VERITAS Storage Foundation™ For Windows Technical Review Guide

WHIT E PAPER
VERITAS Storage Foundation™ For Windows

Technical Review Guide
Understanding Features, Options and Benefits Of

Using VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows
June, 2005
VERSION 1.0 1
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................................4
Storage Foundation for Windows Basics ...................................................................................................................5
Background ...........................................................................................................................................................5
Storage Foundation for Windows – Basic Description..........................................................................................5
Storage Foundation for Windows – Detailed Description .....................................................................................5
Virtual Objects......................................................................................................................................................5
Disks ....................................................................................................................................................................6
Basic Disks ..........................................................................................................................................................6
Dynamic Disks .....................................................................................................................................................6
Disk Groups .........................................................................................................................................................6
Basic Disk Group .................................................................................................................................................6
Dynamic Disk Groups ..........................................................................................................................................6
Cluster Disk Groups.............................................................................................................................................7
Subdisks ..............................................................................................................................................................7
Plexes ..................................................................................................................................................................7
Volumes ...............................................................................................................................................................7
Basic Volumes .....................................................................................................................................................7
Dynamic Volumes ................................................................................................................................................7
Dynamic Volume Layouts ....................................................................................................................................8
Why Upgrade from LDM to VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows?..........................................................8
Installing VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows ...............................................................................................9
Environment Prep .................................................................................................................................................9
Installation .............................................................................................................................................................9
Installation Requirements ....................................................................................................................................9
Installing VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows.......................................................................................10
Feature Demonstration:............................................................................................................................................11
GUI Walk-through ...............................................................................................................................................11
Create a Dynamic Disk Group ............................................................................................................................13
Create a Dynamic Volume ..................................................................................................................................14
The Power of Subdisks .......................................................................................................................................15
Online Volume Growth – Manual (WITHOUT Reboot) .......................................................................................16
Resizing a Dynamic Volume manually: .............................................................................................................16
EVEN BETTER ..................................................................................................................................................18
Capacity Monitoring and Automatic Volume Growth................................................................................................18
Expanding a Dynamic Volume automatically......................................................................................................18
Enabling Capacity Monitoring and Automatic Volume Growth ...........................................................................18
Enable Capacity Monitoring...............................................................................................................................18
Enable Automatic Volume Growth.....................................................................................................................19
Volume Mirroring / Off-host Processing ...................................................................................................................20
Volume Mirroring.................................................................................................................................................21
Quick Recovery and Off-Host Processing Solutions................................................................................................22
Common Quick Recovery and Off-Host Processing Tasks ................................................................................22
VERITAS FlashSnap™ Option ...........................................................................................................................22
Creating a Snapshot Copy of a Volume..............................................................................................................23
Volume Snapshot Phases .................................................................................................................................23
Creating a Snapshot Mirror................................................................................................................................23
Creating a Snapshot Volume:............................................................................................................................24
Resynchronize using the Snapshot Volume (a.k.a. Quick Recovery): ..............................................................25
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 VSS enabled Snapshots .................................................................................26
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003.......................................................................................................................26
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 ...............................................................................................................................27
Performance Boost using VxCache .........................................................................................................................27
Search and Reporting ..............................................................................................................................................27
Copyright 2005 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are 2
trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2005.
Other Capabilities .....................................................................................................................................................29
High Availability: Dynamic Multipathing ..............................................................................................................29
Campus or Geo-Clustering Clustering Support ..................................................................................................30
Performance Tuning............................................................................................................................................30
S.M.A.R.T Monitoring.........................................................................................................................................30
Historical Statistics Collection and Graphing .....................................................................................................30
Where to Go From Here...........................................................................................................................................31
LDM – Storage Foundation for Windows Feature Comparison Chart .....................................................................31
Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................33
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In distributed client/server environments, users demand that databases, mission-critical applications and other
resources be continuously available and safe from disk failure damage. Traditional disk storage management is a
labor-intensive process, often requiring that machines be taken offline for tedious, manual intervention by system
administrators. VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows (VSFW) brings advanced volume management
technology to Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003, including both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the
operating system. By creating virtual storage devices from physical disks and disk arrays, Storage Foundation for
Windows removes the physical limitations of disk storage so you can configure, share, and manage storage for
optimal results. Storage Foundation for Windows provides easy-to-use, online storage management for enterprise
computing and Storage Area Network (SAN) environments.
Organizations are beginning to use the enormous potential of SANs to keep server applications available in
today’s ever-changing e-business-focused environment. VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows is ideal for
maximizing SAN-based application uptime. Storage Foundation for Windows has intrinsic features that allow
organizations to increase application availability by virtualizing physical storage resources within a more complex,
networked storage environment. Virtualizing and centralizing storage resources over a SAN reduces
administrative overhead and provides a scaleable foundation to manage the unpredictable growth of Internet-
driven businesses.
Microsoft selected VERITAS Software, the leading enterprise-class storage management software provider, to
develop the disk management software for Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft’s built-
in disk and volume management software, Logical Disk Manager (LDM), was jointly developed by Microsoft and
VERITAS. The fully featured VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows extends and enhances the capabilities of
Windows Server 2003 Disk Management. Volumes created in LDM are easily migrated to VERITAS Storage
Foundation for Windows. The Storage Foundation for Windows enterprise-class storage-management capabilities
offer you the most flexibility to create and manage storage configurations that grow and adapt with your business
needs.
To demonstrate the benefits of VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows, you’re going to install Storage
Foundation on your own system and perform the following:
• Create a Dynamic Disk Group and Dynamic Volume

• Move a subdisk with simple drag/drop while your application remains on-line
• Demonstrate how a Dynamic Volume can be re-sized manually and automatically while your application
remains on-line
• Perform a snapshot and recovery using VERITAS Flashsnap™ option
• Explain how VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows can perform Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Volume Shadow Copy Services-enabled snapshots
• Explain how you can improve the performance of MS Exchange Server using VxCache
• And much more…
After completing this document, you will have a good idea of how Storage Foundations for Windows works,
understand key building blocks, and see first hand how Storage Foundation for Windows solves real-world
problems.
To accomplish these tasks, you’ll need administrator access to a system that has a minimum of 2 physical non-
system disks. The exercises in this paper use two 1.5GB disks, but can be performed with any size disks. Before
getting started, it would be helpful to have some background.
STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS BASICS
BACKGROUND
Many Microsoft Windows system administrators tend to think of a physical disk as equal to a volume. There are
historical reasons why this is so, based on the original handling of partitions and volumes by Microsoft Windows
NT4. In the startup phase of the Microsoft Windows operating system, the OS Loader reads the Master Boot
Record (MBR) of a disk for information about the partitions that exist on the disk. The NT4 partitioning scheme,
while appropriate for small systems that managed 20 MB to 100 MB disks two decades ago, is inadequate for
managing the mainframe-like storage available in today’s server environments.
Logical Disk Manager (LDM) is the storage manager that comes with Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft
Windows Server 2003. VERITAS co-developed LDM with Microsoft to address the need for larger storage
volumes and simple storage formats (e.g. mirrored or concatenated). LDM contains only a subset of the features
found in Storage Foundation for Windows.
STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS – BASIC DESCRIPTION

Storage Foundation for Windows creates a virtual layer of storage above the physical device level and below the
operating system and applications by using “virtual storage objects”. The virtual storage object that is visible to
users and applications is called a volume. A volume stores data and is made up of space from one or more
physical disks or LUNs on which the data is physically
stored.
Volumes created by Storage Foundation for Windows

appear to the operating system as drives when mounted via
a drive letter or mount path. All users and applications
access volumes as contiguous address space in a manner
similar to accessing a physical disk.
Hardware-based RAID presents a set of disks, also called

spindles, to the operating system as logical devices, which
are generally referred to as LUNs. A single device LUN) may
be composed of a portion of a disk, a single disk, or carved
from several underlying physical disks. Storage Foundation
for Windows sees and can make use of these devices.
STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS – DETAILED DESCRIPTION

VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows creates virtual objects on both dynamic disks and basic disks and
establish logical connections between those objects and the underlying physical devices. When a Basic disk is
upgraded to a Dynamic disk, Storage Foundation for Windows creates two regions on the disk:
• Public region: The public region consists of the majority of the space on the disk and represents the
available space that Storage Foundation can use to assign to volumes.
• Private region: The private region is located in the last 2MB of each dynamic disk, which is reserved by the
Operating System for that purpose. It stores information about virtual objects like the Storage Foundation
name for the disk, which system "owns" that disk, which storage pool (disk group) the disks belongs to, and a
globally unique identifier (GUID) for that disk
The private region's ability to hold this information means that the disk group is not dependent on a system’s
Registry, which is where this information is stored for Basic disks. This allows dynamic disks to be moved
between systems without having to update registry information.
Virtual Objects
A volume is a virtual object that records and retrieves
data from one or more physical disks. Volumes are
one of a variety of object types used by Storage
Foundation for storage management.
Storage Foundation for Windows objects include:
• Basic and Dynamic disks

• Disk groups
• Volumes
• Subdisks
• Plexes
Disks
Storage Foundation for Windows defines all physical disks that it manages as either basic or dynamic disks. Each
basic or dynamic disk corresponds to one physical disk or a LUN.
Basic Disks
When you install Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003, your physical disks are automatically initialized as
basic (unless they were previously upgraded to dynamic on another system). As stated earlier, a basic disk’s
space is organized by partitions rather than by volumes.
Dynamic Disks
After installing Storage Foundation for Windows, you can upgrade the disks to SFW type dynamic disks. Windows
also allows the upgrade of basic disks to dynamic, but the LDM version of dynamic disks has a much more limited
feature set than the SFW version. On a dynamic disk, space is organized in dynamic volumes (explained later).
Disk Groups
Disk groups enable you to organize disks into logical pools of storage. There are two main types of disk group;
basic and dynamic. There can only be a single basic disk group. With Windows’ LDM, only a single dynamic disk
group is allowed. With Storage Foundation for Windows, there are four types of dynamic disk groups, and multiple
dynamic disk groups are allowed. The types of dynamic disk groups available with SFW are ‘regular (SFW)
Dynamic Disk Groups,’ Windows Disk Management Compatible,’ ‘Cluster Disk Groups’ and Private Disk Groups.’
You assign disks to disk groups for management purposes, such as to hold the data for a specific application or
set of applications. For example, data for Microsoft Exchange Server can be placed in its own disk group. Each
disk group on a system has a unique name e.g. exchdg.
Storage Foundation for Windows is the only solution that allows the use of dynamic disks in a Microsoft Cluster
Server (MSCS) cluster.
Basic Disk Group

VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows has a single disk group for all basic disks; the Basic disk group. No
persistent record is kept of these disks in the disks’ Private Region, and the Basic disk group membership must
be rebuilt every time the system is stopped and restarted (for example, a reboot).
Dynamic Disk Groups

A dynamic disk group is comprised of dynamic disks (disks with a public and private region). Disks within a
dynamic disk group can only belong to that one group at any instance. For example, a disk cannot simultaneously
belong to both the acctdg and hrdg disk groups. However, disks in a SFW dynamic disk group can be split out
into another (new) dynamic disk group using one of SFW’s features; Dynamic Group Split & Join. Disk groups can
also be joined using this feature.
Cluster Disk Groups
Cluster disk groups are a special type of dynamic disk group, which uses SCSI reservations to ensure that only a
single system at a time can own and access it, thereby protecting its data from potential corruption, which can
occur if more than one system has access to it. By creating a cluster resource for the cluster disk group,
ownership is controlled by the cluster.
Subdisks
A subdisk is a set of contiguous blocks on a dynamic
disk that represent a portion of a dynamic volume. It is
the smallest unit of storage available in Storage
Foundatin for Windows. Example: A volume striped
across two disks, Disk1 and Disk2, would consist of a
subdisk on Disk1 and a subdisk on Disk2.
Plexes
VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows uses
subdisks to build virtual objects called plexes. A plex
is a structured collection of subdisks that represents
one copy of the data in a volume. All volumes, except
mirrors, consist of a single plex. Mirrored volumes
have as many plexes as there are mirrors.
Volumes
A volume is a logical entity that is comprised of portions of one or more physical disks or LUNs. Volumes are
virtual storage devices that are used by applications in a manner similar to disk partitions. Due to their virtual
nature, volumes are not restricted by the physical size constraints that apply to a physical disk.
Volumes are defined as either basic or dynamic, depending on whether they are located on basic or dynamic
disks.
Basic Volumes
In Storage Foundation for Windows, basic volumes refer to all the volumes that are on basic disks:
• Primary and extended partitions
• Simple logical drives that reside on extended partitions
• RAID volumes that were created in Windows NT Dsk Administrator (known as ‘FT’ volumes)
With Storage Foundation for Windows, you can manage (but not create) these basic volumes, within the
limitations of Basic Disks (e.g. maximum of 4 partitions), if running Windows 2000. Windows Server 2003 does
not support volumes created under Windows NT Disk Administrator, so SFW cannot manage these volumes in
that environment. The disks containing ‘FT’ volumes can be upgraded to dynamic and they can then be managed.
Whenever you upgrade a basic disk to dynamic, any basic volumes on the disk are also upgraded to dynamic
volumes.
Dynamic Volumes
Dynamic volumes are volumes created on dynamic disks. A Dynamic volume always contains at least one plex
and, in the case of mirrored volumes, can also contain multiple plexes. These plexes are composed of subdisks
from one or more dynamic disks. When assigning volume names, you can assign meaningful names that reflect
the nature or use of the data in the volumes. For example, two volumes in exchdg can be datavol, a volume
that contains the Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox databases, and tlvol, a volume that contains Microsoft
Exchange Server Transaction Logs.
Dynamic Volume Layouts
A volume's layout describes, in general terms, the number and default type of plexes that make up the volume.
Dynamic volume layouts are based on the concept of disk spanning, which is the ability to logically combine
multiple physical disks into a single map. This map is presented as a single device to whatever application is
requesting I/O to that device. The map can be contiguous, in the case of a concatenated volume, or interleaved,
in the case of a striped volume. Calculation of I/O offsets, no matter what the layout, is handled by Storage
Foundation for Windows.
Finally, with Storage Foundation for Windows you can change the dynamic volume layout without disrupting
applications or file systems that are using the dynamic volume. A dynamic volume layout can be configured and
tuned while the dynamic volume remains accessible.
Storage Foundation dynamic volume layouts include:
• Concatenated – Concatenated volumes can be Simple

- a single contiguous region (subdisk) on a single disk,
or Spanned – two or more subdisks on one or more
disks (up to 256). Spanned volumes All subdisks are
arranged sequentially (space added sequentially until
the disk is full and another disk is used) and
contiguously to create a single large volume.
• Striped (RAID 0) – Data is divided into blocks and
spread evenly, in order, across multiple disks,
providing higher data I/O response because requests
can be serviced by more than one device.
• RAID-5 - RAID-5 stripes dataq and parity alternately
across three or more disks, resulting in a fault tolerant
volume with the high read performance. RAID-5
volumes can be extended, but not mirrored.
• Mirrored (RAID 1) – Uses multiple plexes to duplicate
the information contained in a volume. Storage
Foundation allows a volume to be mirrored to up to 32
different locations simultaneously.
• Mirrored Striped (RAID 0+1) – Mirrors of striped
volumes provide for fault tolerance along with the high
performance of striped volumes. This type of volume is not supported in LDM.
Why Upgrade from LDM to VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows?

Now that you know how Storage Foundation for Windows and its cousin LDM work, why should you consider
using Storage Foundation for Windows? Here are just a couple reasons:
• Quick Data Recovery using Split-Mirror Snapshots – Using Storage Foundation’s Flashsnap Option, split-
mirror snapshots of data can be taken for quick data recovery or off-host processing. Synchronization of
the snapshot data is done in seconds to minutes using Storage Foundation’s Fast Mirror Resync
technology. For users of Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003, these snapshots can be
performed using Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) infrastructure to ensure consistent
snapshots are performed. With the release of Storage Foundation for Windows version 4.3, VSS
functionality has moved from command line only to the SFW GIU, VERITAS Enterprise Administrator
(VEA).
• Performance Tuning (including better use of available memory and load balancing across subdisks) – By
simply installing Storage Foundation and performing minor configuration steps, you can improve the
performance of your server and your storage. For the server, Storage Foundation offers a feature called
VxCache which is a write-through cache (read-only) that allows you to take advantage of under-utilized
memory (e.g. PAE or non-PAE above 512MB) to improve I/O (up to 40% in some cases) on specific read-
intensive volumes (e.g. Exchange Server database volumes). On the storage side, and independent of
any application, Storage Foundation not only enables storage performance enhancing parameters to be
set, it also allows you to monitor those settings and make changes when needed.
• Storage Area Network (SAN) support – Storage Foundation can use the optional Dynamic Multipathing
(DMP) technology to create redundant paths and perform I/O load balancing to SAN storage. (NOTE:
DMP is available for most standard storage arrays as well. Check the VERITAS Hardware Compatibility
List at www.veritas.com for more info). MPIO integration was also included, starting with version 4.2. LDM
lacks support for this capability. Additionally, Storage Foundation facilitates “Boot from SAN” capability in
a cluster, where the system/boot disk can share the same bus as clustered disk resources, that, when
combined with MPIO, allows the system to continue running, even if the primary path to the SAN is lost.
• Cluster Support – Storage Foundation for Windows provides the only means to using dynamic disks in a
cluster. Some of the benefits to using Storage Foundation in clustered environments are:
o Resize volumes without a system reboot
o Ability to easily re-assign storage “ownership” from one host to another
o Ability to mirror volumes between hardware arrays, which assists in creating Campus Clusters,
where cluster nodes are physically located in different buildings.
o Ability to mirror the quorum volume for fault tolerance in Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS).
• Storage Management – Storage Foundation’s storage management capability vastly surpasses that of
LDM. From simple drag-n-drop of volumes to Capacity Monitoring, from hot-spot detection to creating
volume snapshots, Storage Foundation provides the capabilities today’s storage administrators need to
accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently.
• Support for Multiple Disk Groups – Not only can you organize your storage based on business
requirements rather than technical and proprietary limitations but, with Storage Foundation, you can also
“move” this storage from host to host to facilitate off-host processing of resource-intensive functions. This
reduces impact to production hosts and improves storage management responsiveness.
• Data Availability – Redundant paths to storage enable applications to remain online and available to
users in the event of a path failure. Microsoft has included an architectural framework in Windows Server
2003 called Multipath I/O (MPIO). \ VERITAS, Storage Foundation’s Dynamic Multipathing (DMP) is a
widely accepted multipathing solution with support for the leading storage devices. Starting with version
4.2, Storage Foundation for Windows integrates with MPIO to offer a multipathing solution using
Microsoft’s MPIO. With this comes support for Microsoft’s Storport driver and a new load balancing
algorithm, Dynamic Least Queue Depth, where I/O is routed based on the path with the shortest queue.
(For more information, go to www.veritas.com to view the DMP Hardware Compatibility List.)
• Notification – Event notification is provided via SMTP e-mail, pager and SNMP traps. Administrators can
conveniently stay informed about the condition of their storage with Storage Foundation for Windows.
For more information, a detailed feature comparison chart between LDM and Storage Foundation for Windows
has been provided at the end of this document.
INSTALLING VERITAS STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS

