Storage Policy Copies

Topics | How To | Support | Related Topics

Overview

• Primary Copy
• Secondary Copy
• Supported Copy Types per Storage Policy Type

Automatic Copy

Deferred Copy

Inline Copy

Jobs on a Storage Policy Copy

Source Copy

Spool Copy

Subclient-Based Storage Policy Copy

Storage Policy Copies Operations

• Mark Active Media Full
• Change Data Path
• Delete a Storage Policy Copy
• Schedules
• View Media Not Copied
• View Media
• View Jobs
• View Aged Media

Storage Policy Copy Considerations

• Auxiliary Copy
• Backups On and After Date
• Data Path
• Delete a Storage Policy Copy
• Disable a Job
• Hardware Compression
• Inactive Storage Policy Copy
• Prune a Job
• Retain a Job
• Retention Rules
• Secondary Copy
• Spool Copy

Audit Trail

Storage Policy Copy Properties

Related Reports

Overview

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:

Primary Copy

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.

Secondary Copy

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:

• Destination library of the data secured through the copy
• Data retention rules or all data to be secured through the copy
• Copy precedence
• Copy type (synchronous or selective)

There are two types of secondary copies. They are synchronous copies and a selective copies. The following section describes each.

Synchronous Copy

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.

Selective 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.

For more information, see:

• Auxiliary Copy With Synchronous and Selective Copies
• Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) Tape Rotation

Supported Copy Types per Storage Policy Type

The following table lists the types of storage policies and the types of storage policy copies that support that storage policy:

*Can also be designated as an Inline Copy.

Storage Policy Copy Operations

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.

Mark Active Media Full

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.

Change Data Path

You can change the data paths for:

• The media group used by a storage policy copy to a different library, master drive pool, drive pool and scratch pool within the CommCell.
• A magnetic library to another magnetic library.

For comprehensive information, see Data Path considerations.

Delete a Storage Policy Copy

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.

Schedules

You can view the schedules of jobs associated with a storage policy copy. For more information on scheduling, see Scheduling.

View Media Not Copied

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.

View Media

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:

• You need to know the mount paths location of your data stored on magnetic media.
• You want to change the data paths for media from one library to another and need to know which media are associated with a given storage policy copy.
• You are scheduling operations and want to make sure that all of the media necessary for the operations are inside the library.
• You want to view the contents on the media.

A list of this media or mount paths can be viewed from the Media List dialog box.

View Jobs

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:

• content indexing status
• availability
• aged data

Results will display in the Job for Storage Policy Copy window.

View Aged Media

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.

Storage Policy Copy Considerations

• For DataArchiver, making multiple copies for archived data is recommended to avoid single-point-failure. For example, you can create a secondary copy on a magnetic library that has a short retention period for faster recovery, and you can also create a secondary copy on tape media that has a longer retention period.
• For NAS NDMP environments, refer to Storage Policy Considerations for additional information.

• 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 magnetic library must be created and an auxiliary copy should be executed. A restore must be performed from this new copy.

• A custom calendar must first be defined before it can be associated with a storage policy copy.
• The same MediaAgent must be used for both the primary and inline copy.
• Consider an Automatic Copy scheduling option. Automatic Copy allows automatic auxiliary copy operations to be performed at specified time intervals on the source copy. This helps ensure that you will have regular additional copies of data from your data protection operations. For more information, see Automatic Copy.
• For Oracle and Oracle RAC, selective copies are supported for Selective Online Full and Offline Full operations only.

• 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.

Auxiliary Copy

• 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.

• If a storage policy copy designates a source copy for auxiliary copy operations, the source copy should not then designate the original storage policy copy as a source copy for auxiliary copy operations.
• If a secondary storage policy copy is enabled with Deduplication, then the Deduplication Store gets created for the copy and the associated data is deduplicated for that copy. See Deduplication for an overview.

• 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.

Backups On and After Date

• You can only move the Backups On And After Date forward for a storage policy copy once it has been defined. This date must be a date which occurs after the date you originally selected.
• If you change the Backups On And After Date to a date after the one selected, all data protection operations that were to be copied from the primary copy before the new date will not be copied when an auxiliary copy is run.

Data Path

• 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.

• Make sure that the drives of the destination drive pool are compatible with the recording format and hardware type of the migrating media.
  • An example of recording format incompatibility: Data paths can be changed from DLT 4000 drives to DLT 7000 drives as tapes written by DLT 4000 drives can be read in DLT 7000 drives. However, data paths cannot be changed from DLT 7000 drives to DLT 4000 drives, as tapes written by DLT 7000 drives cannot be read in DLT 4000 drives.
  • Another example of hardware type incompatibility: DLT tapes cannot be inserted into AIT or Mammoth drives or vice-versa.
  • Media from an NDMP drive pool can only be changed to another NDMP drive pool. (An NDMP drive pool is one containing drives that are attached to a NAS filer rather than to a MediaAgent.) Data Paths cannot be changed from NDMP to non-NDMP libraries.
• There are sufficient drives in the destination drive pool to accommodate all of the streams of the copy for which the data paths are changed. For example, a drive pool should contain at least three drives to accommodate a three-stream copy.
• It is possible to change the data paths for compatible libraries to stand-alone libraries and vice-versa, and between compatible stand-alone drives to stand-alone drives.
• When you change the data paths from one library to another, you must physically remove all of the media from the source library and insert them into the destination library. It is strongly recommended that you export such media from the source library and immediately import them in the target library. If you want to export all the media from the library, you can use the Mark Media Exported option from the library level. For more information, see Export Media.
• Once you change the data path and import the media in the target library, subsequent data protection operation, which uses these media, will mark active media as Appendable and use a new media.
• If you change the data path on media from a shared library, there is no need to export media from the source library, as the source library and the target library are the same.
• Media is marked as Appendable once it is migrated from any library to another library.

