Home > Storage > PowerFlex > White Papers > Microsoft SQL Server Disaster Protection with Dell PowerFlex Replication > Scenario 2: Target site snapshots
This scenario is useful to create database copies at the remote site for test and development. To do so, a remote snapshot is created at the target site, based on the RCG volumes.
The PowerFlex remote snapshot feature enables the users to take snapshots of a target site RCG, that creates a set of volumes in the target system. And then, the new volumes can be mounted on the SQL Server instance and the databases can be attached, optionally with new names.
Steps to get the target site snapshots:
1. Start the workload.
2. Log in to the PowerFlex presentation server UI on the target site and select the RCG that has the volumes that are used in SQL Server FCI.
3. Click MORE and select Create Snapshots.
4. The new volumes appear in the PowerFlex UI Protection > Snapshots.
5. The snapshot volumes appear in the Configuration: Volumes window in an unmapped state.
Note: There is no performance impact during the remote snapshot creation process.
6. The snapshot volumes should be mapped to all SDCs that are part of the WSFC hosts.
7. The mapped snapshot volumes must be added as RDMs to the target site WSFC VMs, so that the databases data and transaction log files can be added to the SQL Server instance.
Result: A separate instance of an SQL Server FCI or Standalone database can be used for running test on the target VM or cluster.
Note: A new virtual machine must be created with SQL Server FCI installed as is in source site and target site if all master data, user data, Logs, TempDB, and Backup volumes are to be used. If a test or dev SQL server exists, only then, the user data volume can be attached to the SQL Server.