XDP replaces DP as the SnapMirror default

With improvements in performance, the significant benefits of version-flexible SnapMirror outweigh the slight advantage in replication throughput obtained with version-dependent mode. For this reason, starting with ONTAP 9.5, XDP mode has been made the new default, and any invocations of DP mode on the command line or in new or existing scripts are automatically converted to XDP mode.

Existing relationships are not affected. If a relationship is already of type DP, it will continue to be of type DP. Starting with ONTAP 9.5, MirrorAndVault is the new default policy when no data protection mode is specified or when XDP mode is specified as the relationship type. The table below shows the behavior you can expect.

As the table shows, the default policies assigned to XDP in different circumstances ensure that the conversion maintains the functional equivalence of the old types. Of course, you can use different policies as needed, including policies for unified replication:

The only exceptions to conversion are as follows:

• Root volume load-sharing data protection relationships continue to default to DP mode.

• SnapLock data protection relationships continue to default to DP mode in ONTAP 9.5.

  Starting with ONTAP 9.5, SnapLock data protection relationships default to XDP mode.

• Explicit invocations of DP continue to default to DP mode if you set the following cluster-wide option:

  options replication.create_data_protection_rels.enable on
  

  This option is ignored if you do not explicitly invoke DP.