Which ONTAP feature is used to tier data to cheaper storage, helping reduce storage costs for cold data?

• A. SVM DR
• B. SnapVault
• C. FabricPool
• D. FlexGroup

Answer: (C)

Data that isn’t accessed often can be stored more cheaply without losing seamless access to it. In ONTAP, FabricPool provides this capability by creating a cloud tier for a volume. When data becomes cold, FabricPool moves the actual data to a cloud object store (like S3/Azure Blob) and keeps lightweight metadata in the ONTAP volume. What you interact with locally is a pointer to that data, so reads trigger a fetch from the cloud and the data is brought back as needed. This approach reduces the amount of high-cost storage you need on-premises while preserving transparent access to all data.

The other features aren’t designed for this kind of automatic cost-saving tiering. SnapVault is a backup/archival solution to a secondary target, not an automatic tiering of primary storage. SVM DR focuses on disaster recovery, not tiering. FlexGroup provides scalable, parallel access to a large NAS namespace but doesn’t inherently move cold data to cheaper storage.