text: Regardless of your business needs, Transparent Cloud Tiering within the IBM Spectrum 
  Virtualize can provide opportunities to manage the exponential data growth and to manipulate 
  data at low cost. 
  
  Today, many Cloud Service Providers offers several*storage-as-services*solutions, such as 
  content repository, backup, and archive. Combining all of these services, your IBM Spectrum 
  Virtualize can help you solve many challenges related to rapid data growth, scalability, and 
  manageability at attractive costs. 
  
  **11.3.2 Transparent Cloud Tiering as backup solution and data migration**
  
  Transparent Cloud Tiering can also be used as backup and data migration solution. In certain 
  conditions, it can be easily applied to eliminate the downtime that is associated with the 
  needs to import and export data. 
  
  When Transparent Cloud Tiering is applied as your backup strategy, IBM Spectrum Virtualize 
  uses the same FlashCopy functions to produce*point-in-time*snapshot of an entire volume or 
  set of volumes. 
  
  To ensure the integrity of the snapshot, it might be necessary to flush the host operating 
  system and application cache of any outstanding reads or writes before the snapshot is 
  performed. Failing to flush the host operating system and application cache can produce 
  inconsistent and useless data. 