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.
- Planning primary and secondary qtree locations
Planning the location of primary system qtrees or Open Systems directories and their corresponding secondary system qtrees is helpful for better storage management. Multiple primary system qtrees from multiple volumes and multiple Open Systems directories can all be backed up to corresponding secondary system qtrees in a single volume.
- SnapVault primary and secondary on the same storage system
In Data ONTAP 7.3 and later, the SnapVault primary and secondary features can be on the same storage system. However, you should enable both the SnapVault primary and the SnapVault secondary licenses on the same storage system.
- Planning SnapVault backup schedule and Snapshot copy retention
It is important to plan the SnapVault backup schedule and number of Snapshot copies to be retained.
- Estimating the initial backup time
The backup time required for the initial transfer of data from the primary storage system to the secondary storage system depends on the inode count of the primary data to be backed up, size of the dataset, and capabilities of the network.
- Limit on the number of concurrent SnapVault targets
Starting with Data ONTAP 7.3, the maximum possible number of concurrent SnapVault transfers of individual qtrees on a storage system is greater than the maximum number in Data ONTAP 7.2. However, maximum number of concurrent SnapVault targets did not change between release families.