• 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.

Delete a Storage Policy Copy

• When a copy is deleted any data on that copy is permanently lost and hence becomes unavailable for data recovery operations.
• All corresponding media becomes available for reuse and moved to the corresponding scratch pool.
• A secondary copy cannot be deleted if there are any data aging, data recovery operations, or Auxiliary Copy jobs running. Check to see if there are any of these jobs running before attempting to delete the copy.
• A primary copy of a storage policy cannot be deleted. If you want to delete a primary copy then the entire storage policy must be deleted.

Disable a Job

• A job that has been disabled can still be restored/recovered.
• If a primary copy has a disabled job, and during a data recovery operation the software cannot find any data, data from the disabled job will be used.
• If you disable a backup of the last cycle that has occurred, this forces the next backup to be a full backup.
• For the Exchange Database and Image iDataAgents, if you disable an incremental or differential backup, all subsequent backups will be disabled up to the next full backup.

Hardware Compression

• You cannot enable hardware compression on a copy that uses an optical or magnetic library.
• NetApp attached drive pools: This procedure cannot change the hardware compression setting, which is determined by the access path selected when configuring the drive. By default hardware compression while be shown as enabled.

Inactive Storage Policy Copy

• If you mark a copy inactive, your primary copy data can still be pruned without being copied.
• Once a copy is marked as inactive, it cannot be used to transfer data to media.

Prune a Job

• Once a job is pruned from a storage policy copy, it cannot be restored.
• If you prune a job of the last cycle that has occurred, this forces the next job to be a full data protection operation. This is done to ensure a consistent cycle that includes all available data.

Retain a Job

• 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.

• Once a job has been manually retained, it will not be pruned during a data aging operation. It will be pruned when the manual retention time requirement has been met. Note that jobs can be held infinitely.
• If a job is manually retained, it will still be pruned as a result of the following operations:
  • Deletion of a backup set or instance/partition.
  • Deletion of a Storage Policy
  • Deletion of a Storage Policy copy
  • The Overwrite Media option is enabled on the library
  • Deleting the contents of a media

Retention Rules

• Do not change the retention rule of a copy while a data protection, data recovery, or auxiliary copy operation is running.
• It is recommended that secondary copies have a retention period that is greater than or equal to that of the primary copy.
• If the copy is of a storage policy that is associated with an incremental storage policy, the retention period of the primary copy of the full storage policy copy must be greater than or equal to the retention period of the primary copy of the incremental storage policy.
• The Basic Retention Rule for a storage policy configured for DataArchiver Agents can only be defined by time, not cycles.
• Basic Retention Rules must be defined before Extended Retention Rules can be selected.
• You can set either 0 days or 0 cycles as a basic retention rule on a primary copy, only when there is an active synchronous copy for the storage policy.
• Extended Retention Rules must be chosen in ascending order by the number of days and the selected rule type.
• All non-full backups after the Basic Retention Rules are met are pruned, regardless of any Extended Retention Rules set.
• If multiple backups reside in the same time period of the Extended Retention Rule, the retention order of priority is as follows:
  • The backup is fully copied, but not disabled.
  • The backup is fully copied, but disabled.
  • The backup is marked as Partial or To be Copied (data for the job is available on the primary copy)
  • The backup is marked as Partial (data from the job is pruned, disabled, or Partial on the primary copy)

Secondary Copy

• A synchronous copy must be active to be promoted to be a primary copy.
• Selective copies cannot be promoted to be a primary copy.
• It is recommended that the synchronous copy be synchronized with the primary copy before it is promoted. If it is not, you may suffer data loss if data from the primary copy has not yet been copied to the secondary copy before the secondary copy is promoted. Also, unsynchronized promotion causes the next backup to be a full backup.
• The retention period and all defined attributes for a copy is retained when promoted. Therefore, it is recommended that you change the retention period of the copy so that it has a greater than or equal to retention period of the primary copy. See Change the Retention Rules of a Storage Policy Copy for details on changing the retention period of a storage policy copy.
• It is recommended that you do not promote a copy to be the primary copy while a data protection, data recovery, or auxiliary copy operation is running.
• If your secondary copy that you want to promote uses the Combined to <n> Streams option, then that copy must have the same amount of drives available as the primary copy.
• A secondary copy will assume the same data multiplexing factor defined in the primary copy.

Spool Copy

• Only a primary copy can be marked as a spool copy with a 0 days and 0 cycles basic retention rule.
• There must be an active synchronous copy.
• Once data is copied to a secondary copy, all data is pruned from a spool copy during a data aging operation.

Data Multiplexing

Image Level and Image Level ProxyHost

• Data Multiplexing is not supported for more than one stream to a single tape within a job. Multi-streaming is supported, however, each stream must use a different tape. The data on a tape can be multiplexed with a different job, but not with another stream of the same job.

Audit Trail

Operations performed with this feature are recorded in the Audit Trail. See Audit Trail for more information.

Related Reports

Jobs In Storage Policy Copy Report

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.

Back to Top