DR Testing in the DR Center

Prerequisites

• The Oracle test cluster in the DR center is ready, and no database with the same name exists.
• The production center communicates with the DR center properly.
• The datastore name cannot contain Chinese characters.
• At least one recovery plan has been created on eReplication.
• For details about requirements on storage licenses for the tested recovery plan, see Checking a License File.
• For database applications, all check items related to DR environments are passed. For details about the check items, see Oracle.
• If the information about storage devices, hosts, or VMs is modified at the production or DR site, manually refresh the information. For details, see Refreshing Resource Information.

Context

• The data test in the DR center is used to check its data availability.
• You are advised to configure application-based protection policies for Oracle, streamlining the test procedure to a few clicks.
• In the DR test, snapshots at the DR site can be mapped only to initiators.

Due to the importance of DR tests, notify the following:

• Before testing a protected group whose protection type is database, ensure that all database connections at the DR site are disconnected.
• During a DR test, system and service administrators are not allowed to perform any maintenance operation.
• Test data must be cleared before the next DR test.
• After a test is complete, test data must be cleared as soon as possible. If the environment is recovered after a network failure or eReplication environment shutdown during the test, it is possible that some data cannot be cleared. In this case, you must manually clear the test data, then perform clearing again.
• After the test host (cluster) environment is set up, you need to remove the mapping between the storage LUNs where data files, control files, and log files reside. After the DR test and clearing are complete, if you want to restore the original database, you need to remap the original LUN, mount the disk group, and start the database of the test host (cluster).
• You are advised to enable archive protection. If archive protection is not enabled, the DR test may fail. If archive log protection is not enabled, you can choose Protection in the navigation tree, click a protected group, click the Protected Object tab, click Modify Protection Settings, and select Archive Log Protection to enable archive log protection.

Procedure

1. Log in to eReplication in the DR center.
2. Test a recovery plan.
   1. On the menu bar, select Utilization > Data Restore.
   2. Select the recovery plan to be tested, and click Test in the Operation area.
      

      Before clicking Test, you can click the Procedure tab, click Edit, select the operation to be edited from the drop-down list in the displayed window, and enable or disable the configurable step as required.

      • Select Test: You can configure the Enable data replication (Configurable) and Test database connection (configurable) steps. By default, the steps are enabled. You can click the check box to disable the steps.
      • Select Clear: You can configure the Close database (Configurable) step. By default, the step is enabled. You can click the check box to disable the step.
   3. Perform the following steps based on the type of the recovery plan:
      

      If Huawei UltraPath has been installed on the Linux-based DR host, ensure that I/O suspension time is not 0 and all virtual devices generated by UltraPath have corresponding physical devices. For details, see the OceanStor UltraPath for Linux xxx User Guide.

      • If the protected object type is Oracle, perform the following steps:
        1. Select DR Site.
        2. Select Available DR Hosts or Host Groups.
           

           • If the storage array used at the DR site is flash storage 6.1.6 or later, the to-be-recovered host selected by a user can belong to only one host group on the storage array, and the host group can belong to only one mapping view. In addition, the remote replication secondary LUN corresponding to the storage LUN used by the protected application and the LUN to which the redo logs and archive logs of the DR cluster belong must belong to the same LUN group, and the LUN group and the host group must belong to the same mapping view. If the storage array version is flash storage 6.1.6 or later, deselect Enable Inband Command to change the mapping view attribute after the mapping view is created.
           • If the storage array is flash storage 6.1.6 or later, automatic host adding and storage mapping are provided. Ensure that the storage is connected to hosts' initiators properly. In this manner, the system can automatically create hosts, host groups, LUN groups, and mapping views on the storage. The creation principles are as follows:

             

        3. Click Test.
        4. In the Warning dialog box that is displayed, read the content of the dialog box carefully and select I have read and understood the consequences associated with performing this operation.
        5. Click OK.
        

        If the test fails, clear the data by referring to 4 and perform the test again.

3. After a test is complete, verify that applications are started in the remote DR center.

   Verify that applications are started and accessed successfully. If an application fails to be started or cannot execute read and write operations, contact Huawei technical support.

   • If the protection policies are based on applications, check whether the applications are started successfully and data can be read and written correctly.
   • If the protection policies are based on LUNs, log in to the application host in the DR center, scan for disks, and start applications. Then check whether the applications are started successfully and data can be read and written correctly.
     

     You can use self-developed scripts to scan for disks, start applications, and test applications.

4. The test data generated at the DR site needs to be cleared and resources need to be restored to the status before the test to facilitate future DR or planned migration.
   

   • If the protected groups are local file systems, ensure that programs and files on the file systems at the DR site have been closed before clearing is performed.
   • If the information about storage devices, hosts, or VMs is modified at the production or DR site, manually refresh the information. For details, see Refreshing Resource Information.
   • If the clearing fails, you can retry the clearing from the failure point.
   1. Select the recovery plan whose data needs to be cleared, and click More > Clear on the Operation list.
   2. Click OK.