Dataset concepts

You can use datasets 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 dataset lets storage administrators automate tasks, such as assigning consistent policies to primary data, propagating policy changes, and provisioning new volumes, qtrees, or LUNS on primary and secondary dataset nodes. The licenses that you have installed determine which policies are available.

Configuring a dataset combines the following objects:

Dataset

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

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

Application dataset

A dataset managed by an application that is external to the licensed protection and provisioning applications, such as a dataset managed by SnapManager for Oracle.

Resource pool

A collection of physical resources from which secondary storage is provisioned. Resource pools can 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, as well as when to create copies of data and how many copies to keep.

Provisioning policy

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