Before you use SnapCenter to back up SAP HANA database resources, you must create a backup policy for the resource or resource group that you want to back up. A backup policy is a set of rules that governs how you manage, schedule, and retain backups.

Before you begin

You must have defined your backup strategy.

For details, see the information about defining a data protection strategy for SAP HANA databases.
You must have prepared for data protection by completing tasks such as installing SnapCenter, adding hosts, setting up storage system connections, and adding resources.
The SnapCenter administrator must have assigned the SVMs for both the source and destination volumes to you if you are replicating Snapshot copies to a mirror or vault.

Additionally, you can specify replication, script, and application settings in the policy. These options saves time when you want to reuse the policy for another resource group.

About this task

SAP HANA System Replication
- You can protect the primary SAP HANA system and all the data protection operations can be performed.
- You can protect the secondary SAP HANA system, but the backups cannot be created.
  
  After the failover, all the data protection operation can be performed as the secondary SAP HANA system becomes the primary SAP HANA system.
  
  You cannot create a backup for SAP HANA data volume, but SnapCenter continues to protect the Non-data Volumes (NDV).
SnapLock
- If 'Retain the backup copies for a specific number of days' option is selected, then the SnapLock retention period must be lesser than or equal to the mentioned retention days.
- Specifying a Snapshot copy locking period prevents deletion of the Snapshot copies until the retention period expires. This could lead to retaining a larger number of Snapshot copies than the count specified in the policy.
- For ONTAP 9.12.1 and below version, if you specify a Snapshot copy locking period, the clones created from the tamper proof Snapshot copies will inherit the SnapLock expiry time. You should manually cleanup the clones post the SnapLock expiry time.

Primary SnapLock settings are managed in SnapCenter backup policy and the secondary SnapLock settings are managed by ONTAP.

Steps

In the left navigation pane, click Settings.
In the Settings page, click Policies.
Click New.
In the Name page, enter the policy name and description.

In the Settings page, perform the following steps:

Choose backup type:

If you want to…	Do this…
Perform an integrity check of the database	Select File-Based Backup. Only active tenants are backed up.
Create a backup using Snapshot copy technology	Select Snapshot Based.

If you want to…

Do this…

Perform an integrity check of the database

Select File-Based Backup. Only active tenants are backed up.

Create a backup using Snapshot copy technology

Select Snapshot Based.

Specify the schedule type by selecting On demand, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.

You can specify the schedule (start date, end date, and frequency) for the backup operation while creating a resource group. This enables you to create resource groups that share the same policy and backup frequency, but also enables you to assign different backup schedules to each policy.

If you have scheduled for 2:00 a.m., the schedule will not be triggered during daylight saving time (DST).

In the Custom backup settings section, provide any specific backup settings that have to be passed to the plug-in in key-value format.

You can provide multiple key-values to be passed to the plug-in.

In the Retention page, specify the retention settings for the backup type and the schedule type selected in the Backup Type page:

If you want to…

Then…

Keep a certain number of Snapshot copies

Select Total Snapshot copies to keep, and then specify the number of Snapshot copies that you want to keep.

If the number of Snapshot copies exceeds the specified number, the Snapshot copies are deleted with the oldest copies deleted first.

The maximum retention value is 1018 for resources on ONTAP 9.7 or later. Backups will fail if retention is set to a value higher than what the underlying ONTAP version supports.

For Snapshot copy-based backups, you must set the retention count to 2 or higher if you plan to enable SnapVault replication. If you set the retention count to 1, the retention operation might fail because the first Snapshot copy is the reference Snapshot copy for the SnapVault relationship until a newer Snapshot copy is replicated to the target.

For SAP HANA system replication, it is recommended to add all the resources of the SAP HANA system into one resource group. This ensures that the right number of backups are retained.

For SAP HANA System Replication, the total Snapshot copies taken will be equal to the retention set for the resource group. The removal of the oldest Snapshot copy is based on which node the oldest Snapshot copy is located. For example, the retention is set to 7 for a resource group with SAP HANA System Replication primary and SAP HANA System Replication secondary. You can take a maximum of 7 Snapshot copies at a time including both SAP HANA System Replication primary and SAP HANA System Replication secondary.

Keep the Snapshot copies for a certain number of days

Select Keep Snapshot copies for, and then specify the number of days for which you want to keep the Snapshot copies before deleting them.

Snapshot copy locking period

Select Snapshot copy locking period, and select days, months, or years.

SnapLock retention period should be less than 100 years.

For Snapshot copy-based backups, specify the replication settings in the Replication page:

For this field…

Do this…

Update SnapMirror after creating a local Snapshot copy

Select this field to create mirror copies of the backup sets on another volume (SnapMirror replication).

If the protection relationship in ONTAP is of type Mirror and Vault and if you select only this option, the Snapshot copy created on the primary will not be transferred to the destination, but will be listed in the destination. If this Snapshot copy is selected from the destination to perform a restore operation, then the Secondary Location is not available for the selected vaulted/mirrored backup error message is displayed.

During secondary replication, the SnapLock expiry time loads the primary SnapLock expiry time.

Clicking the Refresh button in the Topology page refreshes the secondary and primary SnapLock expiry time that are retrieved from ONTAP.

See View SAP HANA database backups and clones in the Topology page.

Update SnapVault after creating a local Snapshot copy

Select this option to perform disk-to-disk backup replication (SnapVault backups).

During secondary replication, the SnapLock expiry time loads the primary SnapLock expiry time. Clicking the Refresh button in the Topology page refreshes the secondary and primary SnapLock expiry time that are retrieved from ONTAP.

When SnapLock is configured only on the secondary from ONTAP known as SnapLock Vault, clicking the Refresh button in the Topology page refreshes the locking period on the secondary that is retrieved from ONTAP.

See View SAP HANA database backups and clones in the Topology page.

Secondary policy label

Select a Snapshot label.

Depending on the Snapshot copy label that you select, ONTAP applies the secondary Snapshot copy retention policy that matches the label.

If you have selected Update SnapMirror after creating a local Snapshot copy, you can optionally specify the secondary policy label. However, if you have selected Update SnapVault after creating a local Snapshot copy, you should specify the secondary policy label.

Error retry count

Enter the maximum number of replication attempts that can be allowed before the operation stops.

You should configure SnapMirror retention policy in ONTAP for the secondary storage to avoid reaching the maximum limit of Snapshot copies on the secondary storage.

Review the summary, and then click Finish.