Use StorSimple Snapshot Manager to create and manage volume groups

Overview

You can use the Volume Groups node on the Scope pane to assign volumes to volume groups, view information about a volume group, schedule backups, and edit volume groups.

Volume groups are pools of related volumes used to ensure that backups are application-consistent. For more information, see Volumes and volume groups and Integration with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service.

Important

  • All volumes in a volume group must come from a single cloud service provider.
  • When you configure volume groups, do not mix cluster-shared volumes (CSVs) and non-CSVs in the same volume group. StorSimple Snapshot Manager does not support a mix of CSVs and non-CSVs in the same snapshot.

Volume groups node

Figure 1: StorSimple Snapshot Manager Volume Groups node

This tutorial explains how you can use StorSimple Snapshot Manager to:

  • View information about your volume groups
  • Create a volume group
  • Back up a volume group
  • Edit a volume group
  • Delete a volume group

All of these actions are also available on the Actions pane.

View volume groups

If you click the Volume Groups node, the Results pane shows the following information about each volume group, depending on the column selections you make. (The columns in the Results pane are configurable. Right-click the Volumes node, select View, and then select Add/Remove Columns.)

Results column Description
Name The Name column contains the name of the volume group.
Application The Applications column shows the number of VSS writers currently installed and running on the Windows host.
Selected The Selected column shows the number of volumes that are contained in the volume group. A zero (0) indicates that no application is associated with the volumes in the volume group.
Imported The Imported column shows the number of imported volumes. When set to True, this column indicates that a volume group was imported from the Azure portal and was not created in StorSimple Snapshot Manager.

Note

StorSimple Snapshot Manager volume groups are also displayed on the Backup Policies tab in the Azure portal.

Create a volume group

Use the following procedure to create a volume group.

To create a volume group

  1. Click the desktop icon to start StorSimple Snapshot Manager.

  2. In the Scope pane, right-click Volume Groups, and then click Create Volume Group.

    Create volume group

    The Create a volume group dialog box appears.

    Create a volume group dialog

  3. Enter the following information:

    1. In the Name box, type a unique name for the new volume group.

    2. In the Applications box, select applications associated with the volumes that you will be adding to the volume group.

      The Applications box lists only those applications that use StorSimple volumes and have VSS writers enabled for them. A VSS writer is enabled only if all the volumes that the writer is aware of are StorSimple volumes. If the Applications box is empty, then no applications that use Azure StorSimple volumes and have supported VSS writers are installed. (Currently, Azure StorSimple supports Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server.) For more information about VSS writers, see Integration with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service.

      If you select an application, all volumes associated with it are automatically selected. Conversely, if you select volumes associated with a specific application, the application is automatically selected in the Applications box.

    3. In the Volumes box, select StorSimple volumes to add to the volume group.

      • You can include volumes with single or multiple partitions. (Multiple partition volumes can be dynamic disks or basic disks with multiple partitions.) A volume that contains multiple partitions is treated as a single unit. Consequently, if you add only one of the partitions to a volume group, all the other partitions are automatically added to that volume group at the same time. After you add a multiple partition volume to a volume group, the multiple partition volume continues to be treated as a single unit.
      • You can create empty volume groups by not assigning any volumes to them.
      • Do not mix cluster-shared volumes (CSVs) and non-CSVs in the same volume group. StorSimple Snapshot Manager does not support a mix of CSV volumes and non-CSV volumes in the same snapshot.
  4. Click OK to save the volume group.

Back up a volume group

Use the following procedure to back up a volume group.

To back up a volume group

  1. Click the desktop icon to start StorSimple Snapshot Manager.

  2. In the Scope pane, expand the Volume Groups node, right-click a volume group name, and then click Take Backup.

    Back up volume group immediately

  3. In the Take Backup dialog box, select Local Snapshot or Cloud Snapshot, and then click Create.

    Take backup dialog

  4. To confirm that the backup is running, expand the Jobs node, and then click Running. The backup should be listed.

  5. To view the completed snapshot, expand the Backup Catalog node, expand the volume group name, and then click Local Snapshot or Cloud Snapshot. The backup will be listed if it finished successfully.

Edit a volume group

Use the following procedure to edit a volume group.

To edit a volume group

  1. Click the desktop icon to start StorSimple Snapshot Manager.
  2. In the Scope pane, expand the Volume Groups node, right-click a volume group name, and then click Edit.
  3. The Create a volume group dialog box appears. You can change the Name, Applications, and Volumes entries.
  4. Click OK to save your changes.

Delete a volume group

Use the following procedure to delete a volume group.

Warning

This also deletes all the backups associated with the volume group.

To delete a volume group

  1. Click the desktop icon to start StorSimple Snapshot Manager.

  2. In the Scope pane, expand the Volume Groups node, right-click a volume group name, and then click Delete.

  3. The Delete Volume Group dialog box appears. Type Confirm in the text box, and then click OK.

    The deleted volume group vanishes from the list in the Results pane and all backups that are associated with that volume group are deleted from the backup catalog.

Next steps