Transition from NetApp Cloud Volumes Service to Google Cloud NetApp Volumes

The Flex service level of Google Cloud NetApp Volumes offers all the capabilities of the Cloud Volumes Service with the following features:

  • Enhanced Google Cloud integration which includes API access, Google Cloud CLI, logging, and more resource labels.

  • Improved backup and independent scaling of capacity and throughput.

  • Availability across 40 Google Cloud regions.

  • Robust and scalable design enhanced through Google engineering.

You can migrate data from your Cloud Volumes Service volumes to Flex using data copy tools like robocopy for SMB or XCP for NFS. Due to technical modifications, it isn't possible to do an in-place transition as supported for the CVS-Performance service.

Before you begin

Review the following requirements and considerations before you begin.

Requirements

  • Access to NetApp Volumes: you need access to NetApp Volumes before starting the migration process. To set up access to NetApp Volumes, follow the configuration steps. This process includes the creation of a new pool and volumes that serves as migration targets.

    To transfer files between a Cloud Volumes Service and a Flex volume, establish Virtual Private Cloud peering and create a new IP address range as specified in Configure private services access. Use a virtual machine (VM) within your project, and make sure it resides in the same zone as the source volume to facilitate the transfer.

Considerations

  • Service type: you will use Flex service level, as it is the only NetApp Volumes service level available across the 13 Cloud Volumes Service regions.

  • Identity and Access Management roles and permissions: Identity and Access Management permissions for NetApp Volumes have new names, but are largely the same as those of Cloud Volumes Service. You can also use the roles/netapp.admin and roles/netapp.viewer roles to simplify configuration. The basic roles for editor and owner include roles/netapp.admin permissions.

  • Metrics for monitoring and alerting for Cloud Volumes Service and NetApp Volumes: the metrics available for monitoring NetApp Volumes are generally the same as Cloud Volumes Service. If you've configured alerts or have created a dashboard for Cloud Volumes Service, you need to recreate these for NetApp Volumes. Your existing Cloud Volumes Service metrics data remains available, but you can't update metrics data again.

  • Cloud Logging and Cloud Billing is offered for NetApp Volumes: NetApp Volumes offers more detailed Cloud Logging entries, including administrative user identity. Cloud Billing uses new SKUs. Your existing Cloud Volumes Service logging and billing entries remain the same.

  • NetApp Volumes supports the use of labels: NetApp Volumes resources, such as volumes, support up to 64 labels for reporting and querying purposes.

  • Custom scripts: Cloud Volumes Service offers a RESTful API to create and manage your volumes. NetApp Volumes offers Google Cloud CLI commands and an API service that you can use similarly to create and manage volumes. There is no conversion between them, but if you need assistance, contact your sales team to learn more about services to help with conversion.

  • Terraform support: the Google Cloud Terraform provider lets you manage NetApp Volumes. After you transition to NetApp Volumes, your Cloud Volumes Service Terraform *.tf and state files are no longer valid. To address this, delete *.tf and state files and import the new NetApp Volumes resources.

  • Active Directory or Google Cloud VMware Engine: if you use Google managed Microsoft Active Directory or Google Cloud VMware Engine services with Cloud Volumes Service, you can send a message to google-netapp-volumes-support-external@google.com for help with peering to NetApp Volumes for a successful migration.

Migrate to NetApp Volumes

This section provides instructions about migrating your Cloud Volumes Service volume data to NetApp Volumes.

Before you begin

Review the following prerequisites before you migrate to NetApp Volumes:

  • Set up NetApp Volumes which include creation of storage pools and volumes.

  • Configure an Active Directory policy, if required.

Migrate to NetApp Volumes

Typically, the customers follow a two-step process. First, they create a baseline copy, and then perform incremental backups to capture any modifications.

For any support with your migration to NetApp Volumes, send a message to google-netapp-volumes-support-external@google.com.

Use the following instructions to migrate to NetApp Volumes.

  1. Create an Active Directory policy, if needed. This policy is required for volumes using SMB or NFS with LDAP.

  2. Create your NetApp Volumes Flex pool and volumes.

  3. Mount the CVS-software volume and NetApp Volumes Flex volume to a VM within your VPC. Use a data copy tool to transfer the data to the Flex volume.

  4. During a maintenance window, complete the following steps:

    1. Disconnect the clients from the CVS-software volume.

    2. Perform a final incremental copy of the data to the Flex volume.

    3. Verify that all files are transferred correctly to the volume using file counts, checksums, or similar methods.

  5. Connect the clients to the Flex volume and test the access.

Data copy tools

We recommend to use robocopy to copy SMB files on a windows VM, and either NetApp XCP or rsync to copy NFS files on a Linux VM.

Robocopy

Robocopy is a robust Microsoft file copy tool in Windows systems. Some options to consider when using robocopy include the following:

  • /mir: copies all subdirectories, including the empty ones.

  • /sec /secfix: copies security information access control lists (ACLs), including for the unchanged files with security changes. For more information, see robocopy mirroring file permissions.

  • /z: copies files in restartable mode which allows robocopy to pick up where it left off, if interrupted.

  • /mt:32: uses 32 threads for multi-threaded copies.

  • /b: for backup mode to override file and directory ACLs. Robocopy users must be a member of the backup operators group on both the source and destination volumes.

  • /r:2 /w:1: to retry failed copies with a one second wait time.

  • /log:<logfile>: to log robocopy status output.

XCP

NetApp's XCP tool facilitates rapid and parallel file copies for data migration to Flex service volumes. For any support using this tool, you can contact a NetApp sales specialist or send a message to google-netapp-volumes-support-external@google.com.