Take advantage of new flexibility for tiering data to file storage
IBM Spectrum® Protect 8.1.13 introduces a new option for tiering, which is the process of automatically moving data from one type of storage to another. In previous releases, you could tier data from directory-container storage pools to cloud storage or tape storage. With IBM Spectrum Protect 8.1.13, you can also tier data to file storage.
When you tier data to file storage, the data is moved to a sequential-access storage pool with a
device type of FILE, and the storage is physically located on disk. File storage on disk offers the
following advantages:
- If the data was stored in a directory-container storage pool with data deduplication enabled, you can discontinue data deduplication by tiering a node's data to file storage, where data deduplication is disabled by default. This approach can be advantageous if the data deduplication ratio is low, providing minimal benefit. In this case, you can discontinue data deduplication to conserve system resources. As an added advantage, the tiered data remains readily available for restore operations because the data is fully hydrated and stored on disk.
- After you tier data to file storage, you have more flexibility for moving the data. For example, you can use EXPORT and IMPORT commands to move an entire node or its data to another location in the current storage environment or a different storage environment.