There are several variations possible while deploying SnapMirror. These variations allow you to customize the solution to suit your requirements.
Source to destination to tape variation: A common variation to the basic SnapMirror backup deployment adds a tape backup of the destination volume. By running a tape backup off the SnapMirror destination volume, you do not subject the heavily user-accessed source volume to the performance degradation, system unavailability, and complexity of a direct tape backup.
Source to tape to destination variation: A SnapMirror deployment that supports SnapMirror replication over lowbandwidth connections accommodates an initial mirroring between a source and destination volume using physically transported tape. After the large-sized base Snapshot copy has been replicated, smaller-sized, incremental Snapshot copy updates can be carried out over a low-bandwidth connection.
Cascading destinations variation: A variation on the basic SnapMirror deployment and function involves a writable source volume replicated to multiple read-only destinations. The function of this deployment is to make a uniform set of data available on a read-only basis to users from various locations throughout a network and to allow for updating that data uniformly at regular intervals.
