Detailed guidelines about tiering by age versus tiering by state
Detailed guidelines are provided to help you decide whether to tier data by age or tier data by state.
For general guidelines about tiering data by age or by state, see Determining whether tiering is appropriate for your storage environment. For detailed guidelines, review the following table.
Tip: The table does not include a column for tiering by age because that option is
available for all client types that support tiering.
| Client type | Capability to tier data by state | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| IBM Spectrum Protect backup-archive client | Yes | For frequently accessed data, the tier-by-state option is preferred because active data remains in local disk storage, from which restore operations are typically faster. For infrequently accessed data, the tier-by-age option is preferred. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect for Databases: Data Protection for Microsoft SQL Server | Yes | For frequently accessed data, the tier-by-state option is preferred because active data remains in local disk storage. For infrequently accessed data, the tier-by-age option is preferred. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect for Databases: Data Protection for Oracle | No | Oracle database data is always considered to be active. If you specify the tier-by-state
option, which tiers only inactive data, no data is tiered. To ensure that data is tiered, specify the tier-by-age option. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect for Databases: Data Protection for SAP | Yes | SAP database data is always considered to be archive data, which is inactive. Regardless of whether you specify the tier-by-age or tier-by-state option, all data that meets the specified age threshold is tiered. For this reason, you can use either option. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect HSM for Windows | Yes | Data that is backed up from IBM Spectrum Protect HSM for Windows is always considered to be archive data, which is inactive. Regardless of whether you specify the tier-by-age or tier-by-state option, all data that meets the specified age threshold is tiered. For this reason, you can use either option. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect for Mail: Data Protection for IBM® Domino® | Yes | For frequently accessed data, the tier-by-state option is preferred because active data remains in local disk storage. For infrequently accessed data, the tier-by-age option is preferred. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect for Mail: Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server | Yes | For frequently accessed data, the tier-by-state option is preferred because active data remains in local disk storage. For infrequently accessed data, the tier-by-age option is preferred. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect for Space Management | No | Data that is backed up from IBM
Spectrum Protect for Space Management is
stateless data that cannot be tiered by using the tier-by-state option. To ensure that data is tiered, specify the tier-by-age option. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments | Yes | Because of dependencies on images, most of the data that is backed up from IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments is considered to be active. If you specify the
tier-by-state option, only small amounts of data are tiered. In production environments, do not tier data. In test and development environments, consider using the tier-by-age option. |
| IBM Spectrum Protect Plus | No | Data that is backed up from IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is stateless data that cannot be tiered by using the tier-by-state option. To ensure that data is tiered, specify the tier-by-age option. |
Restriction: Tiering is not available for data from NetApp network-attached storage (NAS) file
servers.