[ovirt-users] deprecating export domain?

[Maor Lipchuk]

On Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 2:50 PM, Nir Soffer <nsoffer at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 9:58 AM Yaniv Kaul <ykaul at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 8:41 PM, Charles Kozler <ckozleriii at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I recently read on this list from a redhat member that export domain is
>>> either being deprecated or looking at being deprecated
>
>
> We want to deprecate the export domain, but it is not deprecated yet.
>
>>>
>>>
>>> To that end, can you share details? Can you share any notes/postings/bz's
>>> that document this? I would imagine something like this would be discussed
>>> in larger audience
>
>
> I agree.
>
>>>
>>>
>>> This seems like a somewhat significant change to make and I am curious
>>> where this is scheduled? Currently, a lot of my backups rely explicitly on
>>> an export domain for online snapshots, so I'd like to plan accordingly
>
>
> Can you describe how you backup your vms using export domain?
> What do you mean by online snapshots?
>
>>
>>
>> We believe that the ability to detach and attach a data domain provides
>> equivalent and even superior functionality to the export domain. Is there
>> anything you'd miss? I don't believe it would be a significant change.
>
>
> Attaching and detaching data domain was not designed for backing up vms.
> How would you use it for backup?
>
> How do you ensure that a backup clone of a vm is not started by mistake,
> changing the backup contents?

That is a good question.
We recently introduced a new feature called "backup storage domain"
which you can mark the storage domain as backup storage domain.
That can guarantee that no VMs will run with disks/leases reside on
the storage domain.
The feature should already exist in oVirt 4.2 (despite a bug that
should be handled with this patch https://gerrit.ovirt.org/#/c/81290/)
You can find more information on this here:
  https://github.com/shubham0d/ovirt-site/blob/41dcb0f1791d90d1ae0ac43cd34a399cfedf54d8/source/develop/release-management/features/storage/backup-storage-domain.html.md

Basically the OVF that is being saved in the export domain should be
similar to the same one that is being saved in the OVF_STORE disk in
the storage domain.
If the user manages replication on that storage domain it can be
re-used for backup purposes by importing it to a setup.
Actually it is much more efficient to use a data storage domain than
to use the copy operation to/from the export storage domain.

>
> Nir