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Subclient-Based Storage Policy Copy
Storage Policy Copies Operations
Storage Policy Copy Considerations
Storage Policy Copy Properties
A storage policy copy provides the means to make additional copies of the data. Copies can be created by performing an auxiliary copy operation, or by performing a data protection operation that creates Inline copies.
Each storage policy consists of one or more storage policy copies. There are several types of storage policy copies. They are:
The primary copy is automatically created by the system when a storage policy is created. All data protection operations that use a given storage policy use the primary copy. The primary copy carries all data that is directed to its parent storage policy.
A secondary copy of a storage policy provides a means of making an additional copy of protected data and is used in auxiliary copy operations, or data protection operations that create inline copies. An auxiliary copy operation or a data protection operation with an inline copy replicates the data that has been protected through the primary copy to the secondary copies within the same storage policy. While a secondary copy can use the same library as the primary, it is recommended that a different library is used for a secondary copy.
When configured, each copy is assigned a set of attributes. These attributes define the nature of the data protection data that is protected and/or copied on a copy. Such attributes include the:
There are two types of secondary copies. They are synchronous copies and a selective copies. The following section describes each.
During an auxiliary copy operation or a data protection operation that creates an inline copy, all data protection operations occurring on or after a selected date on the primary copy are copied to a synchronous copy. In case data is lost, you can restore/recover the same data from a synchronous copy. Note that you can promote a synchronous copy to be the primary copy.
A selective copy allows you to copy backup data selectively from a source copy to this copy, providing for better tape rotation. Since only selective backups can be copied to selective copies, the selective copies cannot be promoted to the primary copy, only synchronous copies can be promoted. Note that the data selection process does not have to be the same for all auxiliary copies.
During an auxiliary copy operation or a data protection operation that creates an inline copy, only those backups from the primary copy that meet certain criteria will be copied to a selective copy. You can define a selective copy to be time-based, automatically selected, or automatically not selected on the primary copy.
If the copy is defined as All Fulls, all full backups on the primary copy will be copied during an auxiliary copy operation or a data protection operation that creates an inline copy. If the copy is defined as time-based, only the first or last full backup that occurs within each selected weekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly interval will be copied. You have the option of creating and associating a custom calendar to the copy, so that the intervals can be further customized.
Selective Copy will copy Selective Online Full and Offline Full jobs for Oracle agent and regular Full Jobs which has linked log backups are copied for other database agents like DB2, Sybase etc.
For File System and File System like Agents, the selective copy will copy backup jobs that completed with errors. However, if these jobs are associated with Database Agents, the selective copy will not copy them.
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For more information, see:
Once selected and saved for a storage policy copy, the following rules are enabled:
This feature can be enabled from the General tab of the Copy Properties dialog box.
Note that, users that are members of master user group can change the retention period manually for a specific retained jobs of a Worm copy. See Manually Modify the Retention of the Retained Jobs for WORM Copy for step-by-step instructions.
A snapshot copy of the storage policy is an additional copy of the protected data which is used in SnapProtect Backup operations. The snapshot copy stores the meta data information related to the SnapProtect backup.
The following table lists the types of storage policies and the types of storage policy copies that support that storage policy:
Storage Policy Type | Storage Policy Copy Type |
Standard | Primary Copy |
Synchronous Copy* | |
Selective Copy* | |
Disaster Recovery Backup | Primary Copy |
Synchronous Copy* |
*Can also be designated as an Inline Copy.
Storage policy operations allow you various options for media maintenance and data viewing. These include features such as designating media as full, changing data paths for media, deleting storage policy copies, and viewing several media data within the system.
Disk volume reconciliation allows you to reconcile the discrepancies in the disk volume associated with a storage policy copy data. This feature compares the physical data located in the disk mount path with the metadata records in the CommServe database and provides the list of orphaned jobs and orphaned media space. Orphaned jobs are jobs without corresponding data on the media, and orphaned media is the list of volumes without corresponding jobs in the CommServe. This feature is applicable for disk storage media only.
The orphaned media is displayed with associated details like the Storage Policy, Storage Policy Copy, Library, volume path, No. of Chunks, Size of the data etc., and the orphaned jobs are displayed with details such as Job ID, Client Name, Application Type, Library, Storage Policy, Storage Policy Copy, etc. You can review the information and delete the orphaned jobs and/or orphaned media. When an orphaned media space is deleted, the space is marked for deletion and pruned based on the retention rules set for the copy. When an orphaned job is deleted, the job is removed from the CommServe database. Jobs deleted using this feature are recorded in the Audit Trial. See Perform a Disk Volume Reconciliation Job and Reconcile the Differences for step-by-step instructions.
Once a disk volume reconciliation job is executed, you can use the results of the analysis to reconcile the differences at a later time. This allows you to reconcile the differences without executing the job again. See View the Results of a Disk Volume Reconciliation Job and Reconcile the Differences for step-by-step instructions.
