Best Practice MS SQL Always On and intellisnap Netapp

 Hello ​@pgian 

There is information located here:https://documentation.commvault.com/2024e/expert/getting_started_with_microsoft_sql_server_agent.html

It includes setup/requirements and some common best practices and troubleshooting.

“In particular I can't find details specifying where to place the system databases, user data files, and their corresponding transaction logs.”
this is not really specific to CV but any database that you want to snap must be on the array. Sometimes MSSQL install the system dbs are on local disk and user databases are on array disk. This is fine but you would have to create a subcleint for those system dbs and run regular backups as they could not be snapped. 

Thank you Scott.

For Disk setup on vmware side there is not best practice for intellisnap backup, correct?

I m referring on this three method:

-Raw Device Mapping physical mode

-Raw Device Mapping virtual mode

-virtual disk vmdk

For the users database.

That is a very good point. If the server is a vm remember that intellisnap must see the disks where the database files are as an array disk. If the disk is presented from vmware the OS sees this as a direct attached disk and an array snapshot cannot be performed. They should be presented via RDM or iscsi

I am not certain but on RDM virtual mode I believe that still hides the hardware array info.
Once setup there is a tool that can be used to test snapshots, etc
https://documentation.commvault.com/2024e/essential/snap_environment_analysis.html

Hi Scott,

Looks like the only way to get Intellisnap + SQL Agent is to mount RMD Luns as you said.

We tried to mount SQL disk by dedicated Datastore and vmdk, but what happen is that when out Vmware polociy start will just snap this datastore beocuse configured in the virtual machine.

if I try to do a backup using SQL Agent and IntelliSnap of a subclient containing one database, I get this error:"

Device passed in for operation is not a NetApp device OR the NetApp filer credentials haven't been entered OR the NetApp filer credential have been entered incorrectly. Please check if the subclient content is on a NetApp volume/the NetApp filer credentials. : [[\\.\PhysicalDrive4] is not a NetApp device OR the NetApp filer credentials haven't been entered ORthe NetApp filer credential have been entered incorrectly. Please check the subclient content/NetApp filer credentials.]

Would be nice to have a Document form CM saying this requirment.. probably i’m unable to find it also if exist..

Yes correct, you can still backup the databases on those disks just create a separate subclient for those DBs and you can run streaming backups and still snap the DBs that reside on the array.

We will look into adding a line in documentation