Ken,

There are some issues in the way current the TSM servers handles the
NDMP backups but in my opinion, they are making great progress with the
upcoming TSM server V6.1 release.

The "Error beginning NDMP backup - illegal arguements.Check that the
filespace/path '/vol/xyz/-' exists." error indicates that the path
specified in the virtual filespace mapping definition of the volume you
are trying to backup is either incorrect or wasn't available when you
issued the BACKUP NODE command (If you are running scheduled snapshots)

In our storage environment (TSM V5.5.2.0 + NetApp N series filers), we
make use of NDMP to backup the snapshots for numerous volumes, cifs
shares on the filers. Here is a rough draft of complete NDMP
implementation.

* After creating a NDMP user on NetApp filer, generate a password then
enable NDMP on the filer
* Define disk storage pool for the Table Of Content, define a domain,
policy set, management classes having the newly created TOC storage pool
for destination.
* Define a node with type=nas on the TSM server using the NDMP user and
password generated by the filer, define the datamover and virtual
filespace mapping
* Define a serial script (backup node Node_name /Virtualfsmap
mg=$management_class mode=$type_of_backup wait=yes) and define a command
schedule to run the script after the snapshot is created otherwise you
will receive the current ANR9999D error message.

Please refer to the following link for detailed explanation of NDMP
configuration & troubleshooting:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247243.pdf

Good luck.

Bertaut.

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Mueller, Ken
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 1:06 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] NDMP backup of non-qtree data

We have an IBM N-Series 6040 (a thinly veiled NetApp 3140) that amoung
other things contains several large volumes (2TB, 35 million files).
These volumes have qtrees defined for the larger top-level directories.
There are numerous other small top-level directories that are not in
qtrees.

We are running TSM 5.5.2.0 and using the Filer->TSM->Library method of
NDMP backup (storing the backups in TSM native storage pools).

It is not practical to backup the entire volume in one shot, but backing
up the individual qtrees via BACKUP NODE is manageable.  The problem
that I have is how to specify backing up the non-qtree portion of the
volume.  The NetApp commands use a trailing dash after the volume name
to indicate non-qtree data (ie:  /vol/xyz/-  ) however BACKUP NODE
complains of an invalid parameter when I use that convention.  I tried
setting up a virtualfsmapping with the trailing dash and it is accepted
for the mapping, however the subsequent BACKUP NODE process fails after
it starts with an ANR9999D catchall: "Error beginning NDMP backup -
illegal arguements.Check that the filespace/path '/vol/xyz/-' exists."

Anybody backing up these filers at the qtree level?  How do you handle
the non-qtree data?

We're new to the whole NDMP world - seems a few steps back from what TSM
can do natively.  Any sage advice is welcome!

-Ken Mueller

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