Limitations to compliance backup and standby service

There are limitations to the backup and standby service.

• After you have failed over to the standby device and have begun to take backups, you cannot reuse the original SnapVault secondary storage disks for protecting the new SnapVault secondary volumes until the retention periods for all Snapshot copies and data on the original SnapVault secondary storage disks have expired.

  For all practical purposes, the original SnapVault secondary storage disks cannot be used to protect the new SnapVault secondary volumes and cannot be used to resume their original role as SnapVault secondary because typical retention periods are on the order of months to years.

• You cannot restore backup data to a SnapVault secondary storage if the secondary storage uses SnapLock Compliance volumes, because of the constraints put on SnapLock Compliance volumes to eliminate the possibility of losing compliance data.

  Note: Failing over to a standby device is complex, has the limitations mentioned above, and is costly in terms of time and disk space. Failing over should be done only in the event of a permanent loss of the original SnapVault secondary storage in cases when the quick resumption of backups is critical enough to warrant the cost of reestablishing the original configuration.