Cloning from a SQL Server database backup

You can use SnapCenter to clone a SQL Server database backup. If you want to access or restore an older version of the data, you can clone database backups on demand.

1. In the left navigation pane, click Resources, and then select the appropriate plug-in from the list.
2. In the Resources page, select either Database or Resource Group from the View list.
   Note: Cloning of a backup of an instance is not supported.
3. Select the database or resource group.
4. From the Manage Copies view page, select the backup either from primary or secondary (mirrored or vaulted) storage system.
5. Select the backup, and then click .
6. In the Clone Options page, perform the following actions:

   For this field…	Do this…
   Clone server	Choose a host on which the clone should be created.
   Clone instance	Choose a clone instance to which you want to clone the database backup. This SQL instance must be located in the specified clone server.
   Clone suffix	Enter a suffix that will be appended to the clone file name to identify that the database is a clone. For example, db1_clone. If you are cloning to the same location as the original database, you must provide a suffix to differentiate the cloned database from the original database; otherwise, the operation fails.
   "Auto assign mount point" or "Auto assign volume mount point under path"	Choose whether to automatically assign a mount point or a volume mount point under a path. Auto assign volume mount point under path: The mount point under a path allows you to provide a specific directory. The mount points will be created within that directory. Before you choose this option, you must ensure that the directory is empty. If there is a database in the directory, the database will be in an invalid state after the mount operation.

7. In the Logs page, select one of the following options:

   For this field…	Do this…
   None	Choose this option when you want to clone only the full backup without any logs.
   All log backups	Choose this option to clone all the available log backups dated after the full backup.
   By log backups until	Choose this option to clone the database based on the backup logs that were created up to the backup log with the selected date.
   By specific date until	Specify the date and time after which the transaction logs are not applied to the cloned database. This point-in-time clone halts the clone of the transaction log entries that were recorded after the specified date and time.

8. In the Script page, enter the script timeout, path, and the arguments of the prescript or postscript that should be run before or after the clone operation, respectively.
   For example, you can run a script to update SNMP traps, automate alerts, send logs, and so on.
   The default script timeout is 60 seconds.
9. In the Notification page, from the Email preference drop-down list, select the scenarios in which you want to send the emails.
   You must also specify the sender and receiver email addresses, and the subject of the email. If you want to attach the report of the restore operation performed, select Attach Job Report.

   Note: For email notification, you must have specified the SMTP server details using the either the GUI or the PowerShell command Set-SmSmtpServer.
10. Review the summary, and then click Finish.
11. Monitor the operation progress by clicking Monitor > Jobs.