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Snapshot policies provide automated scheduling of SnapVX snapshots using a highly available and flexible policy engine that runs internally on the storage array. Snapshot policies can be managed through Dell Unisphere for PowerMax, REST API, Solutions Enabler, and now Ansible.
Snapshot policies can be customized with rules that specify when to take snapshots, how many snapshots to take, and how long to keep each snapshot. Compliance requirements can also be specified to send alerts if the rules of a policy are not being met. Applications can be protected by multiple policies with different schedules and retention parameters, according to the requirements of the business. Each policy can protect many applications, even protecting a mix of open systems and mainframe applications.
Snapshot policies provide reliable protection for applications in an automated fashion that requires little to no maintenance by the business. Administrators can manually take snapshots of applications that are protected by snapshot policies to satisfy on-demand requirements.
The snapshot policy module is used for creating and modifying snapshot policies. This module can also be used for associating snapshot policies to a storage group. Figure 33 shows a sample task for creating a snapshot policy and associating to a playbook. The full text for the sample playbook is here.
The variables for creating the policy include:
The need to regularly create snapshot policies is unlikely. Once services are published and the associated policies configured, they will be reused multiple times.
Instead, you can assign the snapshot policies when creating or modifying storage groups, using the storage group module with the optional parameters shown in Figure 34. You can find the full playbook on GitHub here.