Netapp Snapmirror & periodic updates setup

Setting up snapmirror between two Netapp devices is very easy and straightforward process as long as one has Snapmirror license. :) This is a 5 step process outlines below:

1) Make sure snapmirror license is installed on both source and destination filers.
2) Setup snapmirror options to allow both source/destination to do snapmirrors
3) Setup snapmirror and if needed, periodic updates/ data refresh
4) At the time of cut-over, do the final update - quiesce - break
5) Remove the extra snapshots created during this process.

In following example, trying to do snapmirror from filer01:/vol/vol01 to filer02:/vol/vol02.

# rsh filer02 options snapmirror 
snapmirror.access            host=*     
snapmirror.checkip.enable    off        
snapmirror.delayed_acks.enable on         
snapmirror.enable            on         
snapmirror.log.enable        on         
snapmirror.vbn_log_enable    off        (value might be overwritten in takeover)
#
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# rsh filer02 snapmirror initialize  -S filer01:vol01 filer02:vol02 
Transfer started.
Monitor progress with 'snapmirror status' or the snapmirror log.
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#  rsh filer02 snapmirror status 
Snapmirror is on.
Source                       Destination                   State          Lag        Status
filer01:vol01                filer02:vol02                 Uninitialized  -          Transferring  (180 MB done)
#
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#  rsh filer02 snapmirror status 
Snapmirror is on.
Source                       Destination                   State          Lag        Status
filer01:vol01                filer02:vol02                 Source         -          Idle
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NOTE: At this stage, the snapmirror refresh can be setup using /etc/snapmirror.conf file. The file looks like below. In this example, data is getting refreshed every 0th minute of every hour:
#
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# rsh filer02 rdfile /etc/snapmirror.conf 
filer01:vol01  filer02:vol02    -  0 * * *  
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When cutover is needed, do the following:
1) Disable entries from /etc/snapmirror.conf
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# rsh  filer02 snapmirror quiesce    filer02:vol02 
#
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# rsh  filer02 snapmirror break   filer02:vol02 
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At this stage, delete any extra snapshots which might not be needed anymore.
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