NAS client configuration for intellisnap for 'generic' volumes

Hi @mzator,

Generic volume support does not really exist - Commvault’s job is to backup the application and hence there should be an application level attachment to the storage using the correct agent (VSA in this case).

I understand what the customer wants to achieve -  But Commvault is all built around consistency for the app to ensure successful retoration. Backing up a raw volume while applications are writing data is a really poor strategy and bound to cause consistency issues - if anything it may be a good last ditch effort if other recovery methods fail, but I would not trust the data on those volumes protected in this way.

The correct way to do this is an intellisnap enabled VSA backup, which ensures the VM is consistent inside the guest, and the VM disk is made consistent via VMware VADP snapshot.

The customer may be better off scheduling volume level snapshots from within NetApp, as Commvault isn't really adding any value without orchestrating the consistency other than perhaps managing the retention.

Another not-recommended way to do this is to create a single VM with Intellisnap and ensure it has VMDK disks on each volume/datastore the customer wants to backup and replicate. Every volume will be snapped and replicated as without using something like VVOL, you can’t just replicate data for a single VM on a volume - the whole volume must be included.

To restore, you’d mount the VM using the vault copy and then copy the data off those volumes manually. Really dirty way to achieve this outcome and I would not recommend it!