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Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence

Created: 18 Nov 2012 | 9 comments
mikebounds's picture
mikebounds Trusted Advisor Accredited
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Are there any documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence, preferably a single document or article

in the "Getting Started guide" it gives a highlevel overview so it says an Enterprise licence gives

 

Veritas Quick I/O option
Veritas Extension for Oracle Disk Manager option
Veritas Database Storage Checkpoint option
Veritas Database Flashsnap
Veritas Database Dynamic Storage Tiering
but it doesn't say what flashsnap gives you or tell you what documentation you need to refer to, to find this out.  I found some information for flashsnap in the "Veritas Storage Foundation Advanced Features Administrator's Guide", but this is not very detailed - it says:

 

The following kinds of point-in-time copy solution are supported by the FlashSnap
licence:
■ Volume-level solutions are made possible by the persistent FastResync and
   Disk Group Split/Join features of Veritas Volume Manager. These features are
   suitable for implementing solutions where the I/O performance of the
   production server is critical.
 
■ File system-level solutions use the Storage Checkpoint feature of Veritas File
   System. Storage Checkpoints are suitable for implementing solutions where
   storage space is critical for:
   ■ File systems that contain a small number of mostly large files.
   ■ Application workloads that change a relatively small proportion of file
      system data blocks (for example, web server content and some databases).
   ■ Applications where multiple writable copies of a file system are required
      for testing or versioning.
This is not very clear as this reads as if Storage Checkpoint are part of flashsnap, but the "Getting Starting Guide" says these are separate features, but this doesn't really matter as Enterprise license gives you both features, but it is not clear what snapshot features and other features flashsnap gives.  So for example, the Volume Admin guide lists several types of snapshots:
■ Traditional third-mirror break-off snapshots
■ Full-sized instant snapshots
■ Space-optimized instant snapshots
■ Emulation of third-mirror break-off snapshots
■ Linked break-off snapshot volumes
■ Cascaded snapshots
 
So which of these snapshots are made available with the flashsnap licence - the "Advanced Features" guide says
These features are suitable for implementing solutions where the I/O performance of the production server is critical.
If I/O performance is critical, then you use full snapshots such as "Traditional third-mirror break-off snapshots", rather than Copy-On-Write snapshots such as "Space-optimized instant snapshots" so that Production writes are not impacted by snapshot writes, so this would imply that flashsnap gives you  "Traditional third-mirror break-off snapshots" and not "Space-optimized instant snapshots", but I am pretty sure this is not the case and I THINK that flashsnap gives you:
  1. Snapshots that need DCOs (generally created with "vxsnap") so you don't need Flashsnap for snapshots without DCOs (generally created with "vxassist snap".  Now even though DCOs give the ability to fast resync, even if you don't need this, you may still need a DCO so for instance if you need the abiltity to create a mirror in a separate diskgroup, then you need "Linked break-off snapshot volumes", but you may never snap back, so don't need fastresync, but I think you MUST create DCO (run vxsnap prepare) for "Linked break-off snapshot volumes" and therefore I THINK you need flashsnap.  So I THINK all snapshots require flashsnap apart from "Traditional third-mirror break-off snapshots"
     
  2. Diskgroup split and join
     
  3. Site awareness feature

What features are available with a licence change by version, so any docs which explain what the Enterprise license gives would be appreciated.

Mike

 

 

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TonyGriffiths's picture
TonyGriffiths Symantec Employee Technical Support Accredited Certified
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:19 Nov 2012 : Link

Hi Mike,

There is a feature table in the Solutions guide that may assist some of your queries. Here is the link:

https://sort.symantec.com/public/documents/sfha/6....

cheers

tony

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mikebounds's picture
mikebounds Trusted Advisor Accredited
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:19 Nov 2012 : Link

Thank Tony, but this is the same table I referred to above in the 5.1 Getting Started Guide which looks like it moved to Solutions Solutions guide in 6.0 ("Solutions Solutions" guide is not a typo as it seems a few docs contain the word solutions like "Solutions Getting Starting guide", so solutions guide is called "Solutions Solutions" - not a great name !!).  This table does not tell you what features Flashsnap gives you, so I am looking for something more like the previous table in the doc, but this table is not that useful - it says Flashsnap gives you the following "Use Cases":

 

Process your data off-host to avoid
performance loss to your production hosts
by using SFHA Solutions volume snapshots.
 
Optimize copies of your production database 
for test, decision modeling, and development
purposes by using SFHA Solutions
point-in-time copy methods.
 
Make file level point-in-time snapshots using
SFHA Solutions space-optimized FileSnap
when you need finer granualarity for your
point-in-time copies than file systems or
volumes. You can use FileSnap for cloning
virtual machines.
So this read as saying "volume snapshots" and "point-in-time copy" are 2 different features, but I thought these were one in the same as the 5.1 VxVM admin guide says:
 
VxVM can take an image of a volume at a given point in time. This image is called
a volume snapshot.
 
But it used to be the case that "Traditional third-mirror break-off snapshots" did NOT require Flashsnap - is this still the case?  If so, where does it tell me this - the "Solutions Solutions" guide has a lot of stuff about point-in-time copies, but I can't find anywhere it says that "Traditional third-mirror break-off snapshots" do NOT require Flashsnap.
 
