Replication and backup with SmartLock

If you are replicating SmartLock directories with SyncIQ, we recommend that you configure all nodes on the source and target clusters with Network Time Protocol (NTP) peer mode to ensure that the node clocks are synchronized. For compliance clusters, we recommend that you configure all nodes on the source and target clusters with NTP peer mode before you set the compliance clocks. This sets the source and target clusters to the same time initially and helps to ensure compliance with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule 17a-4.

If you replicate data to a SmartLock directory, do not configure SmartLock settings for that directory until you are no longer replicating data to the directory. Configuring an autocommit time period for a SmartLock target directory, for example, can cause replication jobs to fail. If the target directory commits a file to a WORM state, and the file is modified on the source cluster, the next replication job will fail because it cannot overwrite the committed file.

If you back up data to an NDMP device, all SmartLock metadata relating to the retention date and commit status is transferred to the NDMP device. If you recover data to a SmartLock directory on the cluster, the metadata persists on the cluster. However, if the directory that you recover data to is not a SmartLock directory, the metadata is lost. You can recover data to a SmartLock directory only if the directory is empty.