different mount path, click Browse. 8.
Figure 19 Specify where to mount volumes 9. Click Next. 10. Specify the following options (Figure 20): - 30 From the drop-down menu, select a SQL instance. Check Read Only to attach the new database as read only. Database Name displays the name of the new database, which has “_new” appended to the old database name. To specify a different suffix, select Use Original Names with Suffix and type a different suffix. To change the name entirely, select Assign Individual Names.
Figure 20 31 Attach Database options SharePoint Data Protection with Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 Dell EqualLogic PS Series | TR1086 | 2.
9 Summary Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition can substantially increase SharePoint farm component availability by using PS Series data protection technologies. Smart Copy snapshots, clones, and replicas all play a vital role in robust SharePoint farm protection scenarios for on-demand data recovery and SharePoint farm component restores. Consider using virtual machines on EqualLogic volumes for Web Front-end servers.
A Glossary PS Series Group Manager GUI: A Java-based user interface to manage the PS series SharePoint volumes. Auto-Snapshot Manager GUI: A host-based management interface to create and manage Smart Copies of SharePoint Farm component and NTFS volumes. Smart Copy: An application-consistent copy of a SharePoint farm component. Smart Copy types include snapshots, clones, and replicas.
B Command line options If you have existing scripts for running backups or performing other background operations, you can also schedule the creation of smart copy sets by adding an ASM/ME command to the script. B.1 Scripting ASM/ME v4.7 ASM/ME v4.7 has enabled much of the functionality of the GUI into the command line interface.
Figure 22 Generated command Scripts like this can be created for other Smart Copy operations and used accordingly. For a detailed description of script commands and sample usage, see the Host Integration Tools for Windows v4.7 User Guide, found on the Dell EqualLogic Customer Support site at https://eqlsupport.dell.com. 35 SharePoint Data Protection with Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.7 Dell EqualLogic PS Series | TR1086 | 2.
C Troubleshooting tips C.1 VSS-Control ASM/ME uses Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) to communicate with the PS Series group. The authentication user name and password must be the same on the host running Auto-Snapshot Manager and the PS Series group.
D SharePoint installation best practices Create or verify domain accounts in the domain. At a minimum one account for SQL, and optionally an account for SharePoint management. For example, domain\sp_sqladmin and domain\sp_admin. These domain account(s) should be in the local administrators group of every host in the farm (directly or through group membership).
E ASM/ME installation on a SharePoint farm 1. Identify a network-shared directory to store Smart Copy backup documents. - All farm hosts that ASM/ME will be managing must be able to access this exact path. The farm administrator must have read-write access to this path. Any HIT Group hosts where Smart Copies will be imported using ASM/ME also have read-write access to this path. 2.
c. Enter farm administrator credentials (domain, username, and password) for the hosts being added. d. If you want to install MPIO or the PowerShell Tools on the host, select those options. e. Specify the directory that contains the installation files. f. Click Add Hosts to begin the installation on the specified host. Progress and status information are displayed. (An error message is displayed if the installation or upgrade cannot complete.) When the process is complete, click Close.
Related documentation For detailed information about PS Series arrays, groups, volumes, array software, and host software, log in to the Documentation page at the customer support site at eqlsupport.dell.com.
Technical support and customer service Dell support service is available to answer your questions about PS Series SAN arrays. 1. If you have an Express Service Code, have it ready. The code helps the Dell automated support telephone system direct your call more efficiently. 2. If you are a customer in the United States or Canada in need of technical support, call 1-800-9453355. If not, go to Step 3. 3. Visit eqlsupport.dell.com. 4. Log in, or click Create Account to request a new support account. 5.
