NetApp 1 Q&A

Where the cluster configuration saved and how to check

●      Cluster configuration ll be get saved in mail box disk. You can view the output of console screen during failover or failback about accessing the mailbox disk

Diff bet SAN and NAS

●      SAN - Collections of Storage, network and servers are called storage area network. Here the data transfer will be block level.

●      NAS - Storage machine will be directly attached network (LAN) for access. The data transfer here is file level.

What is wafl and difference between the regular and wafl?

●      WAFL used two memory bank called NVRAM which provides write cache. The data will be written first in NVRAM and then to disk.

●      Write Anywhere File Layout is the filesystem using in NetApp. In regular filesystem inodes are limited bt in wafl inodes are dynamic, also regular fs is dependent on underlying RAID layout bt wafl doed not depend on it, finally in regular fs need to run fsck bt wafl does'n need.

How do you access the filer and what you do if you are unable to ssh to a filer?

●      Filer can be accessed through RLM or Serial Console.

Snapvault and step by step procedure

1.       Install snapvault primary license on primary node and snapvault secondary license on secondary node

2.        Allow the trust on source and allow in destination if required.

3.        create volume on desination

4.        Start the baseline transfer using

5.       snapvault start -S node1:/vol/vol1 node2:/vol/vol1/qtree

How do you set the synchronous SM?

1.       Add License

2.       Configure in /etc/snapmirror.conf and /etc/snapmirro.allow files
node1:/vol/vol1 node2:/vol/vol2 – sync

Snapmirror and step by step procedure

How do you monitor a filer? Did you ever install DFM?

●      Filer can be monitored through DFM (Operations Manager) and also using SNMP. But installing DFM is simple just like windows software by clicks.

What is snapdrive?

●      It is an utility which is used to connect and disconnect the disks, create and delete the disks and create snapshots and delete snapshots from server side.

Nfs exports fields in /etc/exports

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What is fractional reserve?

●      Reserving disk space in advance to avoid write failure for lun file.

What is NVRAM?

●      Non Volatile Random Access memory, which is used for providing write cache (Jourlialing)

What if you remove 2 power cables to a filer? Would the network transactions still be availed? And how long would it retain?

●      Yes, It will be in NVRAM

You have 20 disks and you are creating a raidgroup size 5 so how many raid groups can you create?

●      4

You have 20 disks and you are creating a single aggregate and you have 20 disks and you are creating an aggregate with raidgroup size of 5. Which would you advice?

●      We should advice to have more disk in raid group, it is better to give default raid group size.

What happens if a single disk fails in a filer in raid-dp environment?

●      If spare disk is available then it will get replaced. Else the aggregate will run in degraded mode.

●      If the spare disk is not added within 24hour (default), then filer will be shut down automatically to avoid further disk failure and data loss.
“options raid.timeout 24” can be used to change the timeout value

What happens if 2 disks failed in a filer and there are no disks in spares?

●      The aggregate will run in double degraded mode for RAID_DP. Data Loss will be there for RAID4.

●      If the spare disk is not added within 24hour (default), then filer will be shut down automatically to avoid further disk failure and data loss.
“options raid.timeout 24” can be used to change the timeout value

Raid.timeout default is 24 hrs why?

●      If the spare disk is not added within 24hour (default), then filer will be shut down automatically to avoid further disk failure and data loss.
“options raid.timeout 24” can be used to change the timeout value

 What is raidgroup?

●      Collections of disk to form Raid Layout

What is the disk ownership?

●      In clustered environment, ownership defines which filer can for RAID groups.

Disk assignment?

●      Assigning Ownership Manually

How do you check if a new disk shelf is added?

●      fcadmin config

How do you check a failed disk?

●      Vol status –f

Give me one critical situation that you handled recently?

●      Will update after I prepare

Explain the environment? Do they have internal customers or any clients?

●      VMWARE ESX servers with Fibre channel Connection – Windows Guest OS

●      Solaris, Windows servers with FC and iSCSI connection

●      Unix/Linux server for NFS access
Windows severs for User shares

●      If you are supporting for your company then say internal support. If you are supporting for customer, then say the customer. But it is not advised to say the customer information outside. It is against the company policy

What are the filers that you have?

●      Say the location where you have filers