Summary
Database snapshots enable you to create point-in-time, read-only versions of a database. You can use them for reporting, recovery, and comparison functionality. Some key takeaways from this chapter follow:
- Database snapshots enable maintaining readable point-in-time versions of a production database for reporting and recovery purposes.
- Database snapshots enable reporting on the mirror database that is not otherwise possible.
- Database snapshots enable you to restore the database to a specific point in time.
- Although database snapshots are powerful and flexible, they are I/O-intensive. If multiple database snapshots are created on a source database that is heavily updated, the I/O load increases and may impact the performance of the system.
Like any other feature, it is highly recommended you get a performance baseline of the environment before and after creating database snapshots and let your performance data help you decide whether or not you should use database snapshots.
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