Using Snapshot with AIM

Installing DataCore Snapshot software on the AIM destination system allows you to enable a snapshot relationship on the AIM destination system. Issue an AIM marker on the source system at quiesce (quiet) points and when data is transferred the destination system will process the request and enable a snapshot of the destination virtual volume at the remote location. Data is automatically flushed when a snapshot request is sent.

To successfully process the snapshot request (marker) on the destination system, you must pre-configure Snapshot. The AIM destination virtual volume is used as the source of the snapshot relationship. (Refer to Creating a Snapshot Set, if necessary.

Here are your options to enable snapshot relationships from the source system:

  1. Manually (refer to Manually Enabling Snapshots).

  2. Automatically (refer to Automatically Enabling Snapshots).

  3. Group Snapshots (refer to Enabling Group Snapshots).

  4. Scripting with a CLI (refer to Using AIM CLI Commands).
    CAUTION:  When performing CLI commands, run the command window in Run as Administrator mode.

Using Snapshot at the Source

AIM can also replicate snapshots taken on the source system. Using a snapshot as the source volume can be used to reduce the replication traffic by eliminating the transfer of blocks written more than once and only replicating the latest change to the block. An implementation of this would be to create a snapshot script incrementing the snapshot with a Complete Image command in time intervals (such as every 15 minutes) using the snapshot as the AIM source. In this scenario, every 15 minutes, as the snapshot increments, those latest changed blocks will be copied to the source virtual volume and transferred to the destination. The transmission of any multiple writes that may have occurred on any given block during the past 15 minutes would be eliminated. The usefulness of this implementation depends the application and the server’s file system that owns the volume you are replicating.

Using Snapshot to View AIM Destination Data

You can easily view the data in the AIM destination virtual volume by using Snapshot. Refer to Viewing Destination Volume Data for instructions.  

Using Snapshot with AIM