Storage Admin HubConfiguration · Protection · Recovery
All guides/Data Protection
Data Protection · ONTAP 9

Set up Snapshot-based recovery

Policy, retention, capacity, and file-level restore.

Scenario

Example: hourly recovery points retained for one day and daily points retained for a week. Set the actual policy from business RPO and available snapshot space.

Before you change production

Commands and screens can differ by release and platform. Replace example names and documentation IP addresses. Check prerequisites, impact, current health and rollback with your change owner.

1. Set the recovery objective

  1. Agree maximum tolerable data loss (RPO) with the application owner. Check whether crash-consistent storage snapshots are sufficient or application quiescing is required.
  2. Choose a snapshot schedule and retention that fit the RPO and expected change rate. Check available aggregate capacity and define a separate off-cluster protection copy.
Read-only checks 
volume show -fields snapshot-policy
volume snapshot show
volume show-space

2. Configure and test

  1. Assign the approved snapshot policy to the volume in System Manager. Confirm snapshots appear on schedule and retention behaves as expected.
  2. Create a disposable test file on an authorized client, take a recovery point if needed, change the file, then restore that single file from the chosen snapshot into a safe test location. Compare content and permissions.
  3. Record restore time and steps in the runbook. Do not treat an in-place snapshot on the same cluster as a site disaster recovery copy.
Verify

A named recovery point exists; test file restores with correct content and access.

3. Respond to space pressure

  1. Inspect snapshot consumption, active data and aggregate headroom separately. Determine which snapshot is required by SnapMirror or retention before changing policies.
  2. Never delete a snapshot solely because the volume is full without checking replication dependency and recovery commitments.
Read-only investigation 
volume snapshot show
volume show-space
snapmirror show

If validation fails

  1. If no scheduled snapshot appears, inspect policy assignment, schedule and time. Verify whether application integration or a protection workflow controls the schedule.
  2. If a restore point exists but a file is not readable, inspect the exact snapshot, file path, permissions and consistency requirements before trying another point.
  3. If snapshot space grows unexpectedly, compare change rate, retention, replication dependencies and aggregate headroom before deleting any copy.
Verify

Re-run the original validation and record the observed result, exact error, time, and corrective action.

NetApp references