This feature is supported only for Non-Deduplicated Storage Policy copy. |
You can use the Media Information Report to review the results of this job. The details of the orphaned jobs, orphaned media, and the volumes deleted using the job are available in the report.
This option marks all active media within a storage policy copy as full. Subsequent data protection operations or auxiliary copy operations that are directed to the copy will start on new media.
You can change the data paths for:
For comprehensive information, see Data Path considerations.
When a storage policy copy is deleted, the data associated with the copy cannot be restored/recovered.
The primary copy of a storage policy cannot be deleted. If you want to delete a primary copy then you must delete the entire storage policy.
Secondary copies (synchronous, selective) can be deleted from the CommCell Browser if there are no data aging, data recovery operations, or Auxiliary Copy jobs running. Verify that none are running before attempting to delete the copy. See Delete a Secondary Copy.
You can view the schedules of jobs associated with a storage policy copy. For more information on scheduling, see Scheduling.
You can view the media that has data that has not yet been copied to all secondary copies within a storage policy. This will help you determine which media are required for operations, and how much data must be copied.
This media can be viewed from the Media Not Copied dialog box.
The software provides information about all the media or mount paths containing data associated with a storage policy copy. This can be useful in various circumstances, including the following:
A list of this media or mount paths can be viewed from the Media List dialog box.
You can view and perform operations on the jobs that reside on, or are scheduled to be copied to, a storage policy copy. For more information on the View Jobs feature, see Jobs on a Storage Policy Copy. Selecting the Advanced button provides you with additional viewing options, which you can select in the Jobs in Storage Policy Advanced Filter Options dialog box. From here, you can view jobs based on:
Results will display in the Job for Storage Policy Copy window.
You can view the media that was used by a storage policy copy from the Media List dialog box. Data from data protection operations have been pruned from this media, and the media has already been returned to the scratch volume pool.
Note: This option is available only if the library to which the storage policy copy directs its data is a tape or optical library.
Multi-stream backups of the Microsoft SQL, DB2, DB2 DPF and Sybase agents will be copied during an auxiliary copy operation to a copy that combines streams; however, restore operations may have limitations. See Browse and Restore for more information.
In order to restore SQL, DB2, DB2 DPF and Sybase agent backups from combined streams of Storage Policy copies, a new Storage Policy copy to disk library must be created and an auxiliary copy should be executed. A restore must be performed from this new copy.
If the default data path on the primary copy of a storage policy points to a drive pool configured on a MediaAgent enabled with NDMP Remote Server (NRS), then the secondary copy must also point to a drive pool configured on a MediaAgent with NRS installed in order to restore the data to a NAS file server.
When refreshing media, if the source of the auxiliary copy is a synchronous copy, the new copy can be a selective or synchronous copy. However, if the source of the auxiliary copy is a selective copy, the new copy must be a selective copy also.
For more information, see Media Refresh.
By default, when a browse or data recovery operation is requested (without specifying copy precedence), the software attempts to browse/restore/recover from the storage policy copy with the lowest copy precedence. If the media for the copy with the lowest precedence is offsite, damaged, or if hardware resources are unavailable, then a specific storage policy copy must be specified in the Copy Precedence tab of the Storage Policy Properties dialog box. For more information, see Change the Copy Precedence.
If you change the data path between two different libraries, and if the storage policy copy using the source library is configured for a data path failover, once the data path is changed you must configure the storage policy copy for a data path(s).
If your storage policy is configured for Alternate Data Paths, do not perform change the data path for media associated with the primary copy of that storage policy.
When you change the data paths make sure that the libraries and drives in the source and destination library are compatible. Specifically, the destination library must be capable of reading the bar codes on the media for which you have changed the data path. See the library manufacturer's documentation for compatible bar codes.
Make sure that the firmware of the source and target library can read the barcodes of media exactly the same way.
Data paths for NAS attached libraries can only be added if the MediaAgent used in that data path also has the File System iDataAgent installed on that computer. This is applicable only for Windows MediaAgents.
If a job is pruned or deleted, by default the next job is forced to be a full backup, ensuring a consistent cycle that captures all available data. However, if an associated agent supports differential backups, then you can change the next job to be a differential backup. This reduces media consumption, as full backups contain large amounts of data.
From the CommCell Console, data protection operations can be manually retained. However, if necessary, the Command Line Interface jobretention qoperation can be used to manually retain any type of data protection operation for all agent types.
You can view list of all retained jobs for a specific storage policy copy. See View Retained Jobs for a Storage Policy Copy for step-by-step instructions.
Image Level and Image Level ProxyHost
For deduplicated storage policy copies, it is recommended that you disable the Enable Managed Disk Space for disk data option on Copy Properties dialog box (Retention tab), for faster pruning of the aged data in order to reclaim space on the disk.
Operations performed with this feature are recorded in the Audit Trail. See Audit Trail for more information.
The Jobs In Storage Policy Copy Report provides a list of data protection jobs associated with the storage policy copies based on the selected filter criteria.