Replication of VV

[wilko61]

Hi All,

Please excuse me if this topic has been answered before but I have found a similar reference :-
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=758&hilit=unexport but not a solution to my issue. I'm new to "3-PAR scripting".

I'm in the process of writting a script to maintain secondary copies of VVsets. Currently I have a "source of truth" VVset which is then copied out to 3 other VVsets, mounted to Solaris servers.

The whole workflow process I do via the GUI is :-
1. Destination Solaris host "halted"
2. Destination volumes on Solaris hosts "umounted"
3. Destination volumes unexported on 3-PAR
4. Source DataBase "blocked", don't allow write to sourceVV.
5. Use 3-PAR gui "Create Physcial Copy..."
6. Source DataBase "unblocked", copy works from a snapshot until complete.
7. ..... wait for copy to complete .....
8. Re-export Destination volumes on 3-PAR back to Solaris hosts
9. Destination volumes on Solaris hosts "mounted"
10. Destination Solaris host "booted"

I have the following 4 sets of volumes which are use for the copying process
i. SourceVolume (exported and mounted against host, a Virtual Copy)
ii. SourceVolume.snap (unexported, snapshot of SourceVolume)
iii. DestinationVolumes <DestinationSetName> (unexported, snapshot of DestinationVolume.snap - Physical Copy cannot be exported/mounted gainast the host)
iv. DestinationVolumes.snap <DestinationSetName>.snap (exported and mounted against host, Virtual Copy)

Now I'm only concerned with the 3-PAR components ie points 3-8 above

I trying replicate the process with the following workflow :-

a. Unexport Destination volumes - "removevlun -f set:<DestinationSetName>.snap <n:s:p> <host>"
b. Perform a Sync to the snapshots - "createvvcopy -r set:<DestinationSetName>"
c. Wait for the 'sync' to complete - "waittask <${TASKID}>" .... create ${TASKID}> variable when the step 'b.' begins
d. Perform Physical Copy - "updatevv -f set:<DestinationSetName>.snap"
e. Export Destination volumes - "createvlun -f set:<DestinationSetName>.snap <n:s:p> <host>"

Any comments on the above process/workflow would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Andrew

[wilko61]

After doing a little reading of the 3PAR Command Line Reference :-

Page 767, updatevv - I read the following within the Notes section:-
"After the updatevv command is executed, all VLUNs associated with the specified VV name
are removed. The command then updates the snapshots as follows:
...
....
The command then re-creates all the VLUNs associated with the specified VV name."

Does the above mean then that "Destination Volumes" don't need to 'unexported' with a "removevlun" cmd prior to issuing the "updatevv" command and /or then I shouldn't need to issue the "createvlun" cmd either?

Would this mean my process/workflow can skip these steps (removevlun and createvlun) ?

TIA

Cheers

Andrew

[wilko61]

I have been able to run the "updatevv" command without performing a "removevlun" first . To ensure that there was now activity from the host, I did plan on shutting down this Solaris system and unmounting the volumes, is this all nesessary? Maybe I can leave the volumes mounted but shutdown the host?

What are others doing with the 3-PAR when copying/cloning/replicating volumes that are mounted to a host?

TIA

Thanks

Andrew