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
Source host –SUN7 BCV Device- 0023
Target host-SUN5
Device group –mirdg
 Disc group -sundg

Source

Sun7

0009
STD

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) Now map the standard device to source host
Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –wwn 100000000 add dev 0009 –dir 1c –p 0 –nop
Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –wwn 100000000 add dev 0009 –dir 2c –p 0 -nop
Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –wwn 100000000 add dev 0009 –dir 15c –p 0 -nop
Sun7# symmask -sid 277 –wwn 100000000 add dev 0009 –dir 16c –p 0 –nop
c) Now refresh the VCM database
Sun7#symmask refresh
d) Now scan the devices
Sun7# symcfg discover
Sun7# cfgadm –al
Sun7# cfgadm –c configure c3 (Configure the controller)
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) 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
c) Initialize the disk
sun7#vxdisksetup –i EMC01_9
d) List the device
sun7#vxdisk list
e)create disk group
sun7#vxdg init sundg disk1=EMC01_9
f)Import the disk grouip
sun7#vxdg –fC import sundg
g) Create a volume
sun7#vxassist –g sundg make vol01 200m
h) Start the volume
sun7# vxvol –g sundg startall
I) To check the disk groups in the volume manger
Sun7#vxdisk alldgs list
j) Create a file system on the disk group
sun7#newfs /dev/vx/rdsk/sundg/vol01
K) Create a mount point
Sun7# mkdir BCV
L) Mount the volume
Sun7#mount /dev/vx/dsk/sundg/vol01 /BCV
M) Enter the directory
Sun7#cd BCV
N) Enter the content in the folder
Sun7#cp /etc/r* .
O) 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
(In order 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 TARGET 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
e) Start the volume
Sun5#vxvol –g sundg startall
f) Create amount 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 OPRATION IS SUCCESS