Impact of Tiering Policy during backup and enabling Storage efficiency in an existing volume of AWS FSX for NetApp ONTAP

1. Regarding your concern about the tiering policy and backup tools:

The tiering policy in FSx for NetApp ONTAP is designed to move infrequently accessed data to the capacity pool tier. However, daily backup operations typically do not prevent data from moving to the cool tier. This is because the tiering policy is based on access patterns, not just any data scan or read operation.

By default, the Auto tiering policy has a 31-day cooling period. This means that data must not be accessed for 31 consecutive days before it's moved to the capacity pool tier. Backup operations that simply read or scan the data without modifying it are not likely to reset this cooling period. Therefore, your daily backups should not interfere with the tiering process.

However, if you're concerned about this, you can adjust the tiering policy or cooling period to better suit your needs. For instance, you could use the "Snapshot-Only" tiering policy, which moves snapshot data to the capacity tier regardless of access patterns.

2. Regarding enabling storage efficiency on an existing volume:

Enabling storage efficiencies on an existing FSx for ONTAP volume typically does not result in downtime. These efficiencies are applied at the data block level and can be enabled without interrupting access to the volume.

When you enable storage efficiencies, they are applied in two ways:

• Inline: Applied to new data as it's being written, which happens in memory before the data is written to disk.
• Background: Applied to existing data after it's written to disk through periodic efficiency jobs.

The background process runs without causing disruption to normal operations. However, it's worth noting that while there's no downtime, enabling these features may temporarily consume some system resources as the initial efficiency processes run on existing data.

Keep in mind that storage efficiencies can significantly reduce your storage footprint and costs, so enabling them on existing volumes can be beneficial. The process is designed to be non-disruptive to ensure continuous data availability.
Sources
Why is VMware Cloud on AWS reporting my Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP datastore is full when it isn’t? | AWS re:Post
Managing storage efficiencies - FSx for ONTAP
Managing storage capacity - FSx for ONTAP