Does anyone use netapp's sql snapmanager? We are in the process of trying to decide if it is right for us. I know of the more popular features, but am trying to get some real life experience stories. Can anyone answer the following:
What problems are you having?
How has it helped in ways you didn't expect?
Can you offer any advice for or against using it?
Was configuring more difficult than expected?
How has your maintenance on Sql changed?
I'm also interested in finding out how quickly they support the new versions of sql, I will try to find that on netapp's site, but if you have any information, that would be great.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Best Answer
I used snapmanager with SQL 2005, it worked really well. I would take a snapshot, swing it over, mount it on our reporting server, and voila.
The only problem I had is that most of what I wanted to do required undocumented NetApp commands. Once I got them, I just put them into a SQL job and our reporting environment was refreshed daily, and used less space on NetApp.