Overview of Global Snapshot Clones

Global snapshot clones are instantly writable directories cloned from snapshots. Clones can be created from any snapshot residing on the cluster itself or on a cluster that has a replication peer relationship with the local cluster. The cloned directory can be from any snapshot, such as a snapshot replicated from a third cluster to a remote peer. It cannot be from a subdirectory of an snapshot.

A global snapshot clone is created within a short time of usually around 10 seconds or less, after which it is immediately writable on the local cluster on which it was created. After creation of a snapshot, the data can be copied over from the cloned snapshot to the snapshot clone, or not. Either way, users accessing the snapshot clone can request to read, write and list from the clone. If data requested for reading and listing has not been copied to the clone, it is read from the cloned source on the remote peer.