ENVIRONMENT PREP
To complete the exercises below and see first-hand how easy Storage Foundation for Windows is to install,
configure and use, you will need a Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 with at least 2 non-
system disks and administrator access.
INSTALLATION
Installation Requirements
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Web Edition, Enterprise Edition or Datacenter Edition
or Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server or Enterprise Server. Note that, with Storage
Foundation for Windows version 4.3, 64-bit versions of these operating systems are also supported.
• 675 MB of disk space is required for full installation including optional programs. At least 50 MB of
additional disk space is needed for the proper operation of the software.
• The minimum requirement for system memory is 256 MB, although 512 MB is recommended, and
required for MPIO and VxCache.
• The minimum processor required is 300 MHz Pentium II, although a 550 MHz Pentium III or faster is
suggested.
• Minimum resolution of 800 x 600 pixels is required for the monitor, but a higher resolution, such as 1024 x
768 pixels, is recommended. If you plan to use large fonts, a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels is required.
• You must have local administrator privileges to install and use this product.
NOTE: Only one instance of Storage Foundation for Windows should be running on a computer at a time. If you
have a previous version already installed, uninstall it before installing Storage Foundation for Windows v4.x.
Installing VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows

1. On systems running Windows Server 2003, set the Windows driver signing option to ignore software
authentication warning messages.
• Click System in Control Panel, click the Hardware tab and click Driver Signing. Select Ignore
and click OK.
2. To begin the installation, insert the CD on the test system or navigate to the location of the installation
files.
3. Allow the CD to autorun or double-click Setup.exe.
4. In the language dialog, select the appropriate language and click OK.
5. In the initial Storage Foundation installation window, initiate the install by clicking Storage Foundation 4.3
for Windows.
NOTE: On Microsoft Windows Server 2003, the Windows WMI provider is not installed by default. If you
receive a message to install WMI, follow the steps provided to complete the install.
6. Select the “Complete/Custom” option in the Install Type window. Click Next to continue the installation.
7. Click Next at the Welcome screen.
8. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
9. Enter the license key(s).Click Add to validate the key. Click Next to continue.
10. The next screen displays all the options available for this installation. This document is only going to
cover the Flashsnap and VxCache options. If checked, uncheck the DMP, VVR, and MSCS options. Click
Next to continue.
11. Leave the “VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.3 for Windows (Client Components)” option checked to
allow the installation of the management console. Click Next to continue.
12. Select the domain and computer(s) to install to. By default, Storage Foundation installs on the same
system the install is running. For this exercise, click Add to validate the server you will be installing on.
When accepted, click Next.
13. The Validation screen will validate the system chosen. NOTE: This may take a few seconds to finish.
Click Next once the server has been validated.
14. View the Install Report if desired. Click Install to continue.
15. Click Next after the files have been copied.
16. Click Finish to complete the install.
17. Click Yes to reboot the system.
18. After your system reboots, VERITAS Storage Foundaion for Windows will be installed.
FEATURE DEMONSTRATION:
Now that VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows is installed on the system, we’re going to:
• Provide a brief description of the VEA console
• Create a Dynamic Disk Group
• Upgrade Basic disks to Dynamic disks
• Create a Dynamic Volume
• Demonstrate moving a subdisk from one disk (LUN) to another using Drag-n-Drop
• Re-size a volume without rebooting and demonstrate how this can be done without administrator
intervention
• Mirror a Volume
• Demonstrate quick recovery of a volume Take a snapshot, delete data on the production volume, and
resync the snapshot using FastResync-
• Take a VSS snapshot using VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows’ in-box VSS Requester utility –
VxSnap. (NOTE: Storage Foundation 4.3 for Windows supports Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 only. Snapshots on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft
Exchange 2000 Server are also available but not through VSS, since there is no VSS infrastructure
available.
• Take a VSS snapshot using the VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows GUI (VERITAS Enterprise
Administrator or VEA)
• Perform VSS Quick Recovery of Exchange Server 2003 using the VEA t
NOTE: The exercises below will refer to “disks” but these same capabilities could be applied to LUNs
configured with different layout types such as hardware RAID-5. Storage Foundation sees and treats each
LUN as if it were an individual disk. Because of this capability, Storage Foundation is a great way to add the
flexibility you need even though you’ve already invested in a proprietary and sometimes restrictive hardware
solution.
GUI WALK-THROUGH
Description: This section will walk you through using the VERITAS Enterprise Administrator (VEA) console. The
VEA console allows cross-platform storage management.
1. To launch VEA, select Start > Programs > VERITAS > VERITAS Enterprise Administrator.
The VEA console comes up and automatically connects to the local system if Storage Foundation for
Windows server is installed on that system. If this is the first time you’ve launched VEA, a message will
appear stating that VEA is creating a Profile. Click OK.
2. After VEA has completed loading, the Storage Foundation Assistant (shown below) appears. The Storage
Foundation Assistant is designed to walk users through many of the most common storage management
tasks, such as creating New Dynamic Disk Groups, creating new Dynamic Volumes, expanding a volume,
and mirroring a volume. For now, close the Storage Foundation Assistant by selecting the Close button.
It can be launched at anytime by selecting it in the Tools menu or by clicking its icon in the toolbar.
3. The managed server (localhost) will appear in the Tree View. If they haven’t already been upgraded to
dynamic via a previous version of VERITAS Volume Manager, Storage Foundation for Windows, or by
Windows Logical Disk Manager (LDM), all disk storage will be shown as basic disks in the BasicGroup
disk group.
VEA provides a variety of ways to view and manipulate VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows objects.
The VEA main window consists of the following components:
• A hierarchical object tree,

located in the left pane of
the main window, provides
a dynamic display of
Storage Foundation storage
objects and other objects on
the system.
• Tabbed views, located in
the right pane of the main
window, list information
about the object selected in
the object tree.
• A menu bar and toolbar
provide access to tasks.
• A status area, located at the
bottom of the main window,
displays information on
processes initiated by the
program.
For more information on the VEA Admin Console, see the VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows Getting
Started Guide and Administrator’s Guide.
CREATE A DYNAMIC DISK GROUP
Description: A dynamic disk group is a collection of dynamic disks grouped together based upon business rules
instead of technology limitations. A dynamic disk is a physical disk or LUN that can contain dynamic volumes
created with Storage Foundation for Windows. A dynamic volume organizes space on one or more physical disks
by using a specific type of volume layout such as: concatenated (simple or spanned), striped, mirrored, RAID-5,
and mirrored-striped (RAID 0+1).
To create a new dynamic disk group using the Storage Foundation Assistant:
1. Select the Storage Foundation Assistant button on the toolbar or from the Tools menu and select the
New Dynamic Disk Group button
To create a new dynamic disk group using the VEA Console:

1. Right-click the Disk Groups folder
2. Select New Dynamic Disk Group from the context menu that comes up.
The New Dynamic Disk Group Wizard appears.
3. Click Next to continue.
A screen comes up for defining the attributes of the dynamic disk group.
4. Enter DynGrp1 as the name of the dynamic disk group and include at least 2 non-system disks
(Harddisk1 and Harddisk2 in this example) by highlighting the disks and selecting Add>. Do not select the
system (boot) disk (usually Harddisk0). NOTE: If working on a Storage Area Network (SAN), Harddisks
will actually be LUNs but will appear to Storage Foundation as Harddisks.
5. Leave the disk group Types checkboxes blank to create a regular dynamic disk group. Note: For more
information on optional Disk Group Types, see the Storage Foundation for Windows Administrator’s
Guide.
6. Choose Next to continue. Normally, you would add all the disks you want in the group. If you want to add
more physical disks or LUNs later, you can add them to the disk group using Add Disk to Dynamic Disk
Group wizard.
7. Select Next at Summary screen.
8. Click Finish in the final screen.
CREATE A DYNAMIC VOLUME
Description:
Dynamic volumes are one of the many virtual storage objects used by Storage Foundation for Windows to
manage storage. As the name describes, Dynamic volumes are expandable ’on the fly‘ i.e. without the need for a
system restart, except in the case of the system/boot volume. They appear to the OS and applications as drives
when assigned drive letters or mount points.
To create a new dynamic volume:

