Associating data protection, disaster recovery, a provisioning policy, or a storage service with a dataset enables storage administrators to 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.
Configuring a dataset combines the following objects:
- Dataset
of physical storage objects
- For protection purposes, a collection of physical resources on a primary node, such as volumes, flexible volumes, and qtrees, and the physical resources for copies of backed-up data on secondary and tertiary nodes.
For provisioning purposes, a collection of physical resources, such as volumes, flexible volumes, qtrees, and LUNs, that are assigned to a dataset node. If 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.
- Dataset of virtual objects
- A collection of supported VMware virtual objects that reside on storage systems. These virtual objects can also be backed up locally and backed up or mirrored on secondary and tertiary nodes.
- Resource pool
- A collection of physical resources from which storage is provisioned. Resource pools can be used to group storage systems and aggregates by attributes, such as performance, cost, physical location, or availability.
Resource pools can be assigned directly to the primary, secondary, or tertiary nodes of datasets of physical storage objects.
They can be assigned indirectly both to datasets of virtual objects and to datasets of physical storage objects through a storage service.
- Data protection policy
- Defines how to protect primary data on primary, secondary or tertiary storage, as well as when to create copies of data and how many copies to keep.
Protection policies can be assigned directly to datasets of physical storage objects. They can be assigned indirectly to both datasets of virtual objects and to datasets of physical storage objects through a storage service.
- Provisioning policy
- Defines how to provision storage for the primary or secondary dataset nodes, and provides rules for monitoring and managing storage space and for allocating storage space from available resource pools.
Provisioning policies can be assigned directly to the primary, secondary, or tertiary nodes of datasets of physical storage objects. They can be assigned indirectly to both datasets of virtual objects and datasets of physical storage objects through a storage service.
- Storage service
- A single dataset configuration package that consists of a protection policy, provisioning policies, resource pools, and an optional vFiler template (for vFiler unit creation). You can assign a single uniform storage service to datasets with common configuration requirements as an alternative to separately assigning the same protection policy, provisioning policies, and resource pools, and to setting up similar vFiler unit attachments to each of them.
The only way to configure a dataset of virtual objects with secondary or tertiary backup and mirror protection and provisioning is by assignment of a storage service.
You cannot configure secondary storage vFiler attachments for datasets of virtual objects.
- Protection or provisioning related objects
- Are Snapshot copies, primary volumes, secondary volumes, or secondary qtrees that are generated as a result of
protection jobs or provisioning jobs.
- Naming settings
- Are character strings and naming formats that are applied when naming related objects that are generated as a result of
protection jobs or provisioning jobs.
