About policies

A Policy consists of Classifications that specify what data is to be protected and Operations that specify how that data is to be protected.

Physical classifications specify the data by directly naming the path, logical device/volume or disk type to be protected, whereas Application classifications specify the data indirectly by naming the application instance such as databases or virtual machines to be protected, Ops Center Protector then discovers the volumes that the application's data resides on. The following table shows which classifications can be used in conjunction with a particular type of source node.

The Operations in a policy define the methods to be used to create backups of the primary data. Operations can be implemented using Protector software methods (e.g. Backup), or by orchestrating the hardware storage devices (e.g. Hitachi Block) to implement operations in hardware (e.g. Thin Image and Universal Replicator). The following table shows which operations can be used in conjunction with a particular type of source or destination node.

Operations defined in a Policy work in conjunction with Movers placed on a Data Flow. When a policy is assigned to a source node, all the operations in that policy are assigned to that node. The policy is then routed by a mover and the contained operations assigned to one or more destination nodes. The following table shows which operations can be used in conjunction with a particular type of mover: