Hello together,
today again a fresh podcast for you. This time Stefan and I talk to Murat Bölükler from ProLion about SnapMirror to S3 and how the Restore Manager can help with this.
As a special innovation, we also created a transcript of the podcast this time. Freely following the motto: “If you don’t want to hear, you have to read” 😉
Transcript
Andre: Welcome to the Data Stefan and The Schmitz Podcast. Our topic today Prolion Restore Manager. Have fun!
Stefan: Hello Andre!
Andre: Hello Stefan
Stefan: and of course, Hello dear listeners, we have an extraordinary guest for you today, and we have invited the Murat from ProLion.
Stefan: Servus Murat
Murat: Hello Stefan, hello Andre, greet you
Andre: Welcome, Murat. We invited you for a particular reason. In 2020, NetApp introduced the new ONTAP 9.8, a feature called SnapMirror to S3. This means that I can now mirror all my data on-premises on my NetApp into an S3 target. And there’s the big question who controls the whole thing? And how do I get back to the files when I get them back?
Murat: Yes, we can definitely help with our solution with the Restore Manager. And yes, the Restore Manager is our solution that we have been using for many years or that NetApp customers have been making available to create a catalog around an index of the NetApp snapshot. And now with the ONTAP 9.8, we also have full support for the topic SnapMirrorCloud and then provide a solution with the Restore Manager to build exactly this relationship, to use this relationship, and also to be able to manage, which also pushes the topic data towards S3 and also retrieves it from S3.
Andre: What is special about the manager of ProLion as opposed to Veeam or CommVault? Can they do that at all?
Murat: So what we do with the Restore Manager is like all our other solutions. We always go to the APIs of the NetApp, the APIs that The NetApp provides us with. And here, in this special example of the Restore Manager, we go to the SnapDiffv3 API. The SnapDiff API is an API that is only available for NetApp alliance partners. And with this Native API, we have exactly the possibility to analyze the NetApp snapshots once to index them. And we use this API for two solutions, one the RestoreManager and one our DataAnalyzer. And that’s where the crux is in there. We are allowed to use the SnapDiff V3 API and have developed our solution accordingly in this direction.
Andre: Murat A short question What’s behind this SnapDiff API?
Murat: So yes, the SnapDiff API gives us exactly the opportunity. Stephan And these yes to access the NetApp snapshot and look into these NetApp snapshots and much of what we do in this case with the Restore Manager make it to build a central file catalog of erm yes all files that are in the SnapShots. This gives us the opportunity to search for individual files. Then it goes down again with different filters to search for individual parameters. What file do I want to find here? By file name, by file types? By size? When was a file created, when was it deleted, et cetera. All these filter possibilities I then have in the Restore Manager in the portal, so to speak. We let the Restore Manager crawl through the snapshots once via the Snap Diff API and create a database in which all this, yes, all this information is then stored. The Restore Manager then accesses them at the end of the day and knows exactly what about it. What snapshots do I have on my systems, what data is, and what data are in these snapshots? Of course, it is on my NetApp Primary System, is it on my Secondary System, or is it on S3? And just over this surface, I have the possibility to select the whole and then control the restore over it.
Andre: Now the Murat hasn’t answered the question, what SnapDiff is exactly, so I’ll do it to Stephan. So SnapDiff, as the name suggests, shows the difference between two snapshots, and I think the Restore Manager goes in and looks at the changes, which have been there so that everything doesn’t have to be recataloging again and again. Speaking of cataloging, Murat. Where does this Restore Manager work? Is this a cloud application, or how do I imagine it?
Murat: So the Restore Manager is an application that can run anywhere in quotation marks. Basically as a virtual machine in the customer environment itself, but also, of course. Yes, it can also be made available as a Baremetal server with or can be installed. And then, it runs in the customer’s environments to access the NetApp systems here.
Stefan: That sounds very good. I want to take such a small look into the future. The Restore Manager is very, very easy to use for the administrator. But I have read, it should also come at some point Self Service, where virtually the users can pull out their own files. When can we expect that, Murat?
Murat: That’s a good question. Here are also many greetings to my colleague from the development. I can’t answer very easily at the moment when exactly we can expect this, which is definitely the case that we are investing a lot in the development of the Restore Manager and also our other solutions at the moment. And I think yes, I don’t know. It’s a bit difficult to give a number, but in the near future, this feature will certainly be available.
Andre: He didn’t mention the name Roadmap. But what we all know nothing changes faster than the roadmap. Now I have a question. Now I have this Restore Manager Manager running as a virtual machine with me in the area, and for some reason, it breaks me. Are all my backups gone, or what does that mean?
Murat: No, not at all. After all, there is no data in the Restore Manager. The Restore Manager only knows where the data is. My snapshot is still there; my yes means all my data is still there. And if the Restore Manager breaks in quotation marks for whatever reason, then the worst thing I would have to do would be to have the index re-created by the Restore Manager, and with that, I have all the information about it again. But I definitely don’t have a data loss because the restore manager breaks.
Andre: That sounds cool. Now you just mentioned another product Data Analyzer. What am I supposed to mean by that?
Murat: Yes, that’s just the one we call it the brother of the Restore Manager because with the Data Analyzer, we go to the same API from one of the NetApp to the SnapDiff API, and with the Data Analyzer, we then or our customers have the opportunity to do different analyses of the systems. So it’s time to look into the snapshots again, compare the snapshots in quotation marks and look in there again. What data is often in my snapshots? How old are the data? How hot or how cold is the data? Who owns the data from whom? Who uses the data, et cetera. And here to make various analyses in any direction.
Stefan: What is the target customer for the Restore Manager? Is this the one who wants to back up virtual machines or what? What do you say? Where is the main starting point for you?
Murat: Yes, the main sentence point, isn’t it? The target customer is, of course, the customer who uses CIFS on the NetApp. So he wants to move his data between different NetApp systems or in the direction of S3 in a very efficient and simple way, with the NetApp snapshots, with the NetApp on-board means such as SnapVaults, SnapMirror and also wants to move between different NetApp system or towards S3 here. I call it small environments in quotation marks that are simply looking for a very, very lean solution and of course also huge environments, because nothing erm, yes, is as efficient as a snapshot and also like SnapMirror and SnapCloud, to move my data from A to B in large quantities.
Stefan: Murat, I still have a question. What about licensing? From Restore Manager
Murat: Also very, very simple.
Murat: And for the most part, we only license our solutions to the number and models of NetApp controllers, i.e., our licenses are controller-based, and with the Restore Manager we have the charming advantage that our customers only have to license the primary page and thus the licenses for the secondary systems and also in the direction of S3 Restore Manager are already included. So just controller-based. And at the end of the day, the customer doesn’t have to worry if he grows incapacity or anything else. So, technically, the license is all with it.
Stefan: That’s very good that it doesn’t go to Terabyte. Otherwise, it could be costly with some customers under animator.
Andre: It’s pretty fast. Murat Thank you for being with us. We thank you for the insights into the Restore Manager, and I think it’s certainly worth a look for any NetApp customer who runs CIFS on their machine. Let’s take a look. I say Chess. Ciao until the next time it is called again now there is something on the ears.
Murat: Thank you! See ya.
Stefan: Thank you very much, Murat, and thank you for listening. See you again soon. Ciao Servus.