You can use the External Relationships window to import a discovered relationship when you have identified that the relationship is not managed by the NetApp Management Console data protection capability.
After you import external relationships, the NetApp Management Console data protection capability takes over the management of data protection schedules and policies, and it disables the schedules and policies that were previously managed by other applications.
If you import a Volume SnapMirror relationship into the
NetApp Management Console data protection capability, the original mirror schedule is preserved. The NetApp Management Console data protection capability monitors the relationship but does not execute the schedule.
You can also import external relationships in the following situations:
- You installed the
NetApp Management Console data protection capability and are setting up data protection for the first time.
- You added storage resources to resource pools.
- You added existing SnapVault or SnapMirror relationships to datasets.
There are two additional ways of handling existing
SnapVault relationships. In both cases, these relationships are listed in the
External Relationships window.
- Storage system controls protection the DataFabric Manager server discovers the SnapVault relationship but does not manage it. In this case, the storage systems involved in the protection relationship control the protection schedule and retention policy.
- Operations Manager controls protection the DataFabric Manager server discovers the relationship and you decide to manage the protection schedule and retention policy from the Operations Manager Web-based user interface. In this case, you must create the protection schedule and policy using Operations Manager and assign them to the relationship.