Quantum DXi4701, User Manual

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Chapter 6: DXi4701 Replication
Understanding Data Replication
Quantum DXi4701 User’s Guide 115
manual replication is performed on a regular basis). For replication to
occur, the source system must be configured to point to the target
system. Similarly, the target system must be configured to accept data
from the source system.
To optimize the replication process, deduplicated data is continuously
sent in the background from the source system to the target system.
However, a snapshot that preserves the file structure of your data is sent
to the target system only when a scheduled or manual replication job
occurs. A snapshot contains all of the information that is necessary to
recreate a share or partition just as it was at the point in time when the
snapshot was created.
Caution: A saved snapshot is necessary to recover your data at a
later time. For this reason, it is not enough to simply enable
replication for a share or partition. You must also configure
a replication schedule (recommended) or perform manual
replication on a regular basis to send snapshots of the
share or partition to the target system.
If the source system ever becomes unavailable, you can recover the
share or partition on the target system using a saved snapshot. After
you recover a share or partition, it is recreated on the target system and
is available for use. Once the source system becomes available again,
you can perform a failback operation to restore the share or partition to
its original location.
Directory/File or
Cartridge Based
Replication
Like replication, Directory/File or Cartridge Based Replication sends data
from a NAS share or VTL partition to another system where it can be
accessed. However, Directory/File or Cartridge Based Replication differs
in a number of important ways:
• Both replication and Directory/File or Cartridge Based Replication
must be enabled for the share or partition.
• A unique Sync ID is used to associate the replicated share or
partition on the source system with the share or partition that will
receive the replicated data on the target system.
• You do not need to schedule or manually perform Directory/File or
Cartridge Based Replication through the remote management
console. Instead, replication is triggered when a file is closed or a