SnapVault protects data on both NetApp and non-NetApp primary systems by maintaining a number of read-only versions of that data on a SnapVault secondary system and the SnapVault primary system.
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What SnapVault is
SnapVault is a disk-based storage backup feature of Data ONTAP. SnapVault enables data stored on multiple systems to be backed up to a central, secondary 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 system and SnapVault secondary storage system to perform their backup tasks. In Data ONTAP 8.2 and later, a single SnapVault license is used for SnapVault primary and SnapVault secondary instead of two separate SnapVault licenses. You must license and prepare your storage system 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 provided the 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 system to qtrees on the SnapVault secondary system, you must use the snapvault snap sched command to schedule a set of Snapshot copies on the SnapVault primary 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 SnapVaultSnapshot 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 expected, you can 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 system (source) qtree that you specified using the snapvault start command. You can change the SnapVault settings for transfer speed and number of tries before quitting. You might need to make these changes if there are hardware or software changes to the systems.
Why you manually update a qtree on the secondary system
You can use the snapvault update command to manually update the SnapVault qtree on the secondary system from a Snapshot copy on the primary system. You might want to update at an unscheduled time to protect the primary system data.
How to abort SnapVault transfers
You can use the snapvault abort command to halt an ongoing SnapVault transfer if a later transfer is 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 system qtree to be protected.
Releasing SnapVault relationships
There are two methods of releasing 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.
Turning SnapVault off
You can turn SnapVault off by using the snapvault.enable option if the files on the primary or secondary storage system are no longer important or current or have been moved to another location.
Compression feature of Open Systems SnapVault
The compression feature of Open Systems SnapVault enables data compression over the network. This feature helps optimize bandwidth usage for Open Systems SnapVault data transfers.
SnapVault secondary 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
You can use SnapVault 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 period.
SnapVault behavior when used for volume SnapMirror destination protection
When SnapVault is used to protect the volume SnapMirror destination, SnapVault uses the Snapshot copy based on the Data ONTAP version that is running on the SnapMirror destination system, when SnapVault schedule is used within Data ONTAP.
Setting the options to back up a volume SnapMirror destination using SnapVault
Starting with Data ONTAP 7.3.5, if you are backing up a volume SnapMirror destination using SnapVault, the SnapVault schedule updates can start from a named Snapshot copy, the Snapshot copy created by volume SnapMirror, or you can set a preference.
SnapVault and MultiStore
If you are using MultiStore software, you can use SnapVault to replicate the data for a vFiler unit.
Error regarding language setting 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.