Time Finder/Mirrors(BCV)

Up to! 995, to perform backup operations on standard volumes, the application and
file system should be shutdown .So the downtime is mandatory. In order to
overcome the downtime and to achieve RTO=0,Split mirror technology was
introduced.Which lead to the generation of BCV s BUSINESS CONTINUANCE
VOLUMES.

BUSINESS CONTINUANCE VOLUMES:

• IT facilitates unplanned downtime
• It provides dynamic, full image copies of data
• Data protection and stand-by data for fast recovery
• Decision support
• Back-up

• Parallel information/Data Access

BCV device is used to create an additional mirror image of a standard device in order
to provide the facilities mentioned above.
Business continuance is achieved through BCV devices, the standard stand-alone
Symmetrix devices that are specially configured to be dynamic mirrors.
BCV devices should be synchronized with standard devices to perform replication and
obtain point –in time physical mirror copies.
(Make sure that the size of the BCV device should be equal to the size of the
Standard device to which it pairs with)

How to create BCV devices?

• Create standard devices and should be configured as unprotected.

• Map the device

• Convert the device
• Commit
• Discover the device
• Update the VCM database
*The above procedure is run at the time of creation of devices
Types of BCV Mirroring
1. Mirroring
2. Multi BCV
3. Concurrent BCV
4. Remote Mirroring(SRDF)
* Type 1,2,&3 are performed in the local sym,where as type 4 is performed
across the syms.

Operations performed on BCVs

1. Establish: Synchronize the standard volume with the BCV volumes. There
are two types of synchronizations full and incremental. The first
synchronization is always full and the rest are mostly incremental.
2. Split: Terminate relationship between BCV and Standard Devices. There are
two types of splits instant split and consistent split. From Engenuity 5x68
instant split has become a default split.
3. Restore During the restore operation, data on the standard is replaced
with the data brought from the BCV device. During this phase Applications
must be stopped file system to be unmounted and should have volume
groups deactivated.

LAB SESSION USING SOLUTION ENABLER SYMCLI

PROCEDURE
Create a device group to manipulate mirror operations between standard device and
BCV in the symm.Add the device pair to the group, i.e, and Standard Device and BCV
Device pair. Perform mirror operations. and view the data by using volume
managers disk group. Delete the content in the Standard device and restore the data
from BCV.

FOR REFERENCE:
The devices ,hosts and groups are addressed as below
Symm -277 Standard Device- 0009
Production host –SUN7 BCV Device- 0023
Backup host - SUN5
Device group – mirdg
Disc group - sundg

Source

Sun7
0009
STD
DE

Target

Sun5
0023
BCV

1)CREATE A DEVICE GROUP ADD STANDARD AND BCV DEVICES

a) Create a device group of type regular:

Sun7# Symdg create mirdg –type regular

b) Add standard device to the device group:

Sun7#symld –g mirdg add dev 0001

c) Add BCV to the group

Sun7#symbcv –g mirdg associate dev 0023

2)NOW FIND YOUR STANDARD DEVICE IN SOURCE SUN7 IF NOT AVAILBLE

MASK IT TO FIND IN SOURCE HOST
a) Now find the list of devices mapped to the host
Sun7# syminq
b) Create alias to wwn of host
 Sun7# symmask –sid 277 –wwn 1000000000 rename sun7/port0
c) Refresh the database
Sun7# symmask refresh
d) Map the standard device to source host
Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –awn sun7/port0 add dev 0009 –dir 1c –p 0 –nop
, Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –awn sun7/port0 add dev 0009 –dir 2c –p 0 –nop
Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –awn sun7/port0 add dev 0009 –dir 15c –p 0 –nop
Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –awn sun7/port0 add dev 0009 –dir 16c –p 0 –nop
e) Now refresh the VCM database
Sun7#symmask refresh
f) Now scan the devices
Sun7# symcfg discover
Sun7# symmaskdb list database
(device should be seen in the database under sun7)
3)NOW SETUP VOLUME UNDER THE CONTROL OF VOLUME MANAGER
a) Check the status of volume manager:
sun7#vxdctl mode
sun7#vxdctl disable
sun7#vxdctl enable
b) Configure the controller
sun7# vxdmpadm listctlr
sun7#vxdmpadm enable ctlr=c3
c) Scan the discs
sun7# devfsadm –Cv
sun7#format(Identify the device and label it.To identify check the device path by
executing syminq command )
>18
>label
>quit
d) Initialize the disk
sun7#vxdisksetup –i EMC01_9
e) List the device
sun7#vxdisk list

