Managing Thin Image Pairs

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

• Thin Image pair tasks

  You can perform the following tasks on Thin Image pairs.

• Checking Thin Image pair status

  Each Thin Image pair task requires a pair to have a specific status.

• Reloading Thin Image configuration information

  After creating a Thin Image pair, you can reload the configuration information if data shown in windows are different.

• Workflow for creating and managing Thin Image pairs

  Use this workflow to create and manage a Thin Image pair.

• Workflow for creating Thin Image pairs using Device Manager - Storage Navigator

  The pairs shown in the HDvM - SN main window are configured based on the amount of snapshot data corresponding to the P-VOL, or the number of S-VOLs that are assigned to snapshot data corresponding to the P-VOL.

• Creating Thin Image pairs using Device Manager - Storage Navigator

  You can create a Thin Image pair and define the pair in a consistency group. You can create 1,024 Thin Image pairs at the same time for and 32,768 for VSP G200, G400, G600, G800. To create more than 1,024 (or 32,768) pairs, repeat this task.

• Example of creating complex Thin Image pairs

  A complex Thin Image pair is a pair where the P-VOL and S-VOL are not connected one to one. The following is an example of how to create Thin Image pairs of different configurations simultaneously.

• Creating Thin Image pairs and defining them in snapshot or consistency groups using RAID Manager

  You can create pairs and define the pairs in a snapshot group or in a consistency group. Define pairs to consistency groups to perform pair tasks on all of the pairs within the group. This task describes how to do this using RAID Manager.

• Workflow for defining Thin Image pairs and defining them in snapshot or consistency groups using Device Manager - Storage Navigator

  If you use a RAID Manager command to create a pair that should be a target of the consistency group pair-split, and the host is down, the RAID Manager command might be rejected and the pair not defined in the group.

• Storing snapshot data

  From a P-VOL, a maximum of 1,024 snapshots can be stored. Use one of these two methods to store Thin Image snapshot data.

• Splitting Thin Image pairs to store snapshot data

  This topic explains how to split pairs. Splitting pairs stores snapshot data.

• Workflow for storing snapshot data or clone pairs in consistency groups

  You can split pairs to store snapshot data or clone pairs for a consistency group using RAID Manager (the consistency group pair-split function). This process explains how to use RAID Manager’s consistency group pair-split to store snapshot data or clone pairs for each consistency group.

• Restoring Thin Image pairs

  Restoring a Thin Image pair overwrites the existing P-VOL data with the differential data on the S-VOL.

• Thin Image pair resynchronization

  Resynchronizing a Thin Image pair updates the S-VOL with the differential data and deletes the replaced data, the data in the pool. Resynchronizing a pair maintains the relationship between the P-VOL and S-VOLs.

• Assigning MU numbers to deleted snapshot data

  Use this process to assign an MU number to deleted snapshot data.

• Deleting snapshot data
• Deleting Thin Image pairs

  Delete Thin Image pairs when you do not need them or when you want to delete snapshot data.

• Assigning secondary volumes to Thin Image pair snapshot data

  This section explains how to assign secondary volumes to Thin Image snapshot data.

• Releasing assignment of secondary volumes from Thin Image pair snapshot data

  You can release the assignment of S-VOLs from snapshot data of Thin Image pairs.

• Changing assignment of secondary volumes to Thin Image pair snapshot data

  You can change S-VOLs that are assigned to snapshot data.