Release Notes

16 Dell PS Series Snapshots and Clones: Best Practices and Sizing Guidelines | BP1027
3.9 Snapshot schedules
Using Dell Storage Manager, Dell EqualLogic Group manager or Auto-Snapshot manager, an administrator
can create a schedule for taking snapshots (or replicas) of a volume or a volume collection. The schedule can
execute on an hourly or daily basis and the frequency of snapshots (or replicas) can be set to occur once or
at regular intervals (from five minutes to 12 hours apart). The schedule can also set how many snapshots (or
replicas) should be retained (assuming there is sufficient reserve space allocated). For example, an
administrator may schedule a snapshot to occur every two hours between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. each day with a
maximum of ten snapshots to be retained.
3.10 Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager
Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft
®
Edition (ASM/ME) is also available for hosts running
Windows Server
®
. ASM/ME is installed as part of the Dell EqualLogic Host Integration Tools (HIT) for
Microsoft
®
and can be used to automate point-in-time, application consistent snapshots, clones, and replicas;
also known as Smart Copies. ASM/ME uses the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to ensure
that any I/O is quiesced and any in-flight data is committed to disk before the snapshot or clone volume is
created. Without VSS, the only way to guarantee that the data on a volume is consistent, is to dismount the
volume (i.e., bring it offline) or shut down the host it is connected to, to ensure all cached data is flushed to
the disk.
Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager