Snapshots are a block image in the form of a storage volume or LUN used to instantaneously capture the state of a volume at a specific point in time. Snapshots can be initiated manually or through automated snapshot policies.

There are various use cases for snapshots including, but not limited to:

• Support for data retention policies to meet business and governmental compliance requirements
• Onboard rapid disaster recovery for avoiding DR site fail-over
• Enabling rapid application cloning
• Integrating with backup protection software to enable offsite or data retention requirements
• Providing cloning support for release cycles of custom or packaged software
• Defining and deploying templates of installed and configured applications or datasets
• Providing easy nondestructive what-if analysis of various business or other scenarios

This paper covers PowerFlex snapshot functionality including normal snapshots, secured snapshots, consistency groups, and snapshot policies.