Creating a Universal Replicator pair

When you create a pair, the initial copy operation copies all data on the P-VOL to the S-VOL. The P-VOL remains available to the host for I/O operations during the initial copy operation.

Prerequisites

Review the following points before beginning the procedure:

To create a Universal Replicator pair

  1. Open the Remote Replication window:

In Hitachi Command Suite: On the Resources tab, expand the Storage Systems tree, right-click the target storage system, and click Remote Replication.

In Storage Navigator: In the Storage Systems tree, click Replication > Remote Replication.

  1. Select the UR Pairs tab, and click Actions > Remote Replication > Create UR Pairs.

  1. For Remote Storage System, select the secondary system’s Model/Serial Number and Path Group ID.

  1. In the Primary Volume Selection box, in LU Selection select the Port ID and Host Group Name or iSCSI Target Alias to display the volumes from which you want to select the P-VOL.

  1. In the Secondary Volume Selection box, for Base Secondary Volume, select the S-VOL’s Port ID, Host Group ID or iSCSI Target ID, and LUN ID.

LUN IDs are displayed as hexadecimal numbers by default. For instructions on changing the LUN ID display to decimal, see the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G200, G400, G600 System Administrator Guide.

  1. For Selection Type, select the method for assigning S-VOLs when multiple primary volumes are selected, Interval or Relative Primary Volume. See Prerequisite information for more information.

  1. For Mirror Selection, specify the following:

  1. For Master Journal, select a number from the list of registered journal IDs. The list excludes already-assigned master and restore journal IDs.

  1. For Mirror ID, assign an identifier number for the mirror.

  1. For Restore Journal, select a number from the list of registered journal IDs. All journal IDs display (000-0FF).

  1. For CTG ID, select a consistency group from the list of those registered in the storage system. An asterisk indicates the CTG is assigned to a pair in the Select Pairs table.

  1. Click Options to define the following optional settings:

  1. For Initial Copy Type, specify whether to perform the initial copy operation to copy the P-VOL data to the S-VOL:

Select Entire (default) to establish the pair and copy all P-VOL data to the S-VOL.

Select None to establish the pair without copying any data to the S-VOL. Use this option only when the P-VOL and S-VOL are already identical or when the P-VOL and S-VOL do not yet contain any data (for example, new blank volumes).

  1. For Initial Copy Priority, you can specify the scheduling order (1-256) for the initial copy operation. The default is 32.

If a timeout error occurs, the copy operation might not be executed in the order that you set with Initial Copy Priority. The timeout error can be caused by a CU configuration or remote copy path error. Review the error, release the pair with the error, and then retry the Paircreate operation.

  1. In the Error Level list, specify the desired system response if a failure occurs during this operation:

Select Mirror to split all pairs in the failed pair’s mirror. Mirror is the default.

Select LU to split only the pair that failed.

  1. When ready, click Add. This moves the new pair to the Selected Pairs table. (To remove a pair from the table, select the pair and click Remove).

  1. Click Finish.

  1. In the Confirm window, review the settings and enter a task name in the Task Name box.

  1. Click Apply to save your settings to the system.

Based on the initial copy type you selected, you can verify that the pair status is correct in the Remote Replication window.

Initial copy type

Required pair status

Entire or None

COPY or PAIR

You can also monitor the progress of the operation by clicking File > Refresh in the menu bar. This updates the information in the list.