1. In the Object Tree, expand the Disk Group object.
2. Right-click on the dynamic disk group you just created (DynGrp1) and select New Volume from the
context menu that comes up.
3. The New Volume Wizard appears. Click Next to continue.
4. In the Assign Disks for Volume screen, select Manually select disks and highlight one of the available
disks (e.g. Harddisk1). Click Next to continue.
5. Select the attributes shown in the screenshot above, entering DynVol1 as the volume name and 1GB as
the size. This will create a dynamic volume named DynVol1 in the Dynamic disk group DynGrp1 on
Harddisk1 with a size of 1GB.Click Next to continue.
6. In the Add Drive Letter and Path screen, assign H: as the drive letter. Click Next to continue. NOTE:
You can also assign the volume a Mount Point by choosing Mount as an empty NTFS folder. Mount
Points are especially useful in environments where you need to create more volumes than there are
available drive letters.
7. In the Create File System dialog, select NTFS, check the Quick Format checkbox and use the Default
allocation size. Click Next.
8. Confirm your selections and click Finish at the Summary screen
9. Verify:
a. To see the newly created volume in the VEA console, highlight the Volumes folder in the left
pane. In the right pane Volumes tab, there will be two volumes with the following information:
Name Group Name Status
C: Basic Group Healthy (Boot, System, Page File)
DynVol1(H:) DynGrp1 Healthy
b. With the Volumes folder highlighted, select the Disk View tab in the right pane. This view should
look familiar to those who have used Logical Disk Manager (LDM). If you only have 3 disks in
your system, the view should show the system disk, a completely blank disk (showing only disk
size), and the third disk showing the 1GB Dynamic volume (DynVol1) and the amount of space
on disk not yet used.
c. Verify the new volume functions properly by copying test data from the system volume to the
DynVol1(H:)volume using Microsoft Windows Explorer.
THE POWER OF SUBDISKS

Description:
Another virtual storage object Storage Foundation for Windows uses is the Subdisk. A subdisk is a portion of a
dynamic volume which identifies the disk location and size of each contiguous disk area in the volume. It is the
basic unit of storage used by VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows to allocate disk space tp a volume.
Therefore, subdisks are the building blocks for Storage Foundation objects. You can split a dynamic volume into
one or more subdisks. By creating a Dynamic volume comprised of multiple subdisks and tracking subdisk I/O
activity, an administrator can identify and easily act on a performance bottleneck by moving the subdisk to a
different disk and/or controller by simply dragging and dropping in the VEA GUI. Additionally, subdisks can be
split and moved to other disks as needed.
The exercises below demonstrate how easy it is to perform subdisk operations like moving and joining using
simple drag-n-drop methods.
To move a subdisk using the VEA console:
1. In the VEA console, highlight the Volumes folder and select the Disk View tab in the right pane.
2. Using the mouse, select the DynVol1(H:) volume, drag and drop it on the other dynamic disk in the
disk group. Immediately following the “drop” of the sub-disk to the new disk, select the Tasks tab in the
lower pane. This will show the status of the move.
This operation will not only move the volume to a completely separate disk and possibly a separate
controller, it will also move all data stored on this disk while the application accessing the data is online
and available. To see a further example of this capability, use Microsoft Windows Explorer to copy a large
dataset to the DynVol1(H:) volume. While Explorer is copying data, repeat the subdisk move process,
this time moving the subdisk back to the original disk. Note the subdisk move process has no impact on
Windows Explorer’s ability to copy data.
To split and join a subdisk using the VEA console:
Now that the DynVol1(H:) volume is back on the original disk, we’re going to demonstrate how Storage
Foundation can split and join a subdisk. Use the Split Subdisk command to split a subdisk. Splitting a
subdisk might be done to optimize use of your disk space. A split subdisk can later be joined back
together using the Join Subdisk command.
To demonstrate this, we’re going to:

• Add a second volume to our physical disk (next to DynVol1(H:))
• We’ll temporarily break away from Join demonstration to demonstrate how to Expand our
original volume online (DynVol1(H:)) manually
• Move both subdisks that make up DynVol1(H:)from the original physical disk to a second
physical disk
• Join the subdisks into one contiguous volume
To get started:
1. Using the VEA console, highlight the Volumes folder and select the Disk View tab in the right pane and
note DynVol(H:) is shown.
2. Create a second small volume on Harddisk1 (Disk 1 in the dynamic group) using the steps provided
earlier and using the following parameters:
a. Name: DynVol2
b. Drive Letter: I:
c. Size: 50MB
d. Hard Disk: Manually select the same disk as the first DynVol H:
e. File System: NTFS
f. Quick Format: Yes
ONLINE VOLUME GROWTH – MANUAL (WITHOUT REBOOT)

Description:
Online volume growth is one of the strongest features of VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows. By allowing
a volume to grow without the need for a reboot, applications, such as Exchange, stay online and available to
users. For example, Microsoft recommends the volume used for storing Exchange databases be sized so that
50% of the volume is empty. If the Exchange volume is 180GB, 90GB must be empty. This is not very cost-
effective. With Storage Foundation for Windows, the volume can be configured with a minimum of space free. As
the amount of free space on the volume decreases, the volume can be grown either manually as needed, or
automatically while Exchange remains available using the method described below.
For our demonstration, select a volume to expand.
Resizing a Dynamic Volume manually:
To extend a dynamic volume across one or more dynamic disks:
3. Using the VEA console, right-click the dynamic volume

(DynVol1(H:)) that you want to extend and select
Expand Volume from the context menu.
4. The Expand Volume window is displayed.
a. Enter 200 MB in the "Add by" field. This will add 200MB to the dynamic volume.
Using the "Add by" option, you add a specific size to the volume by entering a size in the box.
Using the "New volume size" option you specify the total volume size that you want.
b. Select “Manually assign destination

disks” option and add the disk
(Harddisk1) that contains same the
volume. Selecting “Auto assign
destination disks” allows Storage
Foundation to select the appropriate
disks based upon the sizing criteria
specified. This selection can be the
same disk assigned when the volume
was created or it could consist of
portions of multiple physical disks.
c. Click OK to complete the procedure.

Note: There is no need to reboot your
system.
The following screenshot shows what your Disk View should look like. Note how the subdisks for DynVol1(H:)
(arrows) are separated by the subdisk for DynVol2(I:).
5. Highlight the Volumes folder in the left pane of the VEA Console and select the Disk View tab in the right
pane to see all the physical disks available.
6. Move the first subdisk of DynVol1(H:) (1GB subdisk) to the Harddisk2 by dragging and dropping it.
Repeat this for the second subdisk of DynVol1(H:). When complete, the Disk View should look like the
following. Note the arrows point to where each subdisk was dragged from and dropped onto.
At this point, both subdisks reside on Harddisk2 and remain separate, showing their original sizees when
they were initially created: 1GB and 100MB respectively.
7. Now we’ll Join the two subdisks into one contiguous volume. Highlight the DynVol1(H:) volume in the left
pane and select the Subdisk tab in the right pane. The view should show the details of all the subdisks
that make up DynVol1(H:) (2 in this case). Using the mouse, right-click on one of the subdisks and
select Join.
8. The subdisk you right-clicked on will automatically be added to the Add list. Select the other subdisk and
select Add. The Join dialog should look like the following:
9. Once all the subdisks have been added, select OK. Storage Foundation will join the disks and create one
single contiguous volume of ~1.2 GB. The volume can remain on the physical disk or you can now move
it to another physical disk or LUN as needed.
EVEN BETTER
Imagine that your organization is preparing to deploy a Storage Area Network (SAN) and plans to migrate
your Exchange server storage from direct-attached storage (DAS) to the SAN. Without Storage
Foundation, you would need to:
1. Complete a FULL backup of the Exchange server
2. Come in on a weekend (to avoid user productivity impact)
3. Down the Exchange server
4. Migrate the data to the SAN (recreate the volumes on the SAN and restore the data from
backup)
5. Reconfigure the Exchange server to point to the SAN
6. Remount the Exchange databases
With Storage Foundation for Windows, the steps to perform the same operation are:
1. Complete the FULL backup of the Exchange server
2. Drag and drop the Exchange storage volumes from DAS to the SAN disks
As you can see, Storage Foundation for Windows eliminates many of the steps to perform this operation.
This is not only easier to perform but reduces the risk of error. Even better, Exchange remains online and
available for users!!
CAPACITY MONITORING AND AUTOMATIC VOLUME GROWTH

EXPANDING A DYNAMIC VOLUME AUTOMATICALLY
During the previous exercise, you learned how easy it was to manually expand a dynamic volume. Now we’re
going to demonstrate how easy it is to configure Storage Foundation to expamd dynamic volumes automatically.
Storage Foundation can be configured to expand a volume automatically based on pre-defined thresholds and
growth parameters. Additionally, Storage Foundation can notify you each time a volume grows. To prevent
volume growth beyond a maximum size in situations like spam or email viruses, a Maximum volume size
parameter can be set. In this exercise below, we’ll set our volume to add 50MB of volume capacity as the
threshold is met. Then, we’ll simulate an application filling up the volume by copying files with Microsoft Windows
Explorer and watch the volume automatically grow. To accomplish this, we’ll use the Capacity Monitor and
Automatic Volume Growth wizards. Setting up automatic growth for a volume is a two step process. First Capacity
Monitoring has to be enabled, then Automatic Volume Growth can be enabled.
ENABLING CAPACITY MONITORING AND AUTOMATIC VOLUME GROWTH

