Overview of Thin Image

With Thin Image (HTI), you can perform cost-effective replication by storing the differential data between primary volumes (P-VOLs) and secondary volumes (S-VOLs) of virtual volumes (V-VOLs). You can also copy data of an entire volume, instead of copying just the differential data, to a volume. By copying the entire volume, you can expect a higher performance than by just storing the differential data.

Parent Topic
  • Thin Image

    The high-speed, nondisruptive snapshot technology of Thin Image rapidly creates up to 1,024 point in-time copies of mission-critical information within the storage system or virtualized storage pool without impacting host service or performance levels. Because snapshots store only the changed data, the volume of storage capacity required for each snapshot copy is substantially smaller than the source volume, providing significant savings over full-volume cloning methods. Cascaded snapshot configuration and cloning enables creation of snapshot trees and full-copy clones from snapshots using Thin Image.

Child Topics
  • About Thin Image

    Thin Image stores snapshots in a Virtual Storage Platform family (VSP family) storage system. If the data of the storage system fails, you can restore it using the stored snapshot of the data. Pairs created by using Thin Image are called Thin Image pairs in this document.

  • Components of Thin Image

    Thin Image typically consists of several components, including pairs, groups, and software applications. Thin Image requires Dynamic Provisioning, which is used to access data for open-system servers such as UNIX and PC servers in a pool volume through a virtual volume.

  • How Thin Image works

    This topic explains how Thin Image works.

  • How Thin Image pair status changes

    The Thin Image pair status changes as you create, split, or perform other pair tasks.

  • Copy threshold option and host server I/O performance for Thin Image

    You can enable the copy threshold option to help minimize the decline of host server I/O performance by lowering the workload on the storage system.

  • Sharing Thin Image volumes with other software applications

    You can create Thin Image (HTI) pairs using pair volumes for other replication software applications, such as ShadowImage and TrueCopy. You can also create Thin Image pairs using volumes to which you define attributes using Data Retention Utility or CCI.

  • System option modes for Thin Image

    To provide greater flexibility, the storage systems have additional operational parameters called system option modes (SOMs) that allow you to tailor the storage system to your unique operating requirements. The SOMs are set on the service processor (SVP) by your service representative. Review the SOMs for your storage system, and work with your service representative to ensure that the appropriate SOMs for your operational environment are configured on your storage system.

  • Acronyms and abbreviations for VSP family storage system software applications used in this guide

    This user guide uses the following acronyms and abbreviations for software names.