Also for Site Awareness, there was a whole sections in 5.1 Vxvm admin guide called "Administering sites and remote mirrors" and I THOUGHT this required an Enterprise license, but this section does not even exist in 6.0 SF Admin guide, so does this feature required an Enterprise license or does this feauture no longer exist (I can find references to siteconsistent and allsites attributes, but they are not explained in 6.0).
 
Mike
 
 

 

UK Symantec Consultant in VCS, GCO, SF, VVR, VxAT on Solaris, AIX, HP-ux, Linux & Windows

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jdangelo_symc's picture
jdangelo_symc Symantec Employee
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:19 Nov 2012 : Link

Mike,

I believe this should be what you are looking for.

https://sort.symantec.com/support/related_links/feature_support

This breaks down each edition (STD, ENT) of SF as well as by version (CFSHA/SFRAC) organized by release (5.x - 6.x).

Joe D

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mikebounds's picture
mikebounds Trusted Advisor Accredited
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:20 Nov 2012 : Link

Thanks Joe, this was exactly what I was looking for, however, I don't think this document is correct.  This says  Space optimized instant snapshots work with a standard licence and I think this is incorrect as the vxsnap manual says

If a valid FlashSnap(TM) license for FastResync is not present on the system, the prepare operation turns on dirty region logging (DRL) but not FastResync for a volume.

If FastResync is turned off, the addmir, dis (for leaf nodes only), make (for break-off snapshots only), print, reattach, rmmir, and split operations are permitted. The reattach operation requires a full resynchronization.

The refresh and restore operations, and the creation using make of full-sized or space-optimized instant snapshots are not permitted if FastResync is turned off.

Add this eeems to be the case, as I tested in 5.1 and when I prepared a volume, fastsync was not turned on and when I tried a vxsnap make a space optimized instant snapshots, I got an error saying "Volume does not have Fastresync enabled"

Mike

UK Symantec Consultant in VCS, GCO, SF, VVR, VxAT on Solaris, AIX, HP-ux, Linux & Windows

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jdangelo_symc's picture
jdangelo_symc Symantec Employee
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:20 Nov 2012 : Link

Mike,

I've been pinging folks for a while know on this exact topic.  It would seem that there was a bit of a discrepancy with regard to FlashSnap when this document was authored.  Let me clear this up once and for all and I will see that this document is updated accordingly.

Joe D

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mikebounds's picture
mikebounds Trusted Advisor Accredited
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:20 Nov 2012 : Link

Thanks Joe, I am not sure the manual is right either as I tried the following and they ALL fail when fastresync is off:

 

# vxsnap -g testdg make source=vol1/newvol=so-snap-vol1/cache=cache_object
VxVM vxassist ERROR V-5-1-10117 Volume vol1 does not have Fastresync enabled.

 

 

# vxsnap -g testdg make source=vol1/snapvol=snapvol
VxVM vxassist ERROR V-5-1-10117 Volume snapvol does not have Fastresync enabled.
 
# vxsnap -g testdg addmir vol1
VxVM vxsnap ERROR V-5-1-10117 Volume vol1 does not have Fastresync enabled.
 
# vxsnap -g testdg addmir vol1 mirvol=vol1 mirdg=targetdg
VxVM vxsnap ERROR V-5-1-13542 Volume vol1 does not have Fastresync enabled.
VxVM vxsnap ERROR V-5-1-12745 Unable to create mirror relationship between volume vol1 (dg testdg) and volume vol1 (dg targetdg)
 
So I can't find any vxsnap command to create a snapshot that works with Fastresync off.
 
Mike

 

UK Symantec Consultant in VCS, GCO, SF, VVR, VxAT on Solaris, AIX, HP-ux, Linux & Windows

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mikebounds's picture
mikebounds Trusted Advisor
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:25 Mar 2013 : Link

Hi Joe, do you have any updates for this post as I see https://sort.symantec.com/support/related_links/feature_support has not been updated yet so this doc is still incorrect and I believe the man pages are wrong too

Mike

UK Symantec Consultant in VCS, GCO, SF, VVR, VxAT on Solaris, AIX, HP-ux, Linux & Windows

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jdangelo_symc's picture
jdangelo_symc Symantec Employee
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:25 Mar 2013 : Link

Mike, do you want to hit me up with this on a private email?

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mikebounds's picture
mikebounds Trusted Advisor
Documents to explain what detailed features are available for each licence - Comment:26 Mar 2013 : Link

Hi Joe,

I am reasonably sure (but not 100%) what detailed features are available for Enterprise license and I started this post as I was answering another post and wanted to refer to what the Enterprise License actually gave you as I didn't want to have to think about and list the 50+ features myself, but I couldn't find a document and I didn't think that one existed (and I guess neither did Tony - a VERY experienced SF guy as he pointed me to the overview information which is the only information I previously knew about)

But you provided EXACTLY the document I was looking for, but it is incorrect, so when I got asked on the forum yesterday:

 

Grateful if you could advise whether we require SFHA enterprise on all the node or SFHA standard.

I didn't want to answer see https://sort.symantec.com/support/related_links/feature_support as I know some of this is incorrect, so I instead directed them to this post, which means they will have to correlate information from spreadsheet with information in this post to work out what the feautures are in the Enterprise license, which is not ideal.  
So I am just querying when this doc will be updated and I would also recommend you reference this documention from the Product PDFs once it is correct.
 
Mike

 

 

UK Symantec Consultant in VCS, GCO, SF, VVR, VxAT on Solaris, AIX, HP-ux, Linux & Windows

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