Capacity monitoring is a feature of Storage Foundation for Windows that monitors the capacity of volumes it
manages. When the space used on a volume reaches a specified threshold, an alert message is sent out as
notification. Volumes can also be set to grow automatically when specified thresholds are met.
Enable Capacity Monitoring

Capacity Monitoring is turned off by default. To turn on Capacity Monitoring:
1. Right-click on the DynVol1 volume in the left pane of VEA and select Capacity Monitoring from the
menu. The Capacity Monitor wizard appears. Click Next.
2. Check the Enable Capacity Monitoring checkbox.
3. Accept the Capacity Monitoring Thresholds values for Critical threshold (90%) and Warning threshold
(80%).
4. Uncheck the Send email notification when volume has reached its warning threshold and Send
email notification when volume has reached its critical threshold checkboxes.
Enable Automatic Volume Growth
After Capacity Monitoring has been enabled on a dynamic volume, Automatic Volume Growth can be enabled. To
turn on Automatic Volume Growth:
1. Right-click on the DynVol1 volume in the left pane of VEA and select Automatc Volume Growth from
the menu. The Automatic Volume Growth wizard appears. Click Next.
2. Check the Enable Automatic Volume Growth checkbox.
3. Set Volume Growth to 50 MB.
4. Under Maximum volume size set Restricted volume growth size to 1200 MB.
5. Verify: In this test, we will demonstrate Storage Foundation for Windows’ capability to automatically resize
the volume in increments of 50MB without interrupting the flow of data to the volume.
a. In the VEA console, highlight the volume to be automatically resized. Position the console on
screen to allow view of the Console tab (lower-left) of the VEA console.
b. Using Microsoft Windows Explorer, copy approximately 200MB more data to the volume than the
volume has space for.
During the copy operation, note the messages that appear in the Console tab of the VEA console.
These messages will be sent from the Capacity Monitoring and Automatic Volume Growth
settings configured earlier. As the volume runs out of space, there will be additional messages
that appear showing the volume being resized. When the data copy process completes, note the
new size of the volume by right-clicking on the volume in the VEA console and selecting
Properties.
NOTE: If the volume had reached 1200MB, the volume would not be resized any further and the
copy process would halt. This capability prevents a situation like an e-mail virus filling up the
transaction log volume beyond a desirable level.
Why should you care?

Using VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows, you’ve created a dynamic volume that, once created, can be
resized and reconfigured while applications remain on-line and available. In the specific example above, the
volume was resized manually to simulate resolving a low disk space situation. The volume was also configured to
resize automatically to resolve low disk space issues without administrator intervention. Had this not been
configured, an application could have shut down awaiting administrator involvement—preventing user access.
One final note, the resizing process does not care what configuration type is used—RAID-5, mirrored, striped, etc.
VOLUME MIRRORING / OFF-HOST PROCESSING

Description
In this section, we’ll use VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows to create a mirror of our dynamic volume to a
separate physical disk and we’ll copy data to the volume to ensure redundancy. Then, we’ll use Storage
Foundation’s ability to “snap” off a copy of the volume and demonstrate how the data can be made available for
data mining, rapid recovery, or backup (off-host processing). Finally, we’ll re-add the mirror (“snap back”) to
demonstrate a rapid recovery through the re-sync capabilities of Storage Foundation for Windows.
Note: There are two ways to create a volume from a mirror of another volume to facilitate data testing, data
mining, or backup: You can break a mirror or, using the FlashSnap option, create a snapshot of the volume. The
latter method also allows for quick recovery in the event of a disaster. Breaking a mirror allows a mirrored volume
to be “split off”. When done, Storage Foundation for Windows will assign it a drive letter, and allow the new
volume to be used for data mining or other off-host processing tasks. Once the volume has been broken away, it
cannot be re-mirrored with the original volume. Creating a snapshot of a volume does the same thing as breaking
a mirror (exact copy of the mirrored volume at that point in time) with the exception that the volume and its data
can be resynchronized (snapped back) with the original volume at the block level. This is accomplished through
logging done via Storage Foundation’s Disk Change Object (DCO), which tracks changes made to the original
volume and the snapshot. Only the changed regions are resynchronized rather than the entire volume. Therefore,
snapshots are preferred when the desire is to take point-in-time copies for quick recovery of data or for off-host
processing tasks such as backups, while mirroring is good for data redundancy.
VOLUME MIRRORING
To Mirror a Volume using the VEA console:
1. In the VEA console, select the 1.2 GB volume you created earlier (DynVol1). Right-click on it to bring up
the context menu. Select Mirror, and then click Add on the submenu to access the Add Mirror dialog
box.
2. Storage Foundation can support up to 32 mirrors. For this demonstration, accept the default number of
mirrors (1) you want to add to the volume and manually assign the second physical disk as the
destination for the mirror.
3. Click OK to add the mirror and note the events displayed under the Console tab of the lower pane in the
VEA console. The Tasks tab will show the progress of the mirror resynchronization. Further evidence of
the disks that contain mirrored volumes can be seen by:
a. Highlighting the Dynamic volume in the left pane.
b. Selecting the Disk View tab. Note that two physical disks are displayed, showing the volume mirrored
across both disks OR
c. Select the Mirrors tab and note the volume’s mirror characteristics.
4. Verify: To demonstrate the volume is mirrored, we’re going to copy data to the volume, “break” the mirror
and note the data on both the original volume and the mirrored volume are the same. To begin this test:
a. Copy data to the original volume. As data is copied, it will be mirrored to both physical disks.
b. In the left pane, right-click on the volume that is mirrored and select Mirror > Break.
c. Accept the defaults and note the pre-assigned drive letter. Select OK.
Note the new drive letter appears, making the once-mirrored volume now a separately addressable
volume.
d. Verify: Using Microsoft Windows Explorer, view the data on the newly-created volume and compare
with the original volume. Once satisfied, highlight the newly created volume and remove it. Remove it
by: selecting the Mirror > Remove option in the VEA console.
QUICK RECOVERY AND OFF-HOST PROCESSING SOLUTIONS
By integrating the Storage Foundation for Windows features of snapshots and FastResync, you can move data
offline or to another host in order to preserve a snapshot image of your data for rapid recovery or to perform data
processing activities, such as backup, decision support, testing, and database error recovery.
COMMON QUICK RECOVERY AND OFF-HOST PROCESSING TASKS
• Quick Recovery: If your business mandates minimal downtime, the ability to recover quickly from data
corruption or data loss is critical. Using Storage Foundation for Windows’ snapshot and FastResync
capabilities, you can take a snapshot of an entire volume or group of volumes periodically throughout the
day. If the production volume becomes corrupt due to a virus or other conditions, you can recover in
minutes by simply resynchronizing the snapshot with the original volume.
• Data backup: If your business requires high availability, you cannot afford the downtime or impact of
backing up critical data. By taking a snapshot of your data and backing up from a snapshot, your business-
critical applications can continue to run without extended downtime and without impacting performance.
• Decision support analysis and reporting: Because snapshots hold point-in-time copies of production
volumes, you can construct a copy of a database by using snapshots to perform decision support analysis
and business reporting. Snapshots use FastResync technology to quickly resynchronize them with their
original volumes. This allows you to quickly resynchronize the database copy with the data in the primary
database as needed.
• Testing and training: Development or service groups can use snapshots as test data for new applications.
Snapshot data provides developers, system test engineers, and QA groups with a realistic basis for testing
the robustness, integrity, and performance of new applications.
• Database error recovery: Logic errors caused by an administrator or an application program can
compromise the integrity of a database. By restoring database table files from a snapshot set, you can
recover a database more quickly than by full restoration from tape or other backup media.
VERITAS FLASHSNAP™ OPTION

FlashSnap is a licensable option that combines several VERITAS technologies to perform quick recovery and off-
host processing tasks. VERITAS FlashSnap enables you to create independently addressable multi-purpose
volumes (MPVs) that are point-in-time copies of the volumes on your server, and to move these MPVs to a
remote server for off-host operations, allowing you to perform those activities without affecting mission-critical
applications on the production server. FlashSnap operations are very efficient; the snapshot process has minimal
impact, especially when done via VSS, and resynchronization of those snapshots (snapback) is very quick, with
the option to choose the direction of resynchronization. FlashSnap is made possible by several features in
Storage Foundation for Windows.
Those features include:
• Snapshot Commands - Use the Snapshot commands to create the snapshot volumes or MPVs.
• Dynamic Disk Group Split and Join - Dynamic Disk Group Split and Join (DGSJ) is similar to Snapshot
with the exception that entire groups of disks can be split from one group and joined to another. This is
incredibly useful for server applications that require high availability and perform heavy I/O. In this case, a
group of disks can be physically controlled by a separate host yet are members of a dynamic disk group
storing data for the host server application. This functionality allows splitting a mirror for backup and having
a separate server handle the backup. After the backup is completed, the split-off disk group is moved back
to the original server and joined to its former disk group, and the snapshot is re-associated with its original
volume and resynchronized. DGSJ also can be performed on the same server for same-host backup or for
reorganizing the disk groups on the server.
• FastResync - FastResync supports resynchronizing of mirrors by copying only changes for the temporarily
split mirror by using FastResync logging. This reduces the time that it takes to rejoin a split mirror with the
mirror set and also reduces the server CPU cycles needed to complete the resynchronization.
• Integration with Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) - Create point in time images of
Exchange Storage Groups using FlashSnap with the VxSnap utility or the VSS Snapshot Wizard. The VSS
Snapshot Wizard is available with the release of Storage Foundation 4.3 for Windows.
CREATING A SNAPSHOT COPY OF A VOLUME

