Restore or refresh from a snapshot
Snapshot restore provides the user with the ability to restore a production volume group with the contents of one of the volume groups snapshots. This feature is sometimes referred to as restore in place. Snapshot refresh can be used to refresh the data on a set of thin-clone volumes from a volume group snapshot.
Restoring from a snapshot
This type of restore operation overwrites the contents of the production system with a previously saved version of the data.
You can restore either an entire volume group or subset of volumes within that group, which includes restoring clones and thin-clones. Additionally, snapshots of thin-clones can be used to restore the source volume group or volumes of that thin-clone.
You can select a target to restore a volume group or a subset of volumes within that group from a snapshot. You can select either the parent volume group or, if the parent volume group is the thin-clone, the source volume group from which the thin-clone was created by using the snapshot.
You can restore a volume group from a snapshots by using the option on the management GUI.
To restore a volume group from snapshots by using the command-line interface, see restorefromsnapshot command.
You can also see the details about last usage of a snapshot for restore in the management GUI or by using lsvolumegroup and lsvolumegroupsnapshot commands in the command-line interface.
- Snapshots can be used to restore to the parent volume group or volumes, or to restore to the source of the parent volume group or volumes if the parent volume group is a thin-clone. The restore to source only works if the parent is a thin-clone.
- The composition of the volume group must be the same at the time of the restore as it was at the time the snapshot was taken except for volumes that are deleted since the snapshot was taken.
- For restoring to the source of thin-clones, the thin-clone must be the same at time of restore as it was when the snapshot was taken. Also, ensure that none of the thin-clone volumes are deleted. A thin-clone, which is created from a subset of snapshot volumes, can be used to restore that subset of volumes to the source of the thin-clone.
- If volumes are added to the volume group, you can restore but you must use the CLI to specify the subset of volumes to be restored.
- The volumes being restored must be the same virtual capacity as when the snapshot was added.
- You cannot restore volumes if they are transparent cloud tiering (TCT) enabled.
- For volume groups with an asynchronous replication policy, volumes can only be restored or refreshed if the replication_mode on the volume group is production or independent.
- For volume groups with a high availability replication policy, volumes can only be restored or refreshed at the active management site.
Refresh from a snapshot
Any existing data on the set of volumes is discarded and the volumes are populated with the data from the specified snapshot.
Snapshot refresh operates at the volume group level or to a user specified subset of volumes within a volume group.