IBM Image Services introduces support for Data ONTAP version 9.x for Snaplock NetApp

Content

ONTAP data management software offers unified storage for applications that read and write data over block-access or file-access protocols, in storage configurations that range from high-speed flash, to lower-priced spinning media, to cloud-based object storage. ONTAP implementations run on NetApp-engineered FAS or AFF appliances, on commodity hardware (ONTAP Select), and in private, public, or hybrid clouds (NetApp Private Storage or ONTAP Cloud). Specialized implementations offer best-in-class converged infrastructure (FlexPod Datacenter) and access to third-party storage arrays (FlexArray Virtualization). Together, these implementations form the basic framework of the NetApp data fabric, with a common software-defined approach to data management and fast, efficient replication across platforms.

FileNet Image Services interfaces with ONTAP through the CIFS or NFS protocols. The ONTAP device appears as a standard CIFS/NTFS file system, under Windows, or NFS/UFS file system, under Unix. At archiving time, Image Services writes a FileNet content blob file in the directory structure of the file system mounted on the ONTAP system for each FileNet document, and applies retention settings.

Image Services sets the WORM state and the retention period immediately upon writing the blob file to the ONTAP device. An ONTAP object can be deleted only after the retention of the object is expired. Also, retention of an object can only be extended. Image Services supports:

• No retention (24-hour extension is set)
• Infinite retention
• Retention with an offset or specific date

In the case where retention with an offset or specific date is selected, the document class “Date Filed” (Chronological) or “Date Closed” (Event-Based Retention) fields determine how retention is set. If the “Date Filed” Chronological retention is set for the document class, the retention that is applied is calculated as the offset plus the current date. Otherwise, for document classes that use “Date Closed” event-based retention, the initial retention value is the retention offset plus the current date or the specified date. A virtual event-based retention strategy includes running sds_update_retention periodically to triggering retention if the document has been closed based on the doctaba settings (retention of object being set to closed date plus the offset) or to extend retention to protect the event-based retention objects from being deleted prematurely.
ONTAP does not currently support event-based retention.

Requirement

• IS 4.1.2 FP 25 
• IS 4.2.0 FP 14 

Deployment

To configure ONTAP, refer to the NetApp Snaplock information in the Integral SDS user guide for the appropriate release.

• IS 4.1.2: ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data/cm/filenet/docs/isdoc/412x/SDS.pdf  
• IS 4.2.0: http://publibfi.dhe.ibm.com/epubs/pdf/c1933100.pdf

To verify that ONTAP is configured correctly as an Integral SDS device using fn_edit, refer to the following example elog entry that is generated when Image Services starts:

Dynamic Connector library: 'SDSw_snaplock'
Device specific info: 'Snaplock FileSytem SDSw connector library version=1.0 '
Capacity: 0.950001GB (996148KB)
Used:     0.065472GB (68652KB) (6.89%)
Free:     0.884529GB (927496KB) (93.11%)
Supports EBR=NO holds=NO retention_extend=YES

Here:

Snaplock FileSytem SDSw refers to the ONTAP device.
EBR=NO means event-based retention (EBR) is not supported. 
holds=NO means ligation hold is not supported.
version=1.0 refers to the SDSw connector library version. It is not related to the ONTAP version number.