SnapLock by NetApp, Inc.

BENEFITS

• SnapLock is a license-key feature that runs on all NetApp FAS storage platforms, thereby reducing costs and leveraging existing platforms.
• NetApp FAS storage units can have both SnapLock and non SnapLock data on the same unit simultaneously, avoiding the need for a separate hardware platform for each type of data. In addition, SnapLock can be added to an existing NetApp FAS storage unit, increasing flexibility—if you don’t need it now, you can add it later.
• SnapLock doesn’t affect performance, and thanks to NetApp’s unique operating system and file system, performance with lower-cost SATA drives approaches that of higher-cost Fibre Channel drives for archival data. that of higher-cost Fibre Channel drives for archival data.
• NetApp’s block-level deduplication is supported on SnapLock, further improving storage savings.
• SnapLock is backed by NetApp’s legendary data protection features, including RAID-DP® (NetApp’s unique implementation of RAID 6), Snapshot™, and SnapMirror®.

PRICING AND IMPLEMENTATION

Partner Pricing and Licensing Information
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Associated SAP Licensing Information
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SAP Archival With NetApp

FULL DESCRIPTION

All archival solutions have at least three components: a database to track the archived data; a full text index to enable keyword searches of the archives; and a content repository. The traditional industry approach for implementing SAP archiving has been for enterprises to buy a different storage system for each component. However, this approach introduces a lot of different processes, requires additional staff for management, runs on incompatible hardware, and introduces multiple software applications that the IT team must learn to use and stay current on. This type of heterogeneous environment creates a high level of complexity and results in poor utilization, with stranded silos of capacity and performance that cannot be shared or reallocated. In addition, disparate storage systems are hard to back up in a way that keeps the various components of the application protected in a synchronized manner. As a result, IT managers are spending much more than they'd like to on like-to-like environments for test and dev, archiving, disaster recovery, and disk-to-disk backup.

A more efficient model is to take a unified approach to storage. With a unified storage environment, enterprises can leverage the same hardware, software, people, and processes for all of their storage and data management requirements-regardless of tier, protocol, or task. The advantages of this approach include higher people productivity, fewer errors, faster response times, and much lower costs.

With a NetApp environment, you put the database and index on high-performance SAN with Fibre Channel drives, and the content on lower-cost SATA drives via a NAS connection. Both can be housed simultaneously in the same NetApp FAS unit, as shown in Figure 1. For the data immutability, a SnapLock volume can be included on the SATA infrastructure. This leverages all of the standard data management and data protection features across the entire infrastructure, and it has the added benefit of enabling you to create sets of Snapshot copies of the database, index, and content stores that are taken simultaneously.

The high performance of NetApp Snapshot technology also makes it highly scalable. A NetApp Snapshot copy takes only a few seconds to create-typically less than 1 second, regardless of the size of the volume or the level of activity on the NetApp storage system. After a Snapshot copy has been created, changes to data objects are reflected in updates to the current version of the objects, as if the Snapshot copies did not exist. Meanwhile, the Snapshot version of the data remains completely stable. A NetApp Snapshot copy incurs no performance overhead; users can store up to 255 Snapshot copies per WAFL® volume, all of which are accessible as read-only and online versions of the data.

Snapshot functionality is at the core technology of all NetApp data protection solutions, so each solution has inherited Snapshot technology's unique advantages. SnapMirror, SnapRestore®, SnapManager®, and SnapVault® offer enterprises stability, performance, storage efficiency, functionality, and interoperability that competing solutions-not based on NetApp Snapshot technology-simply cannot match.

NetApp Snapshot copies:

• Facilitate frequent, low-impact, user-recoverable backups of files, directories, LUNs, and application data, with minimal storage overhead.
• Deliver near-instantaneous, secure, user-managed restores. Restores can be user managed for nonproduction systems and are more easily performed by administrators for production systems.
• Offer the ability to increase the backup frequency. From an IT perspective, there are no impacts on the end users.

Only NetApp makes it practical to take multiple snapshot copies per day, and only NetApp enables the same frame to create those copies of the databases, indexes, content, or compliance storage at the same time.

CONTACT INFORMATION

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENT SPECIFIED BY PARTNER

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SUPPORT

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