Data backup

As the requirement for 24 x 7 availability becomes essential for many businesses, organizations cannot afford the downtime involved in backing up critical data offline. By taking a snapshot of the data, and backing up from this snapshot, business-critical applications can continue to run without extended down time or impacted performance.

Decision support analysis and reporting

Because snapshots hold a point-in-time copy of a production database, you can set up a replica of the database using the snapshots. Operations such as decision support analysis and business reporting do not require access to up-to-the-minute information. They can use a database copy that is running on a host other than the primary. When required, the database copy can quickly be synchronized with the data in the primary database.

Testing and training

Development or service groups can use snapshots as test data for new applications. Snapshot data gives developers, system testers and QA groups a realistic basis for testing the robustness, integrity, and performance of new applications.

Database error recovery

Logic errors caused by an administrator or an application program can compromise the integrity of a database. By restoring the database table files from a snapshot copy, the database can be recovered more quickly than by full restoration from tape or other backup media.