Tracking Cloned Data

Cloned data on a volume is indistinguishable from the original, although the different capacities of storage media can mean that more or fewer volumes are required. Data-tracking information about each cloned save set is added to the existing entries that describe the source save sets. If administrators go outside of the ISM application and duplicate their volumes with a copy utility that the operating system or hardware provides, ISM has no knowledge of these volumes and cannot recover data stored on such volumes.

Both original and cloned volumes share the same ISM catalog entries, so the cloned data is subject to the same retention period as the original data. ISM automatically manages both original and cloned data based on the retention periods for the volumes. If you clone data a week before the retention period for the source data expires, the retention status for the cloned data changes to Expired at the same time that the original data does. If you want to keep data on a cloned volume beyond the retention period of the original data, you can change the recycling status of the cloned volume to Manual. ISM can keep and track the data on the cloned volume indefinitely.

To distinguish between cloned and original volumes, you must assign the cloned volume to a clone pool and include clone in the volume name. ISM provides preconfigured ISMData Clone and ISMLogs Clone pools for you to use when you clone your storage spaces and logical logs.