Considering a VSA to hold a few TB of SQL data (low transactions just large).
I don't know if the LUN would be presented to the SQL box via MS iSCSI initiator, or as a VMDK, but I'm a bit unclear on:
a) Lefthand "Software agents" for SQL to ensure a "clean" snapshot?
b) Licensing - AIUI these are NOT included in the VSA license? Any part codes or ballpark costs?
Thanks,
Paul
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With the new release of VSS-Provider and CMC-GUI from November you can do "Application Managed Snapshots" direct from the LeftHand GUI. This works for non-virtualized Windows Servers incl. 2008R2. As far as i know it works with with RAW-Devices for VMware.
We snapshot a few high performing SQL databases. We present the volume to SQL through iSCSI. We've tried presenting it as a VMDK as well, but it seemed to perform worse.
We've restored many DB's without issue using just the standard LHN snapshot (no application managed version). I believe that is the same thing as what you would get with the VSA software.
If you were nervous, you could also just do a SQL Backup (.bak file) to another connected volume as well. There's quite a few options when it comes to SQL backups.
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