Creating a volume snapshot provides a method for backing up the data contained in that volume with minimal
interruption to users. A volume snapshot is an exact copy, or temporary mirror, of a volume at a specific point in
time. When you create a snapshot, you create a temporary mirror of an existing volume, which is then detached
from the original volume, thereby creating an independent new volume or snapshot. You can then backup the
snapshot volume at a convenient time. When finished with the snapshot volume, it can be snapped with
FastResync. When snapped back, the volume will remain in a mirrored state until another snapshot operation is
performed. Ideally, a snspahot would remain independent of the original volume, ready to be used for quick
recovery in the event of a disaster or for off-host operations.
Volume Snapshot Phases

Volume snapshots have three primary phases:
1. The snapstart phase

The snapstart phase establishes a snapshot mirror of the volume to be backed up. The snapstart phase
of this operation may take a long time, depending on the size of the volume. The copy procedure used by
Storage Foundation during the snapstart phase is an atomic copy, which is similar to a full backup of the
volume.
2. The snapshot phase

The snapshot phase detaches the mirror from the
original volume and creates a new volume, which
is called the snapshot volume. The snapshot
volume is an exact copy of the original volume at
the time the snapshot phase begins.
3. The snapback phase

Using snapback reattaches the snapshot to the
volume. Storage Foundation will apply only the
volume updates that have taken place since the
mirror was snapped off.
NOTE: Snapclear clears the snapshot association between the original and snapshot volumes, leaving
them as independent volumes. Snapabort removes the snapshot relationship, with the option to
permanently remove the remove (delete) the snapshot mirror or convert it to a standard mirror. For more
information on snapclear and snapabort, refer to the Storage Foundation for Windows Administrator’s
Guide or the online help.
Creating a Snapshot Mirror

To create a snapshot-ready copy of a volume:
1. Right-click the volume to be snapshot and select Snap >Snap Start.
2. Select "Manually select disks" to specify a separate physical disk (or LUN) that can be used as the
destination for the snapshot mirror. When you are satisfied with your disk selection, click OK to begin the
snap creation process. In the Tasks tab, you can view the status of creating the snap.
After the Snap Start command completes, a new snapshot mirror is attached to DynVol1. The new
mirror is added to the Mirrors tab for the volume and given a “snapshot” icon. After the snapshot mirror is
synchronized with the volume, its status becomes Snap Ready.
With the establishment of the Snap Ready Volume, a disk change object (DCO) log volume is also
created for the original and snapshot volumes. The DCO volume is created to track the regions on a
volume that are changed while a mirror is detached, facilitating FastResync when re-associating the
snapshot volume. The DCO volume is not included in the tree view of the VEA. To view the DCO volume,
select the Disk View tab in the console (VEA) right pane.
Creating a Snapshot Volume:

To take a snapshot of a volume:
1. Right-click the volume, and select Snap > Snap Shot. The Snapshot Wizard appears. Click Next.
2. In the Select Volumes window, select DynVol1(H:) in the Available volumes pane. Click Add to move it
to the Selected volumes pane. Click Next.
3. Accept the defaults in the Change Attributes window. Click Next.
4. Click Finish.
The snapshot mirror is detached from the original volume, and a new volume is created that is associated
with the snapshot mirror. This process usually takes less than a minute. When complete, the snapshot
mirror is no longer displayed on the Mirrors tab for the original volume. The new snapshot volume is
displayed under the Volumes folder in the tree view.
At this point, the volume is a completely separate volume that is an exact copy of the previous volume at
the time the snapshot was created. Operations such as backup can now point to this volume and perform
their operation without any application disruption. The DCO logs track changes made to the primary and
snapshot volumes while the snapped volume is detached.
5. Verify: To verify, we’re going to repeat test we did to verify a mirrored volume was successfully broken off.
a. Using Microsoft Windows Explorer, note there are now two volumes available, they are the same size
and have the same amount of data on them.
b. Using Microsoft Windows Explorer, copy more data from the system volume to the primary data
volume (not the snapped volume).
c. Using Notepad, create a file on the snapped volume and insert some text.
Note in each case, the volumes act completely independently of each other and that you’re able to add,
edit and remove data from either volume. Once the Volume is snapped back, the data on both volumes
will be synchronized based upon the changes recorded in the DCO log. If you choose to synchronize
using the original volume, the text file that was created on the snapped volume will be removed. If you
choose to synchronize using the snapshot, all the data that was added to the original volume will be
removed and the text file will remain. By default, Storage Foundation for Windows synchronizes to the
original volume.
Resynchronize using the Snapshot Volume (a.k.a. Quick Recovery):

Depending on your goals, you can resynchronize a snapshot copy of a volume with the original volume or you can
resynchronize the original volume with your snapshot volume. If you just desire to “update” your snapshot image,
you’ll want to resynchronize your snapshot with the original volume. However, if you need to recover a corrupted
or lost volume, you need to resynchronize using your snapshot volume. In this exercise, we’re going to simulate
recovering our production volume from corruption. For this demonstration, after taking a snapshot of your
production volume, delete some data from the production volume (this will simulate a corrupted volume where you
lost data) and add a text file on the snapped volume..
To recover from a snapshot volume:
1. Right-click the corrupted volume (production volume in this

case), and select Snap >Snap Back.
2. In the dialog box, select Resynchronize using the snapshot.
Click OK.
NOTE: If you receive a message stating the volume is

currently in use, this usually means that something e.g.
Windows Explorer has “locked” the volume. Close the
application that has a lock on the volume and try the operation again.
3. Verify: Once the volume has resynchronized, note the following:
a. The snapshot volume is no longer separately addressable

b. The data deleted from the original volume has been recovered and the text file created on the
snapshot volume is still present.
MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER 2003 VSS ENABLED SNAPSHOTS
With the release of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft has introduced a new storage management
technology called Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS). VSS is a framework that allows users to perform volume
data snapshots using VSS-enabled applications and storage. VSS’ framework coordinates the data snapshot by
coordinating an application (e.g. Exchange Server 2003), storage (e.g. Storage Foundation FlashSnap or a
hardware provider), and a requesting application (e.g. backup application). Through the VSS coordination, MS
guarantees the integrity of the data snapshot.
VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows (VSFW) enables VSS snapshots by providing 2 of the 3 components
required: Requestor (VxSnap utility) and Provider (VSFW FlashSnap). Using Storage Foundation in combination
with the third VSS component, a Writer application like Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Storage Foundation can
perform these highly reliable data snapshots. To perform a VSS-enabled snapshot using Storage Foundation,
simply run the VxSnap command-line utility and provide the appropriate parameters. Storage Foundation will
communicate with the VSS framework to perform the snapshot. When complete, the data is presented in its own
volume and assigned a drive letter just like Storage Foundation does when doing a non-VSS snapshot.
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

With the release of version 4.3 of Storage Foundation for Windows, VSS snapshots of Exchange Storage Groups
can be done via the command line utility, VxSnap, or from the GUI (VEA) via the VSS Snapshot Wizard for
Microsoft Exchange.
Through these utilities, Storage Foundation and FlashSnap include full support for Microsoft Exchange Server
2003, allowing for full VSS backups, where transaction logs are truncated, and copy backups, where logs are not
truncated. This allows for the creation of snapshot backup sets, which can be used on-host for quickly recovering
Exchange. They can also be used either on-host or off-host for snapshot assisted backups via a traditional
backup application such as VERITAS’ Backup Exec or NetBackup. With full backups, ESEUTIL runs
automatically to check the integrity of the database(s) and transaction logs in the snapshot before the logs are
truncated. If the check fails, the logs are not truncated. ESEUTIL can also be optionally specified to run with a
copy backup. Restore types are point-in-time, where the databases and logs are recovered to the time of the
backup (snapshot), recovering the Exchange Storage Group to that point in time, and roll-forward or point-of-
failure, where a database or databases are restored, but the transaction logs are left intact, allowing for rolling
forward to the point at which the failure occurred. This allows for a single database, multiple databases or the
entire Storage Group to be recovered to the point of failure. VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows also
includes support for recovery after a hardware failure where the original volume(s) is(are) no longer available.
NOTE: To fully support a VSS snapshot, the application (called a Writer) creating the data to be snapshot (e.g.
Microsoft Exchange) must be VSS-enabled. For more information on Volume Shadow Copy Services, see
www.microsoft.com.
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows (versions 4.2 and 4.3) includes support for creating snapshot backup
sets of Microsoft SQL Server 2000. The VxSnapSQL utility leverages Microsoft SQL’s Virtual Device Interface
(VDI) to quiesce SQL before a snapshot is created, allowing for consistent snapshots of SQL databases and
transaction logs. Using these snapshot backup sets, SQL can be quickly recovered in the event of a disaster.
VxSnapSQL allows for three types of restore operations:
a. Recovery with log backups applied and the database brought online, returning the database to the
point of the last log backup specified,
b. Recovery without log backups and the database brought online, which returns the database to the
point at which the snapshot backup set was created, and
c. Recovery with the database left in a state where the user can replay log backups to any chosen point
in time via the SQL Server Enterprise Manager.
For more information on FlashSnap and SQL, see the VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows documentation.
PERFORMANCE BOOST USING VXCACHE

