Data protection using SnapVault
- What SnapVault is
SnapVault is a disk-based storage backup feature of Data ONTAP. SnapVault enables data stored on multiple storage systems to be backed up to a central, secondary storage system quickly and efficiently as read-only Snapshot copies.
- Planning SnapVault backups
Before starting SnapVault backups, you need to plan your primary system qtrees or Open Systems directories and their corresponding secondary system qtrees. You also need to plan the SnapVault backup schedule and Snapshot copy retention, and estimate the initial backup time.
- Enabling SnapVault
Setting up SnapVault backup on the primary systems means preparing the primary storage systems and SnapVault secondary storage systems to fulfill their backup tasks. In Data ONTAP 7.3 and later, you can install the SnapVault primary and SnapVault secondary licenses on the same storage system. You must license and prepare your storage systems before you can use SnapVault to back up data.
- How to start a SnapVault backup relationship
After you have enabled SnapVault on both the primary and secondary storage systems and have given primary and secondary storage systems access to each other, you must specify the qtrees or volumes whose data you want transferred from the primary storage system to the SnapVault secondary storage system. You must then perform a complete (baseline) transfer of data from the primary storage system to secondary storage system.
- What SnapVault Snapshot copy update schedules are
After you have completed the initial baseline backup of qtrees on the primary storage systems to qtrees on the SnapVault secondary storage system, you must use the snapvault snap sched command to schedule a set of Snapshot copies on the SnapVault primary storage system. You can also specify the volume to create Snapshot copies for, the Snapshot copy basename, how many versions of the Snapshot copies to retain, and the days and hours to create this set of Snapshot copies.
- Unscheduling SnapVault Snapshot copies
You can unschedule a set of SnapVault Snapshot copies if the data in the qtrees you are backing up has been migrated to another location or is no longer useful.
- Checking SnapVault transfers
To ensure SnapVault transfers are taking place as they should, check the transfer status using the snapvault status command.
- Displaying SnapVault Snapshot copies
You can use the snap list command to display a list of Snapshot copies to confirm what versions of your primary qtree data have been backed up, or to locate by date or time a particular version of a qtree to retrieve.
- About LUN clones and SnapVault
A LUN clone is a space-efficient copy of another LUN. Initially, the LUN clone and its parent share the same storage space. More storage space is consumed only when one LUN or the other changes.
- How to change SnapVault settings
You can use the snapvault modify command to change the primary storage system (source) qtree that you specified using the snapvault start command.
- Why you manually update a qtree on the secondary storage system
You can use the snapvault update command to manually update the SnapVault qtree on the secondary storage system from a Snapshot copy on the primary storage system.
- Why you create a Snapshot copy manually
You might create a manual (unscheduled) Snapshot copy for the following reasons:
- Renaming a SnapVault or Open Systems SnapVault secondary volume
SnapVault or Open Systems SnapVault updates do not work if a SnapVault or Open Systems SnapVault secondary (destination) volume is renamed.
- Restoring SnapVault data to the primary storage system
In the event of data loss on a primary storage system, you might need to restore data from the secondary storage system.
- How to abort SnapVault transfers
You can use the snapvault abort command to halt an ongoing SnapVault transfer if a later transfer would be more useful or if an immediate shutdown or restart is necessary.
- Ending SnapVault backups for a qtree
You can use the snapvault stop command to end the SnapVault backup process for a qtree when you no longer need the data in the primary storage system qtree to be protected.
- Releasing SnapVault relationships
You can release a SnapVault relationship between a primary qtree and its secondary qtree backup (originally defined through the snapvault start command) after the relationship is no longer needed in two ways.
- Turning SnapVault off
You might want to turn SnapVault off because the files on the primary or secondary storage system are no longer important or current or have been moved to another location.
- Compression feature for Open Systems SnapVault
The compression feature of Open Systems SnapVault enables network data compression over the network. This feature helps in bandwidth optimization for Open Systems SnapVault data transfers.
- SnapVault secondary storage system protection
By setting up a SnapMirror relationship between the SnapVault secondary storage system and a SnapMirror destination storage system, NearStore system, or tape backup unit, you can provide backup and standby service or backup and restore protection for the SnapVault secondary storage system data.
- How to use SnapVault to protect a volume SnapMirror destination
SnapVault is often used to protect a volume SnapMirror destination. You can perform SnapVault transfers from the volume SnapMirror destination when you want to retain the data for a longer time.
- Error when vol lang changes on volumes
A warning message is displayed on the Data ONTAP CLI when the language setting of the volume changes on volumes containing SnapVault or qtree SnapMirror destinations.
- About SnapVault for NetBackup
The SnapVault for NetBackup feature provides an optimized disk-based backup repository for heterogeneous primary storage systems using NearStore secondary storage systems. By using NetBackup software with NearStore storage systems, you get a backup and recovery solution that can store a large number of backup images using a minimal amount of secondary storage and can quickly and easily recover data.
