Data set concepts

You can use data sets to group data and use resource pools to group storage to simplify the monitoring, provisioning, reporting, and access control of your SnapVault and SnapMirror relationships, which enables flexible and efficient use of storage.

Associating a data protection, disaster recovery, or provisioning policy with a data set lets storage administrators automate tasks, such as applying consistent policies to primary data, propagating policy changes, and provisioning new volumes, qtrees, or LUNS on primary and secondary data set node. The licenses you have installed determine which policies are available. Configuring a data set combines the following objects:

Data set

For protection purposes, a data set is a collection of physical resources on a primary node, such as volumes, flexible volumes, and qtrees, and copies of backed-up data.

Note: It is a good practice to group primary data that have identical data protection requirements.

For provisioning purposes, a data set is a collection of physical resources, such as volumes, flexible volumes, qtrees, and LUNs, assigned to a data set node. If the protection license is installed and the protection policy establishes a primary and one or more nonprimary nodes, each node of the data set is a collection of physical resources that might or might not be provisioned from the same resource pool.

A data set cannot contain a storage system that is also in a resource pool assigned to a data set node. This constraint prevents a loop that attempts to provision an infinite number of volumes.

Application data set

A data set managed by an application external to the licensed protection and provisioning applications.

Resource pool

A collection of physical resources from which secondary storage is provisioned. Resource pools may be used to group storage systems and aggregates by attributes, such as performance, cost, physical location, or availability.

Data protection policy

A data protection policy defines how to protect the primary, secondary, and tertiary storage; when to create copies of data; and how many copies to keep.

Provisioning policy

A provisioning policy defines how to provision primary or secondary data set nodes, and provides rules for monitoring and managing storage space and for allocating storage space from available resource pools.