Migrating to FSx for ONTAP using NetApp SnapMirror - FSx for ONTAP
Before you beginCreate the destination volumeRecord the source and destination inter-cluster LIFsEstablish cluster peering between source and destinationCreate an SVM peering relationshipCreate the SnapMirror relationshipTransfer data to your FSx for ONTAP file systemCutting over to Amazon FSx
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Migrating to FSx for ONTAP using NetApp SnapMirror

You can migrate your NetApp ONTAP file systems to Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP using NetApp SnapMirror.

NetApp SnapMirror employs block-level replication between two ONTAP file systems, replicating data from a specified source volume to a destination volume. We recommend using SnapMirror to migrate on-premise NetApp ONTAP file systems to FSx for ONTAP. NetApp SnapMirror's block-level replication is quick and efficient even for file systems with:

  • Complex directory structures

  • Over 50 million files

  • Very small file sizes (on the order of kilobytes)

When you use SnapMirror to migrate to FSx for ONTAP, deduplicated and compressed data remains in those states, which reduces transfer times and reduces the amount of bandwidth required for migration. Snapshots that exist on the source ONTAP volumes are preserved when migrated to the destination volumes. Migrating your on-premises NetApp ONTAP file systems to FSx for ONTAP involves the following high level tasks:

  1. Create the destination volume in Amazon FSx.

  2. Gather source and destination logical interfaces (LIFs).

  3. Establish cluster peering between the source and destination file systems.

  4. Create an SVM peering relationship.

  5. Create the SnapMirror relationship.

  6. Maintain an updated destination cluster.

  7. Cut over to your FSx for ONTAP file system.

The following diagram illustrates the migration scenario described in this section.

Flowchart displaying the process of migrating on-premises NetApp ONTAP file systems to FSx for ONTAP.

Before you begin

Before you begin using the procedures described in the following sections, be sure that you have met the following prerequisites:

  • FSx for ONTAP prioritizes client traffic over background tasks including data tiering, storage efficiency, and backups. When migrating data, and as a general best practice, we recommend that you monitor your SSD tier's capacity to ensure it is not exceeding 80% utilization. You can monitor your SSD tier's utilization using CloudWatch File system metrics. For more information, see Volume metrics.

  • If you set the destination volume's data tiering policy to All when migrating your data, all file metadata is stored on the primary SSD storage tier. File metadata is always stored on the SSD-based primary tier, regardless of the volume's data tiering policy. We recommend that you assume a ratio of 1 : 10 for primary tier : capacity pool tier storage capacity.

  • The source and destination file systems are connected in the same VPC, or are in networks that are peered using Amazon VPC Peering, Transit Gateway, Amazon Direct Connect or Amazon VPN. For more information, see Accessing data from within the Amazon Web Services Cloud and What is VPC peering? in the Amazon VPC Peering Guide.

  • The VPC security group for the FSx for ONTAP file system has inbound and outbound rules allowing ICMP as well as TCP on ports 443, 10000, 11104, and 11105 for your inter-cluster endpoints (LIFs).

  • Verify that the source and destination volumes are running compatible NetApp ONTAP versions before creating a SnapMirror data protection relationship. For more information, see Compatible ONTAP versions for SnapMirror relationships in NetApp's ONTAP user documentation. The procedures presented here use an on-premise NetApp ONTAP file system for the source.

  • Your on-premises (source) NetApp ONTAP file system includes a SnapMirror license.

  • You have created a destination FSx for ONTAP file system with an SVM, but you have not created a destination volume. For more information, see Creating file systems.

The commands in these procedures use the following cluster, SVM, and volume aliases:

  • FSx-Dest – the destination (FSx) cluster's ID (in the format FSxIdabcdef1234567890a).

  • OnPrem-Source – the source cluster's ID.

  • DestSVM – the destination SVM name.

  • SourceSVM – the source SVM name.

  • Both the source and destination volume names are vol1.

Note

An FSx for ONTAP file system is referred to as a cluster in all of the ONTAP CLI commands.

The procedures in this section use the following NetApp ONTAP CLI commands.

You will use the NetApp ONTAP CLI to create and manage a SnapMirror configuration on your FSx for ONTAP file system. For more information, see Using the NetApp ONTAP CLI.

Create the destination volume

You can create a data protection (DP) destination volume using the Amazon FSx console, the Amazon CLI, and the Amazon FSx API, in addition to the NetApp ONTAP CLI and REST API. For information about creating a destination volume using the Amazon FSx console and Amazon CLI, see Creating volumes.