VxCache is a feature of Storage Foundation for Windows that boosts certain applications’ performance by
allowing the administrator to configure a portion of system memory as a cache for selected dynamic volumes.
Once VxCache is enabled for a specific volume(s), Storage Foundation determines the most frequently accessed
data on the volume and keeps the data in the cache. Since this data is stored in memory, access to this data will
be much faster.
Configuring VxCache requires two settings: Specifing the amount of physical memory that would be available on
the server for VxCache, and selecting the dynamic volumes on which VxCache will be enabled. As VxCache will
block out the specified portion of system memory, it’s important to understand how much of the system memory is
available by determining how much is being used by the Operating System and applications. On 32-bit systems
with more than 4 GB of physical memory, the Physical Address Extension (PAE) boot parameter (/PAE) can be
added to the Boot.ini to make this memory available to the system. VxCache can utilize PAE memory To assist in
managing the VxCache settings, Storage Foundation provides a monitor (VxCache Volume Monitor) that shows
the volume’s performance statistics based upon the settings specified.
Read-intensive applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server that can take advantage of PAE memory also
benefit from using VxCache. For example, performance testing in VERITAS labs has shown Exchange
performance improvements of as much as 40% by configuring VxCache.
For more information and instructions on how to configure VxCache, see the Administrator’s Guide found on the
Storage Foundation CD.
SEARCH AND REPORTING

Using the Search command, it is possible to generate a wide variety of reports that provide information on the
disk groups, disks, and volumes on each server. The results of these searches can be saved and imported into
Microsoft Excel or any other application that accepts tab-delimited text files. The results can be sorted, displayed
as graphs or charts, and imported into written reports or Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
In the example below, we will conduct a search for free space across all the disks managed by Storage
Foundation and save the results to a report.
1. Launch the Search dialog by selecting Search from the Tools menu.
2. In this search, we will look for all the disks managed by Storage Foundation that have at least 1GB of free
space. To do this:
a. Click the New Query tab in the Search window.
b. Select Disks in the Look for field.
c. Define tha attributes to search for. Select Free Space, At least, and 1 GB in the Define Criteria
fields.
d. Click the Add button to add the search criteria. If desired, additional search criteria can be added for
more refined searches. For now, we’ll just search for free disk space.
3. Click Search Now to conduct the search. The results should look similar to that below where disks with at
least 1GB free will be shown.
4. Select the Save Results button and save the file to the desired location without providing an extension.
Storage Foundation will save the file at the specified location with a .txt extension. The results are now
viewable in Excel similar to below:
5. To open the file in Microsoft Excel, launch Excel and select File > Open to open the .txt file saved by the
Storage Foundation search. Make sure to select “All Files (*.*)” from the “Files of type” drop-down
menu. Navigate to the correct file and click the Open button.
6. In the Text Import wizard that appears, do the following:
a. In step 1 you are asked to choose the file type that best describes your data. Select the Delimited
radio button and click Next.
b. In step 2 you are asked to choose a delimiter. Select the Tab check box and click Next.
c. In step 3 you are asked to choose the data format. Select the General radio button and click Next.
d. Click Finish. Your report will appear in Excel.
OTHER CAPABILITIES
HIGH AVAILABILITY: DYNAMIC MULTIPATHING
The Dynamic Multipathing (DMP) option adds fault tolerance to disk storage by making use of multiple paths
between a computer and a disk in a storage array. A path is the connection between the computer and the
storage array’s disks and consists of a host adapter and a SCSI bus connection to one or more SCSI disks or a
fiber optic channel connected to a hub or switch. Thus, multiple paths are made possible by connecting two or
more host bus adapters (HBAs) with either SCSI or fiber optic cabling to the storage array. The DMP software
manages the multiple paths so that only one path to the data on each of the array’s disks is accessible at a time
to the host computer. If a path to a disk fails, DMP will automatically transmit data to and from the disk over an
alternate path. DMP supports all the leading storage arrays including those listed in the table below. For the latest
information, refer to the DMP Hardware Compatibility List at www.veritas.com.
EMC Symmetric 3000 Series IBM FasT200/500/700

EMC Symmetric 8000 Series NEC iStorage 1000/2000/4000
Hitachi 9200 Thunder Series LSI E2400/4400/4600
Hitachi 9900 Lightning Series StorageTek D17x Series
HP/Compaq EMA12000/EMA16000 Hitachi Lightning 9900 V Series
HP/Compaq RA8000/MA8000 Hitachi Lightning 9500
IBM ESS Shark F10/F20 Fujitsu GR Series 7xxx
IBM Shark ESS800 HP SureStore XP128/XP1024
HP SureStore XP256/XP512 CLARiiON/Dell CX Series
Hitachi Freedom 5800 EMC Symmetrix 9000 Series
Hitachi Freedom 7700E Cisco VSFN
MTI Vivant 400 HP/Compaq EVA 3000/5000
With the release of VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.2 for Windows, Microsoft’s multipathing framework, MPIO,
which is included in Windows Server 2003, is now supported. MPIO uses device specific modules (DSM) to
manage specific arrays. These DSMs are developed by array vendors and third party software vendoes for
specific array families. Initial support was for the EMC Symmetrix and DMX families of arrays only. With the
release of version 4.3 of Storage Foundation for Windows, support has been added for HP, IBM and Hitachi HDS
arrays. See the HCL for the exact models supported. Additional array families will be added as DSMs are
developed for them.
With the introduction of MPIO comes a new multipathing algorithm – Dynamic Least Queue Depth, which routes
I/O based on the number of queued requests. The path with the least number of outstanding requests is chosen
for the next I/O request. Traditional DMP uses array specific libraries (ASL), and offers Active/Active and
Active/Passive modes. Active/Passive configurations include Active/Passive Concurrent, where all paths are
active, with each acting as the preferred path for specific disks/LUNs. Storage Foundation 4.3 also supports
SCSI-3 which allows for Active/Active load balancing in a cluster (VCS and MSCS). This support is included only
for MPIO DSMs used with the StorPort driver. The array also has to support SCSI-3 reservations.
CAMPUS OR GEO-CLUSTERING CLUSTERING SUPPORT
Campus Clustering is rapidly growing as the preferred choice for small to medium enterprises. Campus clustering
provides the ability to combine two host systems with two storage arrays connected together via fiber channel in
such a way that if one site fails, the clustered applications will be able to either remain online if the failure is at the
passive site, or brought online if the failure is at the active site. Storage Foundations for Windows is a key
technology in supporting this capability because data can be reliably mirrored between two arrays at fiber channel
speeds and distances. Thus, if a clustered system in building A fails, the failover system in Building B has the
most recent data available and can assume control immediately.
PERFORMANCE TUNING
S.M.A.R.T Monitoring
Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) is available on many new SCSI and ATAPI
disks. S.M.A.R.T. provides a way for disks to self-check certain physical conditions that are useful predictors of
disk failure, and send an alert when conditions indicate that a failure may soon occur. This allows administrators
to take preventative action to protect the data on the disk. In order to receive alerts in the Storage Foundation
Event Log, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring must be enabled for the global configuration and also on each disk you want
checked. The default is to have S.M.A.R.T. monitoring disabled.
Historical Statistics Collection and Graphing

The historical statistics collection and graphing function allows you to monitor one or more storage objects (disks,
subdisks, or volumes) over time and to create individual graphs for these storage objects. You invoke the
graphing function by right-clicking a storage object and then selecting the command Graph Historical Statistics
Information from the context menu that appears. However, the command will not be available on the context
menu without being setup first. This information can be very useful when determining device load over time or
determining critical I/O bottlenecks. An example of statistic graphing is below:
WHERE TO GO FROM HERE
By now you’ve seen first-hand a few of the powerful capabilities of Storage Foundation for Windows v4.2 and how
applications, administrators, and enterprises can benefit. For more information, go to the VERITAS web site
(www.veritas.com) or contact a local VERITAS representative.
LDM – STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS FEATURE COMPARISON

