Patent attributes
Targetless snapshots that are in use are excluded from discard and exempted from inclusion against a snapshot retention count limit. Snapshots that are linked to a target volume are considered to be in use. Snapshots having a persist attribute set are considered to be in use. Snapshots having an expiration attribute set are considered to be in use until at least the expiration time. Snapshots having an age limit attribute set are considered to be in use until reaching at least the specified age. The snapshot retention count limit can be updated with a command. Other commands discard snapshots created before a specified time or older than a specified age, provided the snapshots are not in use. A terminate all command prompts discard of all snapshots that are not in use.