Veritas InfoScale™ 7.4.3 Solutions Guide - Linux

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (7.4.3)
Platform: Linux
  1. Section I. Introducing Veritas InfoScale
    1. Introducing Veritas InfoScale
      1.  
        About the Veritas InfoScale product suite
      2.  
        Components of the Veritas InfoScale product suite
  2. Section II. Solutions for Veritas InfoScale products
    1. Solutions for Veritas InfoScale products
      1.  
        Use cases for Veritas InfoScale products
      2.  
        Feature support across Veritas InfoScale 7.4.3 products
      3.  
        Using SmartMove and Thin Provisioning with Sybase databases
      4.  
        Running multiple parallel applications within a single cluster using the application isolation feature
      5.  
        Scaling FSS storage capacity with dedicated storage nodes using application isolation feature
      6.  
        Finding Veritas InfoScale product use cases information
  3. Section III. Stack-level migration to IPv6 or dual stack
    1. Stack-level migration to IPv6 or dual stack
      1.  
        Migrating Veritas InfoScale products to support IPv6/dual-stack
  4. Section IV. Improving database performance
    1. Overview of database accelerators
      1.  
        About Veritas InfoScale product components database accelerators
    2. Improving database performance with Veritas Concurrent I/O
      1. About Concurrent I/O
        1.  
          How Concurrent I/O works
      2. Tasks for enabling and disabling Concurrent I/O
        1.  
          Enabling Concurrent I/O for Sybase
        2.  
          Disabling Concurrent I/O for Sybase
    3. Improving database performance with atomic write I/O
      1.  
        About the atomic write I/O
      2.  
        Requirements for atomic write I/O
      3.  
        Restrictions on atomic write I/O functionality
      4.  
        How the atomic write I/O feature of Storage Foundation helps MySQL databases
      5.  
        VxVM and VxFS exported IOCTLs
      6.  
        Configuring atomic write I/O support for MySQL on VxVM raw volumes
      7.  
        Configuring atomic write I/O support for MySQL on VxFS file systems
      8.  
        Dynamically growing the atomic write capable file system
      9.  
        Disabling atomic write I/O support
  5. Section V. Using point-in-time copies
    1. Understanding point-in-time copy methods
      1. About point-in-time copies
        1.  
          Implementing point-in time copy solutions on a primary host
        2.  
          Implementing off-host point-in-time copy solutions
      2.  
        When to use point-in-time copies
      3. About Storage Foundation point-in-time copy technologies
        1. Volume-level snapshots
          1.  
            Persistent FastResync of volume snapshots
          2.  
            Data integrity in volume snapshots
        2.  
          Storage Checkpoints
    2. Backing up and recovering
      1.  
        Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions backup and recovery methods
      2. Preserving multiple point-in-time copies
        1.  
          Setting up multiple point-in-time copies
        2.  
          Refreshing point-in-time copies
        3.  
          Recovering from logical corruption
        4.  
          Off-host processing using refreshed snapshot images
      3. Online database backups
        1. Making a backup of an online database on the same host
          1.  
            Preparing a full-sized instant snapshot for a backup
          2.  
            Preparing a space-optimized snapshot for a database backup
          3.  
            Backing up a Sybase database on the same host
          4.  
            Resynchronizing a volume
        2. Making an off-host backup of an online database
          1.  
            Making an off-host backup of an online Sybase database
          2.  
            Resynchronizing a volume
      4. Backing up on an off-host cluster file system
        1.  
          Mounting a file system for shared access
        2.  
          Preparing a snapshot of a mounted file system with shared access
        3.  
          Backing up a snapshot of a mounted file system with shared access
        4.  
          Resynchronizing a volume from its snapshot volume
        5.  
          Reattaching snapshot plexes
      5. Database recovery using Storage Checkpoints
        1.  
          Creating Storage Checkpoints
        2.  
          Rolling back a database
    3. Backing up and recovering in a NetBackup environment
      1.  
        About Veritas NetBackup
      2.  
        About using NetBackup for backup and restore for Sybase
      3. Using NetBackup in an SFHA Solutions product environment
        1.  
          Clustering a NetBackup Master Server
        2.  
          Backing up and recovering a VxVM volume using NetBackup
        3.  
          Recovering a VxVM volume using NetBackup
    4. Off-host processing
      1.  
        Veritas InfoScale Storage Foundation off-host processing methods
      2. Using a replica database for decision support
        1. Creating a replica database on the same host
          1.  
            Preparing for the replica database
          2.  
            Creating a replica database
        2. Creating an off-host replica database
          1.  
            Setting up a replica database for off-host decision support
          2.  
            Resynchronizing the data with the primary host
