PowerProtect Data Manager 19.17 Storage Array User Guide

About storage array assets and asset sources

Assets are the basic units that PowerProtect Data Manager protects. Asset sources are the mechanism by which PowerProtect Data Manager manages assets and communicates with the storage system that stores backup copies of the assets.

There are two types of primary storage arrays that you can add as asset sources in PowerProtect Data Manager:

• For the PowerStore management server, the asset source is of type PowerStore. Assets are block volumes, which include volumes and volume groups.
• For the Unisphere for PowerMax management server, the asset source is of type PowerMax. Assets are storage groups (standalone, parent, and child storage groups), which contain volumes.

Before you can add an asset source and discover its assets, you must enable the source within the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. For PowerMax, you must also enable management of individual storage arrays to discover storage groups.

Protection policies for PowerStore and PowerMax block volume assets are either crash consistent/application consistent or exclusion. PowerProtect Data Manager enables you to create backups (and snapshots, for PowerStore) of the block volumes on the storage target.

After you enable and add an asset source, adding and configuring protection storage is required to use as a target for protection policies. The PowerProtect Data Manager Administrator Guide provides instructions.