NetApp Interview Questions and Answers

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1. Unable to map lun to solaris server, but solaris server side no  issue.How to resolve the issue?

Ans:

FROM STORAGE SIDE:

• Verify iscsi/fcp license is added in storage
• Verify iscsi/fcp session is logged in from server side use below command

• Verify luns are mapped to the corresponding igroup
• Verify whether correct host type is mentioned while creating a group and lun
• Verify whether correct iqn/wwpn number is added to igroup
• Verify zoning is properly configured from switch side, if it is FCP protocol

2. How to create the LUN for linux server?

Ans:

3. How to create qtree and provide the security?

Ans:

The security is provided by               

4. How to copy volume filer to filer?

Ans:

ndmpcopy or snapmirror

5. How to resize the aggregate?

Ans:

6. How to increase the volume?

Ans:

Traditional Volume

vol add VolName no.of.disk

Flexible Volume

vol size VolName +60g

7. What is qtree?

Ans:

qtree is Logical partition of the volume.

8. What is the default snap reserve in aggregate?

Ans:

5%

9. What is a snapshot?

Ans:

A Snapshot copy is a read-only image of a traditional or FlexVol volume, or an aggregate, that captures the state of the file system at a point in time.

10. What are the raid groups Netapp supporting?

Ans:

Supported RAID types:

•  Raid-4
•  Raid-6
• Raid-Dp

11. What are the protocols you are using?

Ans:

Say some protocols like NFS, CIFS, ISCSI and FCP

12. What is the difference between iscsi and fcp?

Ans:

Iscsi-sending block through. iSCSI does not require a dedicated network, it will work on existing networks also. It works on TCP/IP.

Fcp-send through fibre medium. Required an dedicated FC network.  Performance is so high compare to the iSCSI

13. What is the iscsi port number?

Ans:

3260

14. What is the difference between ndmp copy and vol copy?

Ans:

• Ndmp copy –network data management protocol(used for tape backup)
• Vol copy – is used to transfer volume to same or another aggregate

15. What is the difference between ONTAP 7 & 8?

Ans:

In ONTAP 7 the individual aggregate is limited to a maximum of 16 TB. Where ONTAP 8 supports the new 64 bit aggregate and hence the size of the individual aggregate extends to 100 TB.

16. What are the steps needed to configure SnapMirror?

Ans:

The SnapMirror configuration process consists of the following four steps:

Install the SnapMirror license on the source and destination systems:

On the source, specify the host name or IP address of the SnapMirror destination systems you wish to authorize to replicate this source system.

For each source volume or qtree to replicate, perform an initial baseline transfer. For volume SnapMirror

Then initialize the volume SnapMirror baseline, using the following syntax on the destination:

For a qtree SnapMirror baseline transfer, use the following syntax on the destination:

17. While doing baseline transfer you’re getting an error message. What are the troubleshooting steps you’ll do?

Ans:

• Check both the hosts are reachable by running “ping” command
• Check whether the TCP port 10566 & 10565 are open from firewall
•  Check whether the snapmirror license are installed in both filers

18. Explain the different types of replication modes..?

Ans:

The SnapMirror Async mode replicates Snapshot copies from a source volume or qtree to a destination. It will be more than 800Kms Long. volume or qtree. Incremental updates are based on a schedule or are performed manually using the snapmirror update command. Async mode works with both volume SnapMirror and qtree SnapMirror.

SnapMirror Sync mode replicates writes from a source volume to a destination volume at the same time it is written to the source volume. SnapMirror Sync is used in environments that have zero tolerance for data loss. it will note support more than 300Kms long.

SnapMirror Semi-Sync provides a middle-ground solution that keeps the source and destination systems more closely synchronized than Async mode, but with less impact on performance.

19. How do you configure multiple paths in Snapmirror?

Ans:

Add a connection name line in the snapmirror.conf file

20. How to improve the Netapp storage performance?

Ans:

There is no direct answer to this question but we shall do it in several ways.

• If volume/lun present in ATA/SATA harddisk aggregate, then the volume can be migrated to FC/SAS disk aggregate. Either you can use flash cache to improve performance.
• For NFS/CIFS instead of accessing from a single interface, multi mode vif can be configured to get better bandwidth and fault tolerance.
• Always advised to keep aggr/vol utilization below 90%.
• Avoid doing multiple volume backups in a single point of time.
• Aggr/volume/lun reallocation can be done to re–distribute the data to multiple disks for better striping performance.
• Schedule scrubbing and De-duplication scanning after business hours.
• Create multiple loops and connect different types of shelves to each loop
• Avoid mixing up different speeds of disk and different types of disk in the same aggregate.
• Always keep sufficient spare disk to replace in case of disk failure. Because reconstruction time will take more time and cause negative performance.
• Keep the advised version of firmware/software which is recommended by Netapp.

21. Justify however deduplication occurs? 

Ans:

In the context of disk storage, De-duplication refers to any rule that searches for duplicate knowledge objects (for example, blocks, chunks, files) and discards those duplicates. Once duplicate knowledge is detected, it’s not maintained, however instead a “data pointer” is changed in order that the storage system references a certain copy of the info object already kept on disk. This Deduplication feature works well with datasets that have countless duplicated data (for example, full backups).

22. What’s the command to see the quantity of house saved victimization Deduplication?

Ans:

df-s

23.Command won’t check progress and standing of Deduplication?

Ans:

sis status

24. However, does one set up a Snapvault shot schedule?

Ans:

This schedule is for the house directories volume vol1

Creates hourly shot copies, except 11:00 p.m.

Keeps nearly a full day of hourly copies

25. What’s metadata?

Ans:

Metadata is outlined as knowledge providing data concerning one or additional aspects of the info,

•  Inode file
•  Used block electronic image file
•  Free block electronic image file

26. How can you “throttle” SnapValue updates and baseline transfers so that the primary or secondary is not transmitting data as it can? 

Ans:

Use the k option in the snapvault start or snapshot modify commands. 

27. Node 1 in a clustered pair detects that it has lost connectivity to one of its disk shelves. Node 1 is still up, but it cannot see one of its disk shelves. However, the partner node, Node 2, can see all of the Node 1’s disk shelves. Which feature will cause Node 2 to monitor this error condition for a period of three minutes by default, and then forcibly take over Node 1 if the error condition persists? 

Ans:

Negotiated Failover 

28. In Data ONTAP, the root user is exempt from those two quotas?

Ans:

User quotas and Group quotas

29. Which two Volume SnapMirror (VSM) relationships are supported? 

Ans:

Data ONTAP 8.0.2 64-bit –>Data ONTAP 8.1 64-bit