          3.  
            Updating a warm standby Sybase ASE 12.5 database
          4.  
            Reattaching snapshot plexes
      3.  
        What is off-host processing?
      4.  
        About using VVR for off-host processing
    5. Creating and refreshing test environments
      1.  
        About test environments
      2.  
        Creating a test environment
      3.  
        Refreshing a test environment
    6. Creating point-in-time copies of files
      1. Using FileSnaps to create point-in-time copies of files
        1.  
          Using FileSnaps to provision virtual desktops
        2.  
          Using FileSnaps to optimize write intensive applications for virtual machines
        3.  
          Using FileSnaps to create multiple copies of data instantly
  6. Section VI. Maximizing storage utilization
    1. Optimizing storage tiering with SmartTier
      1.  
        About SmartTier
      2.  
        About VxFS multi-volume file systems
      3.  
        About VxVM volume sets
      4.  
        About volume tags
      5.  
        SmartTier use cases for Sybase
      6.  
        Setting up a filesystem for storage tiering with SmartTier
      7.  
        Relocating old archive logs to tier two storage using SmartTier
      8.  
        Relocating inactive tablespaces or segments to tier two storage
      9.  
        Relocating active indexes to premium storage
      10.  
        Relocating all indexes to premium storage
    2. Optimizing storage with Flexible Storage Sharing
      1. About Flexible Storage Sharing
        1.  
          Limitations of Flexible Storage Sharing
      2.  
        About use cases for optimizing storage with Flexible Storage Sharing
      3.  
        Setting up an SFRAC clustered environment with shared nothing storage
      4.  
        Implementing the SmartTier feature with hybrid storage
      5.  
        Configuring a campus cluster without shared storage
  7. Section VII. Migrating data
    1. Understanding data migration
      1.  
        Types of data migration
    2. Offline migration from LVM to VxVM
      1.  
        About migration from LVM
      2.  
        Converting unused LVM physical volumes to VxVM disks
      3. LVM volume group to VxVM disk group conversion
        1.  
          Volume group conversion limitations
        2.  
          Converting LVM volume groups to VxVM disk groups
        3. Examples of second stage failure analysis
          1.  
            Snapshot in the volume group
          2.  
            dm_mirror module not loaded in the kernel
          3.  
            Conversion requires extent movement on an LVM1 volume group
          4.  
            Unrecognized partition in volume group
      4. LVM volume group restoration
        1.  
          Restoring an LVM volume group
    3. Offline conversion of native file system to VxFS
      1.  
        About the offline conversion of native file system to VxFS
      2.  
        Requirements for offline conversion of a native file system to VxFS
      3.  
        Converting the native file system to VxFS
    4. Online migration of a native file system to the VxFS file system
      1.  
        About online migration of a native file system to the VxFS file system
      2.  
        Administrative interface for online migration of a native file system to the VxFS file system
      3.  
        Migrating a native file system to the VxFS file system
      4.  
        Backing out an online migration of a native file system to the VxFS file system
      5. VxFS features not available during online migration
        1.  
          Limitations of online migration
    5. Migrating storage arrays
      1.  
        Array migration for storage using Linux
      2.  
        Overview of storage mirroring for migration
      3.  
        Allocating new storage
      4.  
        Initializing the new disk
      5.  
        Checking the current VxVM information
      6.  
        Adding a new disk to the disk group
      7.  
        Mirroring
      8.  
        Monitoring
      9.  
        Mirror completion
      10.  
        Removing old storage
      11.  
        Post-mirroring steps
    6. Migrating data between platforms
      1. Overview of the Cross-Platform Data Sharing (CDS) feature
        1.  
          Shared data across platforms
        2.  
          Disk drive sector size
        3.  
          Block size issues
        4.  
          Operating system data
      2. CDS disk format and disk groups
        1. CDS disk access and format
          1. CDS disk types
            1.  
              Private and public regions
            2.  
              Disk access type auto
            3.  
              Platform block
            4.  
              AIX coexistence label
            5.  
              HP-UX coexistence label
            6.  
              VxVM ID block
          2. About Cross-platform Data Sharing (CDS) disk groups
            1.  
              Device quotas
            2.  
              Minor device numbers
        2.  
          Non-CDS disk groups
        3. Disk group alignment
          1. Alignment values
            1.  
              Dirty region log alignment
          2.  
            Object alignment during volume creation
      3. Setting up your system to use Cross-platform Data Sharing (CDS)
        1. Creating CDS disks from uninitialized disks
          1.  
            Creating CDS disks by using vxdisksetup
          2.  
