Configure a snapshot policy

In Cloud Snapshot Manager, you can create three types of policies, Backup, Cross-Region, and Cross-Account. The Cross-Region or the Cross-Account policy is later linked to a Backup policy when creating a protection plan.

Prerequisites

Before you configure a snapshot policy, consider the following:

For AWS resources, if you want to create a Cross-Account policy, ensure that you have an AWS DR account. If you do not have an AWS DR account, see Create a cloud account to create one.
For Azure resources, if you want to create a Cross-Region policy, ensure that the storage account has been selected for your Azure account in the Cloud Accounts page. To configure a storage account, see Configure Azure snapshot storage settings.
For GCP resources, Cross-Region and Cross-Account are not supported.

About this task

The daily, weekly, or monthly schedule of the Cross-Region policy and the Cross-Account policy must match the schedule of the Backup policy. For example, if a Backup policy has only a weekly schedule, the corresponding Cross-Region policy or Cross-Account policy can only have a weekly schedule. If the Backup policy has a daily and weekly schedule, the corresponding cross policies can have daily only, weekly only, or daily and weekly schedules. Snapshot retention time can be different across the policies.

If you have PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (DDVE) configured outside Cloud Snapshot Manager in your AWS or Azure environment, as part of the Backup policy, you can also specify the schedule to copy snapshots to DDVE. The same schedule and retention rules for Cross-Region and Cross-Account policies apply when you copy snapshots to DDVE.

When copying snapshots to DDVE, Cloud Snapshot Manager takes full backups on the following days based on the backup schedule that you have selected:

For daily only (weekdays), full backup is taken on Friday every week.
For daily only(everyday), full backup is taken on Sunday every week.
For weekly only or daily and weekly, full backup is taken on the day of week that you have specified for the weekly schedule.
For daily, weekly, and monthly, or weekly and monthly, or monthly only, full backup is taken on the day of the week and week of the month that you have specified for the monthly schedule. For example, Wednesday, third week.

NOTE: DDVE copy jobs are triggered every 15 minutes. So the job gets triggered within 15 minutes after completion of a plan job. DDVE copy jobs are categorized as Replication jobs in the Cloud Snapshot Manager Jobs page.

The following steps help you to configure a snapshot policy based on your requirements:

Steps

In the Policies page, select the applicable policy from the New Backup Policy drop-down list.
If you have selected New Backup Policy:
- Under Snapshot Schedules, specify the schedule and retention time of snapshots.
- If you have DDVE configured and want to copy snapshots to DDVE, select Enable Snapshot Replication to Alternate Storage and specify the schedule and retention period. For information about Cloud Snapshot Manager integration with DDVE, for AWS, see Cloud Snapshot Manager integration with PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (AWS) and for Azure, see Cloud Snapshot Manager integration with PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (Azure).
If you have selected New Cross-Region Policy, select the regions where you want to save copies of snapshots and specify other details.
If you have selected New Cross-Account Policy, select the target AWS DR account and specify other details. Optionally, you can select an alternate region to store the snapshot in the DR account. If this option is not selected, snapshots are stored in the same DR account region as the original resource. The Cross-Account Policy is only applicable for AWS resources.
Click Save.