SNIA

Advancing Storage and Information Technology
 
 

A glossary of storage networking, data, and information management terminology. To learn more about the SNIA Dictionary click here.

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backup window

An interval of time during which a set of data can be backed up without seriously affecting applications that use the data.

For example, if an application accesses data from 8 AM until midnight, then the window between midnight and 8 AM is available for making backup copies. Offline backups require that applications not update data during the backup. Online backups typically use point in time copy technology to create consistent images of data for backup. If a backup uses different resources (storage devices, I/O paths, processing power) than the application, as is common with split mirror point-in-time copies, then the backup window is the time required to create the image. If the online backup shares resources with the applications using the data, as is common with copy-on-write point in time copies, the backup window may be increased due to resource contention.

Context Categories:
  • Data Recovery

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