            Creating CDS disks by using vxdiskadm
        2. Creating CDS disks from initialized VxVM disks
          1.  
            Creating a CDS disk from a disk that is not in a disk group
          2.  
            Creating a CDS disk from a disk that is already in a disk group
        3. Creating CDS disk groups
          1.  
            Creating a CDS disk group by using vxdg init
          2.  
            Creating a CDS disk group by using vxdiskadm
        4.  
          Converting non-CDS disks to CDS disks
        5.  
          Converting a non-CDS disk group to a CDS disk group
        6.  
          Verifying licensing
        7.  
          Defaults files
      4. Maintaining your system
        1. Disk tasks
          1.  
            Changing the default disk format
          2.  
            Restoring CDS disk labels
        2. Disk group tasks
          1.  
            Changing the alignment of a disk group during disk encapsulation
          2.  
            Changing the alignment of a non-CDS disk group
          3.  
            Splitting a CDS disk group
          4.  
            Moving objects between CDS disk groups and non-CDS disk groups
          5.  
            Moving objects between CDS disk groups
          6.  
            Joining disk groups
          7.  
            Changing the default CDS setting for disk group creation
          8.  
            Creating non-CDS disk groups
          9.  
            Upgrading an older version non-CDS disk group
          10.  
            Replacing a disk in a CDS disk group
          11.  
            Setting the maximum number of devices for CDS disk groups
          12.  
            Changing the DRL map and log size
          13.  
            Creating a volume with a DRL log
          14.  
            Setting the DRL map length
        3. Displaying information
          1.  
            Determining the setting of the CDS attribute on a disk group
          2.  
            Displaying the maximum number of devices in a CDS disk group
          3.  
            Displaying map length and map alignment of traditional DRL logs
          4.  
            Displaying the disk group alignment
          5.  
            Displaying the log map length and alignment
          6.  
            Displaying offset and length information in units of 512 bytes
        4.  
          Default activation mode of shared disk groups
        5.  
          Additional considerations when importing CDS disk groups
      5. File system considerations
        1.  
          Considerations about data in the file system
        2.  
          File system migration
        3. Specifying the migration target
          1.  
            Examples of target specifications
        4. Using the fscdsadm command
          1.  
            Checking that the metadata limits are not exceeded
          2. Maintaining the list of target operating systems
            1.  
              Adding an entry to the list of target operating systems
            2.  
              Removing an entry from the list of target operating systems
            3.  
              Removing all entries from the list of target operating systems
            4.  
              Displaying the list of target operating systems
          3.  
            Enforcing the established CDS limits on a file system
          4.  
            Ignoring the established CDS limits on a file system
          5.  
            Validating the operating system targets for a file system
          6.  
            Displaying the CDS status of a file system
        5.  
          Migrating a file system one time
        6. Migrating a file system on an ongoing basis
          1.  
            Stopping ongoing migration
        7.  
          When to convert a file system
        8. Converting the byte order of a file system
          1.  
            Importing and mounting a file system from another system
      6.  
        Alignment value and block size
      7.  
        Migrating a snapshot volume
    7. Migrating from Oracle ASM to Veritas File System
      1.  
        About the migration
      2.  
        Pre-requisites for migration
      3.  
        Preparing to migrate
      4.  
        Migrating Oracle databases from Oracle ASM to VxFS
  8. Section VIII. Just in time availability solution for vSphere
    1. Just in time availability solution for vSphere
      1. About Just In Time Availability
        1.  
          Getting started with Just In Time Availability
      2.  
        Prerequisites
      3.  
        Supported operating systems and configurations
      4.  
        Setting up a plan
      5.  
        Managing a plan
      6.  
        Deleting a plan
      7.  
        Viewing the properties
      8.  
        Viewing the history tab
      9.  
        Limitations of Just In Time Availability
  9. Section IX. Veritas InfoScale 4K sector device support solution
    1. Veritas InfoScale 4k sector device support solution
      1.  
        About 4K sector size technology
      2.  
        Veritas InfoScale unsupported configurations
      3.  
        Migrating VxFS file system from 512-bytes sector size devices to 4K sector size devices
  10. Section X. Reference
    1. Appendix A. Veritas AppProtect logs and operation states
      1.  
        Log files
      2.  
        Plan states
    2. Appendix B. Troubleshooting Veritas AppProtect
      1.  
        Troubleshooting Just In Time Availability

