Applications of Point-in-Time Copy Solutions

The following typical activities are suitable for Point-In Time Copy solutions implemented using VERITAS FlashSnap:

• Data Backup---Many enterprises require 24 x 7 data availability. They cannot afford the downtime involved in backing up critical data offline. By taking snapshots of your data, and backing up from these snapshots, your business-critical applications can continue to run without extended downtime or impacted performance.
• Decision Support Analysis and Reporting---Operations such as decision support analysis and business reporting may not require access to real-time information. You can direct such operations to use a replica database that you have created from snapshots, rather than allow them to compete for access to the primary database. When required, you can quickly resynchronize the database copy with the data in the primary database.
• Testing and Training---Development or service groups can use snapshots as test data for new applications. Snapshot data provides developers, system testers and QA groups with a realistic basis for testing the robustness, integrity and performance of new applications.
• Database Error Recovery---Logic errors caused by an administrator or an application program can compromise the integrity of a database. You can recover a database more quickly by restoring the database files by using Storage Checkpoints or a snapshot copy than by full restoration from tape or other backup media.

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  Note    To provide continuity of service in the event of hardware failure in a cluster environment, you can use point-in-time copy solutions in conjunction with the high availability cluster functionality of VERITAS Storage Foundation^TM for Cluster File System HA or VERITAS Storage Foundation HA for the DB2, Oracle and Sybase databases.

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