f)create disk group

 sun7#vxdg init sundg disk1=EMC01_9

g) Import the disk grouip

sun7#vxdg –fC import sundg

h) Create a volume
sun7#vxassist –g sundg make vol01 200m

i) Start the volume

sun7# vxvol –g sundg startall

j)To check the disk groups in the volume manger

Sun7#vxdisk -o alldgs list

k) Create a file system on the disk group

sun7#newfs /dev/vx/rdsk/sundg/vol01
l) Create a mount point
Sun7# mkdir BCV
m) Mount the volume
Sun7#mount /dev/vx/dsk/sundg/vol01 /BCV
n) Enter the directory
Sun7#cd BCV
o) Enter the content in the folder
Sun7#cp /etc/r* .
p) Display the contents
Sun7# ls
4)Now synchronize the volumes
a) Establish the relation between standard device and BCV
sun7# symmir –g mirdg est –full
b) Now check the status of device group
sun7# symmir –g mirdg query
sun7#symmir list
5) Split the relation
(To split the volume unmount the source; If it is a consistent split, need not
to unmount the volume)
a)Sun7#symmir –g mirdg split –consistent
Check the status
b) Sun7#symmir –g mirdg query
ON THE Backup HOST SUN5
Unless the relation is split target volume can’t be mounted on the target
host
7) Mount the BCV volume on the target
a) Scan for new disks
sun5# vxdisk scandisks
b) Now check the disk groups
sun5#vxdisk –o alldgs list
c) Import the disk group
sun5# vxdg –C import sundg
g) Start the volume
Sun5#vxvol –g sundg startall
h) Create a mount point
Sun5# mkdir BCV
g) Mount the volume
Sun5#mount /dev/vx/dsk/sundg/vol01 /BCV
h) Open the directory
sun5#cd BCV
I) check the contents
Sun5#ls
(IF THE DATA EXISTS THE OPERATION IS SUCCESSFUL)
Unmount the volumes on the target for later sync cycles
Sun5#cd
Sun5#umount BCV
Incremental mirror the volumes
While BCV is split from standard volume, Some I/O may take place in the standard
volume, Which results in the invalid tracks on BCV,so it is required to resync with
Standard device again to have the tracks copied, so now perform incremental
establish and check the data on the target volume.
ON THE SOURCE SUN7
1) Add some data on source(Source has been already mounted on a directory
BCV)
a) Check the present working directory
Sun7#pwd
b) If the directory is not opened ,open the directory
Sun7#cd bcv
c) Add some data
Sun7#cp /etc/f* .
d) Check the status of the mirror
Sun7#symmir –g mirdg query (Invalid tracks should be shown)
e) Now synchronize incrementally (Check whether the target is
unmounted)
Sun7#symmir –g mirdg est (By default est does incremental copy of
tracks)
f) Check the mirror status
Sun7#symmir –g sundg query (Invalid tracks should be Zero)
g) Split the volumes and check the targets for data upgrades
Sun7#symmir –g mirdg split –consistent
h) Check the status
Sun7#symmir –g mirdg query
2) ON THE TARGET SUN5 CHECK THE DATA
a) Mount the volume
Sun5#mount /dev./vx/dsk/sundg/vol01 /bcv
b) Change to directory bcv
sun5# cd bcv
c) Now check the data in the directory
Sun5# ls
(IF THE UPDATED DATA IS SEEN YOUR OPERATION IS SUCCESSFUL)

RESTORE THE DATE TO SOURCE FROM TARGET

In the source volume entire data has been erased now restore the data from the
target
 ON THE SOURCE VOLUME SUN7
a) Check the present working directory
Sun7#pwd (if it is bcv leave it intact else)
b) Change the directory to BCV
Sun7#cd BCV
c) Remove the content in the volume
Sun7#rm –rf * .
d) check the data
Sun7#ls (It should not have any content)
e) Now unmount the volume
Sun7#cd
Sun7#umount bcv
f) Now deport the dg
Sun7#vxdg –C deport sundg
CHECK THE STATUS ON THE TARGET SUN5
a) Unmount the volume
Sun5# cd
Sun5#umount bcv
b) Deport the volume
Sun5#vxdg –g deport sundg
RESTORE THE DATA ON THE SOURCE SUN7
a) Execute restore command on the source
Sun7#symmir –g mirdg restore
b) Check the status
Sun7#symmir –g mirdg query (Status should display restored)
c) Import the disk group
Sun7# vxdg –C import sundg
d) Start the volume
Sun7#vxvol –g sundg startall
e) Mount the volume
Sun7#mount /dev/vx/dsk/sundg/vol01 /bcv

f) Change the directory

Sun7# cd BCV
 g) Check the content
Sun7#ls
IF THE DATA IS AVAILABLE AND IS SIMILAR TO THE PREVIOUS DATA THAT
WAS DELETED BY US THEN THE OPERATION IS SUCCESS
Clean up

Check the status of session & terminate

Sun7# symmir –g mirdg query

Sun7# symmir –g mirdg split

Sun7# symmir –g mirdg query

Sun7# symmir –g mirdg cancel

Remove standard devices from device group mirdg

Sun7#symld –g mirdg remove DEV001

Sun7#symbcv –g mirdg remove dev 0023

Remove device group

Sun7#symdg delete mirdg -force