SnapVault relationships are governed by SnapMirror policies. The default policy for SnapVault, XDPDefault, has storage efficiency enabled by default. This means that after a SnapVault transfer completes, ONTAP automatically initiates storage efficiency operations (deduplication, compression) on the destination volume, so SnapVault manages the process.

Furthermore, SnapVault uses the XDP replication engine, which performs logical, efficiency-aware replication. When data is transferred from a primary volume with storage efficiency enabled to a secondary volume that also has it enabled, the efficiency is preserved. The system does not need to re-run efficiency operations from scratch on the destination to achieve the savings that already exist on the source.

B. A manual schedule is not required. The SnapMirror policy that controls the SnapVault relationship can be configured to automatically trigger efficiency operations post-transfer.

D. SnapVault does not "implicitly" use storage efficiency. It is a distinct feature that must be explicitly enabled on the volume, although it is highly integrated with SnapVault policies.

1. NetApp ONTAP 9.11.1 Documentation, snapmirror policy create command reference:

Reference: In the description for the -is-efficiency-enabled parameter, the documentation states: "If this parameter is set to true, ONTAP automatically runs efficiency operations on the destination volume after a SnapMirror transfer. The default is true for async-mirror and vault relationships." This supports that SnapVault can manage the schedule (Answer A).

2. NetApp Technical Report 4015, "SnapMirror Configuration and Best Practices Guide for ONTAP 9.8":

Reference: In the section "SnapMirror Logical Replication with Storage Efficiency" on page 16, it states: "When data is replicated from a source volume with storage efficiency enabled to a destination volume that also has storage-efficiency enabled, the storage savings are maintained." This confirms that efficiency is preserved (Answer C).

3. NetApp ONTAP 9.11.1 Documentation, "How SnapMirror logical replication with storage efficiency works":

Reference: This section explains: "Because logical objects are replicated, storage efficiency is preserved across the network... You do not need to run a storage efficiency operation on the destination volume to get the storage savings that you have on the source volume." This further validates that efficiency is preserved from primary to secondary (Answer C).