Note

ONTAP does not preserve post-process compression savings achieved at the source in the destination DP volume when the destination volume's tiering policy is All. To preserve post-process compression savings, you should set the destination volume tiering policy to Auto and enable inactive-data-compression on the destination file system to re-apply post-process compression savings at the destination.

In the following procedure, you will use the NetApp ONTAP CLI to create a destination volume on your FSx for ONTAP file system. You will need the fsxadmin password and the IP address or DNS name of the file system's management port.

  1. Establish an SSH session with the destination file system using user fsxadmin and the password that you set when you created the file system.

    ssh fsxadmin@file-system-management-endpoint-ip-address

  2. Create a volume on the destination cluster that has a storage capacity that is at least equal to the storage capacity of the source volume. Use -type DP to designate it as a destination for a SnapMirror relationship.

    If you plan to use data tiering, we recommended that you set -tiering-policy to all. This ensures that your data is immediately transferred to capacity pool storage and prevents you from running out of capacity on your SSD tier. After migration, you can switch -tiering-policy to auto.

    Note

    File metadata is always stored on the SSD-based primary tier, regardless of the volume's data tiering policy.

    FSx-Dest::> vol create -vserver DestSVM -volume vol1 -aggregate aggr1 -size 1g -type DP -tiering-policy all

Record the source and destination inter-cluster LIFs

SnapMirror uses inter-cluster logical interfaces (LIFs), each with a unique IP address, to facilitate data transfer between source and destination clusters.

  1. For the destination FSx for ONTAP file systems, you can retrieve the Inter-cluster endpoint - IP addresses from the Amazon FSx console by navigating to the Administration tab on your file system's details page.

  2. For the source NetApp ONTAP cluster, retrieve the inter-cluster LIF IP addresses using the ONTAP CLI. Run the following command:

    OnPrem-Source::> network interface show -role intercluster
    
Logical                          Network  
Vserver     Interface  Status  Address/Mask
----------- ---------- ------- ------------ 
FSx-Dest
             inter_1    up/up  10.0.0.36/24  
             inter_2    up/up  10.0.1.69/24
    Note

    For second-generation Single-AZ file systems, there are two inter-cluster IP addresses for each high-availability (HA) pair. Save these values for later.

    Save the inter_1 and inter_2 IP addresses. They are referenced in the FSx-Dest as dest_inter_1 and dest_inter_2 and for OnPrem-Source as source_inter_1 and source_inter_2.

Establish cluster peering between source and destination

Establish a cluster peer relationship on the destination cluster by providing the inter-cluster IP addresses. You will also need to create a passphrase which you will need to enter in when you establish cluster peering on the source cluster.

  1. Set up peering on the destination cluster using the following command. For second-generation Single-AZ file systems, you'll need to provide each inter-cluster IP address. 

    FSx-Dest::> cluster peer create -address-family ipv4 -peer-addrs source_inter_1,source_inter_2
  
Enter the passphrase:
Confirm the passphrase:
Notice: Now use the same passphrase in the "cluster peer create" command in the other cluster.

  2. Next, establish the cluster peer relationship on the source cluster. You’ll need to enter the passphrase you created above to authenticate. For second-generation Single-AZ file systems, you'll need to provide each inter-cluster IP address. 

    OnPrem-Source::> cluster peer create -address-family ipv4 -peer-addrs dest_inter_1,dest_inter_2

Enter the passphrase:
Confirm the passphrase:

  3. Verify the peering was successful using the following command on the source cluster. In the output, Availability should be set to Available.

    OnPrem-Source::> cluster peer show

Peer Cluster Name  Availability   Authentication
-----------------  -------------- --------------
FSx-Dest           Available      ok

Create an SVM peering relationship

With cluster peering established, the next step is peering the SVMs. Create an SVM peering relationship on the destination cluster (FSx-Dest) using the vserver peer command. Additional aliases used in the following commands are as follows:

  • DestLocalName – this is name used to identify the destination SVM when configuring SVM peering on the source SVM.

  • SourceLocalName – this is the name used to identify the source SVM when configuring SVM peering on the destination SVM.

