NS0-521 Implementation Engineer - SAN ONTAP Exam Questions and Answers

When setting up a NetApp ONTAP AFF system for both NVMe/TCP and iSCSI, a critical task required for SAN configuration is to configure Logical Interfaces (LIFs). LIFs are necessary for network connectivity and are used by both NVMe/TCP and iSCSI protocols to communicate between the storage system and the host.

The configuration of LIFs involves creating and managing these interfaces to ensure they are correctly mapped and available for use by the respective protocols. This step is essential for the SAN setup to function properly.

For more detailed steps on configuring LIFs, you can refer to NetApp's documentation:

How to Configure NVMe/TCP with ONTAP​ (NetApp Community)​.

SAN Configuration with ONTAP​ (NetApp)​.

In an NVMe environment, the storage construct that enables an NVMe client to store data in an SVM (Storage Virtual Machine) is aSubsystem. A subsystem is a collection of one or more namespaces, which are used to store data. This abstraction allows for efficient management and scaling of NVMe storage within the ONTAP environment.

For further information, refer to:

NetApp NVMe/FC Configuration​ (NetApp)​.

The likely cause for the disappearance of all snapshots after a ransomware attack that encrypted all files on the LUN is the Snapshot autodelete feature. When the volume becomes full due to the encryption, the autodelete feature removes older snapshots to free up space, preventing the volume from running out of space and ensuring write operations can continue.

For more information, see:

NetApp Documentation on Snapshot Autodelete

NetApp Community Discussion on Snapshot Deletion

To validate that the ESXi host and NetApp ONTAP software releases are supported, theNetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool (IMT)should be used. The IMT provides comprehensive compatibility information, ensuring that all components of the SAN environment will work together seamlessly.

For further details, refer to:

NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool

When planning to upgrade the UCS Server BIOS and Cisco NX-OS system running on the switches in a NetApp AFF ASA cluster environment, theInteroperability Matrix Tool (IMT)is the recommended resource to check compatibility with the new versions. The IMT provides detailed compatibility information for various hardware and software components, ensuring that the planned upgrades will not cause any interoperability issues.

For further details, refer to:

NetApp Interoperability Matrix Tool

To verify that a modified FC port is usable after it has been repurposed from tape backup to FCP SAN, the command system node hardware unified-connect show should be used. This command checks the status and configuration of the unified connect hardware, ensuring that the port is correctly set up for the new function in the SAN environment.

For additional details, see:

NetApp Command Reference

To clone a LUN from a SnapMirror destination volume for testing purposes, the volume clone create command should be used. This command creates a FlexClone volume from the SnapMirror destination, making the LUN within it accessible for testing without disrupting the original volume.

For more details, refer to:

NetApp Documentation on Volume Clone Create

NetApp Community Discussion on LUN Cloning

Active IQ OneCollect is a NetApp tool designed to collect configuration and performance data from your storage environment, including SAN solutions. It can automate the creation of difference reports by capturing the current state of the system and comparing it against a baseline, thereby showing any changes or deviations from the intended design.

For further details, refer to:

NetApp Active IQ OneCollect Documentation

The feature that enables simultaneous snapshots of multiple LUNs in different volumes isConsistency Groups. This feature ensures that snapshots taken across different LUNs and volumes are consistent with each other, making it possible to recover a consistent state across multiple storage objects.

For further information, refer to:

NetApp Documentation on Consistency Groups

For automatic host discovery in a four-node NetApp AFF cluster using NVMe/TCP, the protocol used is mDNS (Multicast DNS). mDNS allows for the discovery of controllers and other networked devices without the need for a centralized DNS server, simplifying the setup process in environments that support NVMe over TCP.

For further information, refer to:

NetApp Documentation on NVMe/TCP

NetApp Community on Host Discovery

To ensure that Snapshot copies of database files across multiple FCP LUNs are taken at the same point in time, the following configurations can be used:

Create a consistency group that uses FlexVol volumes: This setup ensures that snapshots of all volumes in the consistency group are taken simultaneously.

Create each LUN within the same FlexGroup volume: This configuration allows for a unified snapshot across multiple LUNs within the FlexGroup, ensuring data consistency.

For more details, see:

NetApp Documentation on Consistency Groups

NetApp FlexGroup Overview

When a LUN shows 90% used space in the NetApp ONTAP CLI but a Windows Server shows only 10% used space, the discrepancy is often due to how space allocation is handled between the two systems. Enabling space allocation ensures that the ONTAP system accurately reflects the actual space usage as reported by the host system, in this case, the Windows Server. This adjustment allows ONTAP to reclaim and manage space more effectively, aligning the reported usage between the ONTAP system and the host.

For more information, refer to:

NetApp Community Discussion on Space Allocation

NetApp Documentation on Space Usage

In NetApp ONTAP 9.14.1 software, the maximum size for a LUN is128TiB. This limit ensures that large datasets can be stored and managed efficiently within a single LUN, catering to the needs of high-capacity SAN environments

The recommended setting for using the NetApp ONTAP LUN fractional reserve is to set the space guarantee to "volume". This setting ensures that the required space for overwrites in the volume is reserved, preventing potential write failures when snapshot copies are created. This setup helps in maintaining the performance and reliability of the storage system by ensuring there is always enough space allocated for the LUN.

For further details, you can refer to:

NetApp Community Discussion on Fractional Reserve

NetApp Documentation on Space Management

To move SAN LIFs to new nodes that are members of a portset during maintenance of a NetApp AFF ONTAP cluster, you should take the following steps:

Remove the LIF from the portset: This ensures that the LIF is no longer associated with the current node, preparing it for the move to the new node.

Take the SAN LIF offline: This step is necessary to make configuration changes without causing disruption to the SAN hosts. Once offline, the LIF can be moved to the new node and reconfigured as needed.

These actions help maintain the integrity and performance of the SAN environment during the migration of LIFs.

For more details, see:

NetApp Documentation on Moving SAN LIFs

NetApp Community on Moving LIFs

For a two-node cluster serving iSCSI LUNs, it is recommended to createtwo iSCSI LIFs per node. This configuration provides redundancy and load balancing, ensuring that each node can handle failover scenarios effectively and maintain high availability for the iSCSI connections.

For more details, see:

NetApp Documentation on iSCSI LIF Configuration