Scheduling Remote Snapshots; Best Practices For Scheduling Remote Snapshots; Creating The Schedule - HP StorageWorks P4000 User Manual

Scheduling remote snapshots

In addition to taking remote snapshots of a volume manually, you can set up a schedule to take
snapshots and save them remotely. Scheduled remote snapshots provide business continuance and
disaster recovery, as well as a consistent, predictable update of data for remote backup and recovery.
Planning for scheduled remote snapshots is a crucial initial step in implementing Remote Copy. The
following items require planning in advance for successful deployment of scheduled remote snapshots:
Recurrence (frequency)
Retention policies
Capacity planning
Timing
For detailed information about these issues, see

Best practices for scheduling remote snapshots

Create a new remote volume to use with the scheduled remote snapshots.
If you are performing daily remote copies, schedule the remote snapshots during off-peak hours.
If you are setting scheduled remote snapshots for multiple volumes, stagger the schedules with at
least an hour between start times.
Use NTP to set all storage systems in the management group to the same time zone.
Reset the management group time before creating a new schedule to remote snapshot a volume.

Creating the schedule

To create the schedule for continuing remote snapshots:
1. In the navigation window, select the primary volume.
2. Click the Schedules tab.
3. Click Schedule Tasks, and then select New Schedule to Remote Snapshot a Volume.
4. Click Edit, and then select a Start At time.
5. Select a recurrence interval.
You can schedule a snapshot to occur every 30 minutes or more.
6. Select a retention interval for the primary snapshot, either number of days or number of snapshots.
You can retain up to 50 snapshots for a volume.
7. If you want to use VSS to quiesce the application before creating the snapshot, select the
Application-Managed Snapshot check box.
This option requires the use of the VSS Provider. For more information, see "Requirements for
application-managed snapshots" in the HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN Solution user guide. If
the VSS Provider is not installed, the SAN/iQ software allows the creation of a point-in-time
snapshot.
This option quiesces VSS-aware applications on the server before the SAN/iQ software creates
the snapshot.
8. Select the management group and volume that will hold the remote snapshots.
9. Log in if you need to.
"Planning for Remote Copy" on page 12.
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