  1. Use the following command to create an SVM peering relationship between the source and destination SVMs.

    FSx-Dest::> vserver peer create -vserver DestSVM -peer-vserver SourceSVM -peer-cluster OnPrem-Source -applications snapmirror -local-name SourceLocalName

 Info: [Job 207] 'vserver peer create' job queued

  2. Accept the peering relationship on the source cluster:

    OnPrem-Source::> vserver peer accept -vserver SourceSVM -peer-vserver DestSVM -local-name DestLocalName

 Info: [Job 211] 'vserver peer accept' job queued

  3. Verify the SVM peering status using the following command; Peer State should be set to peered in the response.

    OnPrem-Source::> vserver peer show
     
        Peer     Peer   Peer     Peering       Remote
Vserver Vserver  State  Cluster  Applications  Vserver
------- -------- ------ -------- ------------- ---------
svm01   destsvm1 peered FSx-Dest snapmirror    svm01

Create the SnapMirror relationship

Now that you have peered the source and destination SVMs, the next steps are to create and initialize the SnapMirror relationship on the destination cluster.

Note

Once you create and initialize a SnapMirror relationship, the destination volumes are read-only until the relationship is broken.

  • Use the snapmirror create command to create the SnapMirror relationship on the destination cluster. The snapmirror create command must be used from the destination SVM.

    You can optionally use -throttle to set the maximum bandwidth (in kB/sec) for the SnapMirror relationship.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror create -source-path SourceLocalName:vol1 -destination-path DestSVM:vol1 -vserver DestSVM -throttle unlimited

 Operation succeeded: snapmirror create for the relationship with destination "DestSVM:vol1".

Transfer data to your FSx for ONTAP file system

Now that the you've created the SnapMirror relationship, you can transfer data to the destination file system.

  1. You can transfer data to the destination file system by running the following command on the destination file system.

    Note

    Once you run this command, SnapMirror begins transferring snapshots of data from the source volume to the destination volume.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror initialize -destination-path DestSVM:vol1 -source-path SourceLocalName:vol1

  2. If you are migrating data that is being actively used, you’ll need to update your destination cluster so that it remains synced with your source cluster. To perform a one-time update to the destination cluster, run the following command.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror update -destination-path DestSVM:vol1

  3. You can also schedule hourly or daily updates prior to completing the migration and moving your clients to FSx for ONTAP. You can establish a SnapMirror update schedule using the snapmirror modify command.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror modify -destination-path DestSVM:vol1 -schedule hourly

Cutting over to Amazon FSx

To prepare for the cut over to your FSx for ONTAP file system, do the following:

  • Disconnect all clients that write to the source cluster.

  • Perform a final SnapMirror transfer to ensure there is no data loss when cutting over.

  • Break the SnapMirror relationship.

  • Connect all clients to your FSx for ONTAP file system.

  1. To ensure that all data from the source cluster is transferred to FSx for ONTAP file system, perform a final Snapmirror transfer.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror update -destination-path DestSVM:vol1

  2. Ensure that the data migration is complete by verifying that Mirror State is set to Snapmirrored, and Relationship Status is set to Idle. You also should ensure that the Last Transfer End Timestamp date is as expected, as it shows when the last transfer to the destination volume occurred.

  3. Run the following command to show the SnapMirror status.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror show -fields state,status,last-transfer-end-timestamp

Source     Destination   Mirror        Relationship Last Transfer End  
Path       Path          State         Status       Timestamp
---------- -----------   ----------    -------      --------------- 
Svm01:vol1 svm02:DestVol Snapmirrored  Idle         09/02 09:02:21

  4. Disable any future SnapMirror transfers by using the snapmirror quiesce command.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror quiesce -destination-path DestSVM:vol1

  5. Verify that the Relationship Status has changed to Quiesced using snapmirror show.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror show

Source           Destination   Mirror        Relationship
Path             Path          State         Status
-----------      ------------  ------------- --------
sourcesvm1:vol1  svm01:DestVol Snapmirrored  Quiesced

  6. During migration, the destination volume is read-only. To enable read/write, you need to break the SnapMirror relationship and cut over to your FSx for ONTAP file system. Break the SnapMirror relationship using the following command.

    FSx-Dest::> snapmirror break -destination-path DestSVM:vol1

Operation succeeded: snapmirror break for destination "DestSVM:vol1".

  7. Once the SnapMirror replication has completed and you have broken the SnapMirror relationship, you can mount the volume to make the data available.

    FSx-Dest::> vol mount -vserver fsx -volume vol1 -junction-path /vol1

The volume is now available with the data from the source volume fully migrated to the destination volume The volume is also available for clients to read and write to it. If you previously set the tiering-policy of this volume to all, you can change it to auto or snapshot-only and your data will automatically transition between storage tiers according to access patterns. To make this data accessible to clients and applications, see Accessing your FSx for ONTAP data.