Need help with Clariion SNAP and CLONE CLI Scripting

Raj,

I only wanted to mention that your scripts will also need to incorporate admsnap commands.  This is also available for download via PowerLink along with a CLI Reference Guide describing the syntax.  Also, look for the same reference guide for Navisphere CLI.

Also, I wanted to mention a separate licensed software suite called Replication Manager.  It performs many of the tasks that you will be looking to do via the proposed scripts such as creating/expiring/deleting replicas, mounting/unmounting replicas, scheduling, etc.  Replication Manager has both a GUI interface and a robust CLI commandset to manage the environment.  Finally, it also offers features that you won't be able to (easily) do such as:

1) Application Consistent replicas

RM uses application (SQL, Exchange, Oracle, and Share Point) aware agents to accomplish this

2) Ability to present replica to same host as production LUN (may or may not be useful to you)

Except for VMware, the other OS's do not have the native capability to resignature the volume

do you see this icon ?

By the way, could you share how you are formatting the text that you are replying to in the manner that you do (with the outline and blue shade)?

Thanks Dynamox.  I was thinking native to the OS and knew there were solutions to do so other than RM. 

However, I wasn't aware how RM does it and knowing that Solutions Enabler is required on each host, I'll assume that it using symntctl.  Good to know.  Thanks!

RM is not native solution either

Christopher Imes wrote: 2) Ability to present replica to same host as production LUN (may or may not be useful to you) Except for VMware, the other OS's do not have the native capability to resignature the volume

yes you can, symntctl

dynamox wrote: do you see this icon ?

Nice!  Lol, used every button other than that one.  For some reason ignore it.  Thanks.

Chris,

Thanks for your inputs. RM is not an option as the cleint has decided not to buy it.

The plan is to hot push data from VMAX to Clariion and then either create clone or snaps on the clariion. They want to automate the process of creation of Snaps and Clones and scripting looks to be the only option. I am trying to figure out how everything is going to work and satisfy client requirements. So I was looking for someone who might have actually scripted something similar so that I can know what points needs to be accounted for to make this solution work.

Thanks,

Raj

Raj,

If you are replicating the app from VMAX to CLARiiON then you would need to quiesce the app on the VMAX for the hot push, then run the snap/clone process after the push is complete… Ordered something like the following:

Quiesce Application on production host (ie: shutdown application or put in hot backup mode)

Push data to CLARiiON (Open Replicator I assume?)

Resume Application on production host

Create Snapshot or clone on CLARiiON

Mount Snapshot or clone on secondary host

Make any necessary changes to app data to allow for application start (resignature/rename database, etc)

Start Application

There are other ways to do this, with more or less impact to the production application, but this is the basics. The key is to build the scripts so that the timing between all of these pieces is coordinated correctly.

What application is being replicated?

As Dynamox and others have noted, Replication Managers’ value is that it handles ALL of this automatically for Oracle, SQL, Exchange, Sharepoint, DB2, SAP, VMware, etc… RM can also chain jobs together to coordinate work across multiple hosts.

Richard J Anderson

Most of the stuff replicating is Oracle Database:-

The plan is to put the database in hot backup mode before starting hot push, I will be creating the hot push with differential option so that I can recreate the sessions

Once the Oracle databse goes to hot backup mode I will create a script to push the data to Clariion. What I am looking for is some guidance to handle the Clariion part of scripting to create Clone/Snap once the data is there on Clariion.

Unfortunately the cleint is not ready to purchase RM and want to accompish this using scripting so I need to work on it only through scripting.

I am not concerned much with the Mounting of File Systems or Starting of application part as the client would handle that part.

I am looking for someone  with experience doing scripting for creating clones/snapshot on Clariiion to guide me a bit.

If you are using snaps, the one-time setup is essentially to create a Snapshot of the replication target LUN and add it to the storage group for the secondary host. Easiest to do this one time from Navisphere or Unisphere. For clones, just put the Clone LUN into the storage group.

For snapshots, after each hot push update is complete, you would need to do the following…

Unmount the filesystem (command depends on operating system)

Admsnap deactivate Support NULL&internalId=0b01406680024e1b> > Technical Documentation and Advisories NULL&internalId=0b01406680024e23> > Software ~ S ~ Documentation > SnapView NULL&internalId=0b014066800250a7> > Maintenance/Administration

Richard J Anderson

Dynamox,

The whitepaper that you pointed to has very good examples for my case. While searching I found the same one yesterday. Thank you very much.

Thanks Chris and Richard for your insights.

Nice find.

Scanning the script, my only comments would be to do strategic flushes of the OS buffers where it makes sense.  For instance using clones as an example,

Unix: flush

Windows (and even Unix): admsnap flush -o

Thoughts?  In regards to the target (if it were being written to), I'm fairly certain that the admsnap clone_deactivate also flushes so unnecessary there (but double-check).