Audit NetApp Configs With SCM

Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /var/www/seafelt-blog/wp-content/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/googleanalytics.php on line 413

You need to upgrade the NetApp filers to a new version of Data ONTAP. You fail over one head so that you can work on it, only to discover that some of your servers have lost connectivity to their storage. Some of the configuration wasn’t right! You’d set up some of the interfaces online, but hadn’t correctly configured the cluster partner! Bugger. Now you have to figure out what was missing, and get the right config settings applied.

Sound familiar? If you’ve had to deal with all the different NetApp configuration files (/etc/snapmirror.conf, but no /etc/snapvault.conf? What the?) and the various ways you can have inconsistent clusters, you’ll know the pain of manually auditing your settings to make sure they’re correct.

If you’re a premium autosupport customer, you’ll be familiar with the tools available via NetApp’s NOW website that highlight potential problems with your configuration. You’ll also have received an audit report telling you all the potential issues with your filer fleet.

If you’re not a premium autosupport customer, you won’t have had access to these sorts of tools. Until now.

seafelt Configuration Manager can audit your equipment and tell you if your settings are inconsistent. It can detect if you’re running downrev disk firmware. It can tell you that you’ve configured interfaces online, but haven’t added the commands into /etc/rc to make them come up after a reboot.

Even if you are a premium autosupport customer, SCM can do things that the NOW website reports can’t. You can customise SCM validation rules for your site. Want to make sure your filers have the right mailhost settings? No problem. Want to check that no one has enabled rsh by mistake? Ok.

SCM can perform audits by talking directly to your filers over HTTP or HTTPS, or you can send it the same autosupport emails that you send to NetApp. You can run audits every day, rather than the default once a week for autosupport.

Don’t find configuration problems after an outage. Protect your environment with SCM.

For more information, go to scm.seafelt.com or email us at scm@seafelt.com.