CHART
Feature Comparison W2K3 VERITAS
LDM VSFW
Storage Management
Storage Management & Reporting x x
Heterogeneous Storage Management x x
Command Line Interface (CLI) x x
Storage Event Log x
Drag & Drop GUI x
Proactive Storage Resource Monitoring x
SNMP Framework Support x
S.M.A.R.T. Disk Monitoring x
Capacity Monitoring x
Paging/Email x
Custom Monitoring Settings x
Storage Reporting x
Dynamic Disk Support
Disk Group Support x
Multiple Disk Groups x
Read Only Disk Groups x
Importing/Deporting Dynamic Groups x
Dynamic Disk Support x x
Simple Volumes x x
Spanned Volumes x x
Striped Volumes (RAID 0) x x
Mirrored Volumes (RAID 1) 2 Sets 32 Sets
Striped RAID Volumes (RAID 5) x x
Mirrored Striped Volumes (RAID 0+1) x
Dynamic Online Volume Creation/Growth x x
Simple/Spanned Volumes x x
Striped Volumes (RAID 0) x
Mirrored Volumes (RAID 1) x
RAID-5 Volumes x
Mirrored Striped Volumes (RAID 1+0) x
Automatic Volume Growth x
Dynamic Relayout x
Performance
Performance Enhancement X
VxCache X
Load Balancing: Sub-Disk Move x
Preferred Read Plex (Mirror) x
Performance Reporting x
Performance Monitoring & Tuning x
Feature Comparison W2K3 VERITAS
LDM VSFW
Online Volume & Disk Statistics x
Capacity Monitoring x
Event Monitoring x
Historical Graph of Disk Activity x
Hot Spot Detection x
Set Volume Usage x
Availability
Root Disk Encapsulation x x
Storage Availability x
Dirty Region Logging (DRL) x
RAID Volume Logging x
Disk Replacement x
Disk Evacuation x
Hot Relocation x
VERITAS Dynamic Multipathing Option
Heterogeneous Array Support x
Path Failover Protection x
Path Load Balancing x
VERITAS Flashsnap Option
VSS Support x x
VSS Snapshot Provider x x
VSS Snaphot Requester x
Snapshot Support x x
Split Mirror Snapshots x
Copy-on-Write Snapshots x
Dynamic Group Split & Join (DGSJ) x
Veritas Fast Resync x
Clustering Option
Campus Clustering x
Dynamic Disk Support with MSCS x
Fault Tolerant MSCS Quorum Resources x
Private Disk Group Protection x
HA/DR Options
Clustering Option x x
Volume Replicator Option x
Global Clustering Option x
SUMMARY
VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows saves you money by managing all storage of any kind in any location
efficiently—maintaining application availability. This document introduced to you just a few of the many features
within Storage Foundation 4.1 for Windows demonstrating “how” Storage Foundation 4.1 for Windows works and
how it can solve real-world problems. Specifically, we covered:
• Basics of VERITAS Storage Foundation 4.2 for Windows

• Installation of Storage Foundation 4.2 for Windows and creation of a Dynamic Disk Group
• A brief walk-through of the VERITAS Enterprise Administrator console
• Sub-disk move via drag/drop
• On-line growth without system reboot
• Create a mirrored volume
• Create a snapshot of a volume and simulated off-host processing and then resynchronization
• Demonstrated how to perform a rapid recovery of an entire volume
• Discussed the advantages of using VSS-enabled snapshots
• Demonstrated both Searching and how to create reports
• Provided links to additional information
Why Use VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows?

Imagine your Exchange server running out of disk space. To add more storage, you need to take the server
down, attach a new drive, and resize the volume—disrupting service to users. If your Exchange server was using
Storage Foundation for Windows Storage, you could simply resize the volume—assigning storage from a
separate physical disk or even from a totally separate controller/disk array—all while the Exchange server
remains up and servicing users. Even better, using Storage Foundation for Windows you could take a snapshot of
the Exchange storage groups and transaction logs and use the snapshot to recover in minutes in the event of a
virus, data corruption or other failure.
Benefits of using VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows for virtual storage management include:
• Rapid Recovery: Storage Foundation for Windows’ FlashSnap can be used to take snapshots of application
data volumes (like Exchange). These snapshots can then be used to perform rapid data recoveries in the
event the production volume has become unusable.
• High Availability: Storage Foundation for Windows can be applied to hardware you already own to provide
additional levels of RAID, system and path redundancies, and other features that will keep your systems up
and running “24/forever.” With dynamic volume creation and online volume growth, there is no need to reboot
or plan downtime for storage reconfigurations.
• Enhanced Performance/Data Migration: Storage Foundation for Windows lets you optimize storage and
Microsoft Exchange Server performance by leveraging underutilized memory and identifying storage
bottlenecks and allowing you to migrate data from Direct-attached Storage (DAS) to Storage Area Networks
(SAN) while applications and their data remain online and available. By simply configuring VxCache
parameters, SFW will tell applications like Microsoft Exchange Server to provide write-thru caching for
specific I/O-intensive volumes thereby improving performance of the application because heavy I/O can be
stored and accessed from memory instead of from disk. On the storage side, data can be spread across
several disks within an array to distribute or balance I/O operations across the disks. Using parallel I/O across
multiple disks improves I/O performance by increasing data transfer speed and overall throughput for the
array. When VxCache combines with Storage Foundation’s storage load balancing capability, the value of
SFW really shines.
• Automation: Ability to automate the management of storage including growth without administrator
intervention or server re-boots.
• Simplified, Centralized Storage Management: Storage Foundation for Windows enables online
administration from a single management console across multiple hosts. The easy-to-use interface simplifies
disk administration tasks, such as adding or moving storage resources or data.
• Heterogeneous storage management: Abstraction of physical disks allows you to work with storage
equipment from multiple vendors, and provides you with capabilities to migrate volumes dynamically, giving
you more equipment choices. You no longer need to be locked into single vendor solutions. Furthermore, you
can use the storage you have more efficiently by creating and managing volumes better, thus saving on
additional disk purchases.
• Complex multi-disk configuration: Storage Foundation for Windows virtual objects enable you to create
complex disk configurations that enhance performance and reliability. Multi-disk configurations, such as
striping, mirroring, or RAID configurations, can provide data redundancy, performance improvements, and
high availability.
The features and functions highlighted above were meant to be just an introduction to VERITAS Storage
Foundation for Windows. If you manage large disk arrays, have applications that require high availability, have
high recoverability, and/or you plan to deploy either Microsoft Cluster Server or VERITAS Cluster Server,
VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows is an absolute must-have.
VERITAS Software Corporation For additional information about
Corporate Headquarters VERITAS Software, its products, or the
350 Ellis Street location of an office near you, please call
Mountain View, CA 94043 our corporate headquarters or visit our
650-527-8000 or 866-837-4827 Web site at www.veritas.com.

VERITAS Storage Foundation™ For Windows Technical Review Guide

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

VERITAS Storage Foundation™ For Windows Technical Review Guide

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

VERITAS Storage Foundation™ For Windows Technical Review Guide

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

WHIT E PAPER

VERITAS Storage Foundation™ For Windows

Understanding Features, Options and Benefits Of

• Create a Dynamic Disk Group and Dynamic Volume

STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS – BASIC DESCRIPTION

Volumes created by Storage Foundation for Windows

Hardware-based RAID presents a set of disks, also called

STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS – DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Storage Foundation for Windows objects include:

• Basic and Dynamic disks

Basic Disk Group

Dynamic Disk Groups

Storage Foundation dynamic volume layouts include:

• Concatenated – Concatenated volumes can be Simple

Why Upgrade from LDM to VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows?

INSTALLING VERITAS STORAGE FOUNDATION FOR WINDOWS

Installing VERITAS Storage Foundation for Windows

• A hierarchical object tree,

To create a new dynamic disk group using the VEA Console:

To create a new dynamic volume:

THE POWER OF SUBDISKS

To move a subdisk using the VEA console:

To split and join a subdisk using the VEA console:

To demonstrate this, we’re going to:

ONLINE VOLUME GROWTH – MANUAL (WITHOUT REBOOT)

For our demonstration, select a volume to expand.

Resizing a Dynamic Volume manually:

To extend a dynamic volume across one or more dynamic disks:

3. Using the VEA console, right-click the dynamic volume

4. The Expand Volume window is displayed.

b. Select “Manually assign destination

c. Click OK to complete the procedure.

CAPACITY MONITORING AND AUTOMATIC VOLUME GROWTH

ENABLING CAPACITY MONITORING AND AUTOMATIC VOLUME GROWTH

Enable Capacity Monitoring

Why should you care?

VOLUME MIRRORING / OFF-HOST PROCESSING

COMMON QUICK RECOVERY AND OFF-HOST PROCESSING TASKS

VERITAS FLASHSNAP™ OPTION

CREATING A SNAPSHOT COPY OF A VOLUME

Volume Snapshot Phases

1. The snapstart phase

2. The snapshot phase

3. The snapback phase

Creating a Snapshot Mirror

Creating a Snapshot Volume:

Resynchronize using the Snapshot Volume (a.k.a. Quick Recovery):

To recover from a snapshot volume:

1. Right-click the corrupted volume (production volume in this

NOTE: If you receive a message stating the volume is

3. Verify: Once the volume has resynchronized, note the following:

a. The snapshot volume is no longer separately addressable

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

PERFORMANCE BOOST USING VXCACHE

SEARCH AND REPORTING

EMC Symmetric 3000 Series IBM FasT200/500/700

Historical Statistics Collection and Graphing