SnapMirror is a feature of Data ONTAP that enables you to replicate data. SnapMirror enables you to replicate data from specified source volumes or qtrees to specified destination volumes or qtrees, respectively. You need a separate license to use SnapMirror.
You can use SnapMirror to replicate data within the same storage system or with different storage systems.
After the data is replicated to the destination
storage system, you can access the data on the destination to perform the following actions:
- You can provide users immediate access to mirrored data in case the source goes down.
- You can restore the data to the source to recover from disaster, data corruption (qtrees only), or user error.
- You can archive the data to tape.
- You can balance resource loads.
- You can back up or distribute the data to remote sites.
You can configure SnapMirror to operate in one of the following modes:
- Asynchronous mode: SnapMirror replicates Snapshot copies to the destination at specified, regular intervals.
- Synchronous mode: SnapMirror replicates data to the destination as soon as the data is written to the source volume.
- Semi-synchronous mode: SnapMirror replication at the destination volume lags behind the source volume by 10 seconds. This mode is useful for balancing the need for synchronous mirroring with the performance benefit of asynchronous mirroring.
SnapMirror can be used with traditional volumes and FlexVol volumes.
Note: SnapMirror is supported for V-Series systems also. Information about SnapMirror in this chapter applies to both FAS systems and V-Series systems, unless specified otherwise.
