Dell PowerStore 1000X EMC PowerStore Configuring Volumes - Page 15

5 Thin clones A thin clone is a read-write copy of a volume, volume group, or snapshot that shares blocks with the parent resource. Data available on the source at the moment of the thin clone creation is immediately available to the thin clone. The thin clone references the source snapshot for this data. However, data resulting from changes to the thin clone after its creation is stored on the thin clone. Changes to the thin clone do not affect the source snapshot. Advantages of using thin clones Thin clones allow you to create and manage space-efficient copies of production environments, which is beneficial for the following types of activities: • Development and test environments - Thin clones allow development and test personnel to work with real workloads and use all data services associated with production storage resources without interfering with production. They also allow development personnel to promote a test thin clone to production. • Parallel processing - Parallel processing applications that span multiple servers can use multiple thin clones of a single production data set to achieve results more quickly. • Online backup - You can use thin clones to maintain hot backup copies of production systems. If there is corruption in the production data set, you can immediately resume the read-write workload by using the thin clones. • System deployment - You can use thin clones to build and deploy templates for identical or near-identical environments. For example, you can create a test template that is thin cloned as needed for predictable testing. Thin clone restrictions The following restrictions apply to thin clones: • After you create a thin clone, the source volume, volume group, or snapshot can be deleted. • If you move a thin clone, the volume family to which it belongs is also moved. Topics: • Thin clone terminology and hierarchy • Create a thin clone of a volume • Create a thin clone of a volume group Thin clone terminology and hierarchy The snapshots and thin clones for a volume, volume group, or storage container form a hierarchy. This document uses the following terms to describe this hierarchy: Term Source Base volume, base volume group, base storage container Family Parent Definition A volume, volume group, or snapshot of a volume or volume group that is used as the source for thin clone create and refresh operations. The source can change when the clone is refreshed. The founding (production) volume, volume group, or storage container for derivative snapshots and thin clones. A volume, volume group, or base storage container and all its derivative thin clones and snapshots. This family includes snapshots and thin clones of the storage resource. The original parent storage container, volume, volume group or thin clone for the snapshot. This resource does not change when a thin clone is refreshed to a different source snapshot, because the new Thin clones 15