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15 TR1059 | V4.0 | Exchange 2013 Data Protection with EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition 4.6 and PS
Series Arrays
6.2 Storage resource management
This section describes how ASM/ME and Smart Copies use storage resources and suggests some best
practices for monitoring and managing space used by Smart Copy sets on the PS Series group.
• Snapshot Smart Copies use the snapshot reserve space allocated to the volume. You can monitor
and change the snapshot reserve value for each volume that makes up an Exchange Server
Database.
When a snapshot smart copy is restored as a Recovery Mailbox Database, the snapshot continues to exist,
and continues to use the snapshot reserve for the volumes that make up the Smart Copy.
Best Practice: Maintain “keep counts” for Snapshot Smart Copy schedules to minimize overuse of
snapshot reserve. Recovery Mailbox Database restore of Snapshot Smart Copies are best used as
temporary copies of Databases and cleaned up as soon as the data is restored and confirmed.
• Clone Smart Copies use the same amount of storage as the original volume or volumes. When you
create a clone Smart Copy, a new volume appears in the Group Manager GUI with the date and
timestamp of the Smart Copy operation. Clone Smart Copies can be brought online through
ASM/ME by using the Mount option. We recommend that you mount your volumes read-only if you
don’t need to make any changes to the data contained in the Smart Copy. If you mount the volumes
read-write and make changes to your data, you will lose the ‘point in time’ nature of the Smart Copy.
Best Practice: Clone Smart Copies are complete copies of Exchange Database objects and should be
cleaned up after use to avoid storage resource consumption.
• Replica Smart Copies are created if replication is configured for a volume or volumes that make up
Exchange Server Databases. Replication requires a replication partner to store the replica set, and
must be set up on the PS Series group. The first replication always replicates the total volume data
for an Exchange Server Database or PS Series volume. Each subsequent replication operation only
replicates the data that changed for the volume or volumes since the last replication operation. You
can monitor and increase the replication reserve through the PS Group Manager GUI at any time.
Additionally, the Mount as Read-only Smart Copy option halts all replication activity on that Smart Copy
replica set until the replica is un-mounted and demoted. See “Restoring Exchange Server Databases with
Smart Copies” in this document for more information.
• The time it takes to replicate data can vary due to the amount of data being replicated and the
bandwidth of the network between the partner groups. For more information on replication see the
PS Series Technical Documents at:
http://www.equallogic.com/resourcecenter/documentcenter.aspx