About Just In Time Availability

The Just In Time Availability solution provides increased availability to the applications on a single node InfoScale Availability cluster in VMware virtual environments.

Using the Just In Time Availability solution, you can create plans for:

  1. Planned Maintenance

  2. Unplanned Recovery

Planned Maintenance

In the event of planned maintenance, the Just In Time Availability solution enables you to clone a virtual machine, bring it online, and failover the applications running on that virtual machine to the clone on the same ESX host. After the maintenance procedure is complete, you can failback the applications to original virtual machine. Besides failover and failback operations, you can delete a virtual machine clone, view the properties of the virtual machine and its clone, and so on.

Unplanned Recovery

When an application encounters an unexpected or unplanned failure on the original virtual machine on primary ESX, the Just In Time Availability solution enables you to recover the application and bring it online using the unplanned recovery feature.

With Unplanned Recovery Policies, the Just In Time Availability solution enables you to set up recovery policies as per your requirement to mitigate the unplanned failure that is encountered by an application. Just In Time Availability solution provides the following recovery policies for your selection. You may select one or all the recovery policies as per your need.

Unplanned Recovery Policies

Description

Restart Application

Just In Time Availability (JIT) solution attempts to restart the service group (SG), and bring the application online on the original virtual machine on primary ESX.

Maximum three retry attempts are permitted under this policy.

Note:

If all the three attempts fail, application continues to remain in faulted state or continues with the next policy as selected while creating a plan.

Restart virtual machine (VM)

Just In Time Availability (JIT) solution performs the subsequent tasks such as bring the service group offline and shuts down the virtual machine; powers on the virtual machine; bring the service group online on the original virtual machine on primary ESX.

You are provided with Last attempt will be VM reset option to reset the virtual machine.

By default, this checkbox is selected and the default retry attempt value is one. If you retain the default settings, then VM reset operation is performed on the virtual machine at the first attempt itself.

Maximum three retry attempts are permitted for this operation.

If you deselect the checkbox, then the virtual machine reset (VM Reset) operation is not performed.

Restart VM on target ESX

Using this policy, you can recover the faulted application on the virtual machine.

In this policy, the original virtual machine is unregistered from the primary ESX; registered on the target ESX; and the faulted application is brought online on the virtual machine.

Note:

While configuring Restart VM on target ESXpolicy, ensure that the ESX version of both the source and target is compatible with each other. The virtual machines on target ESX are registered with the same vmx file as on the source ESX.

Restore VM on target ESX

Using this policy, you can recover the faulted application on the virtual machine using a boot disk backup copy of the original virtual machine.

In this policy, the original virtual machine is unregistered from the ESX and the boot disk backup copy of the original virtual machine is registered on target ESX. The faulted application is then brought online on the virtual machine.

Note:

While configuring Restore VM on target ESX policy, ensure that the ESX version of both the source and target is compatible with each other. The virtual machines on target ESX are registered with the same vmx file as on the source ESX.

Unplanned Failback

The Unplanned Failback operation lets you failback the application from the boot disk back up copy of virtual machine on the target ESX to the original virtual machine on primary ESX.

If you have selected either Restart VM on target ESX or Restore VM on target ESX or both the recovery policies, you can perform the Unplanned Failback operation.

On the Plans tab, in the plans table list, right-click the virtual machine and click Unplanned Failback.

Note:

Unplanned Failback operation operation is disabled and not available for the plans and the virtual machines which have Restart Application and Restart VM policies as the only selected options.

Based on the selected recovery policy for a plan, Just In Time Availability (JIT) solution performs the necessary operations in the sequential order.

For example, if you have selected Restart Application and Restart VM as the recovery policy, then in the event of unplanned application failure, first it performs tasks for Restart Application policy and if that fails, it moves to the next policy.

You may select one or all the recovery policies based on your requirement.

Table: Tasks performed for each Unplanned Recovery policy lists the sequence of tasks that are performed for each Unplanned Recovery policy.

Table: Tasks performed for each Unplanned Recovery policy

Unplanned Recovery Policy

Tasks Performed

Restart Application

  • Makes an attempt to restart the application.

Restart virtual machine (VM)

  1. Brings the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the virtual machine

  3. Power on the virtual machine

  4. Brings the service group(s) online

Restart VM on target ESX

  1. Brings the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the original virtual machine

  3. Detaches the data disks from the original virtual machine

  4. Unregisters the virtual machine from the primary ESX

  5. Registers the original virtual machine on target ESX

  6. Attaches the data disks back to the virtual machine

  7. Power on the virtual machine

  8. Brings the service group(s) online

Restore VM on target ESX

  1. Brings the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the virtual machine

  3. Detaches the data disks from the virtual machine

  4. Unregisters the original virtual machine from the ESX

  5. Registers the boot disk backup copy of the original virtual machine to the target ESX

  6. Attaches the data disks back to the virtual machine

  7. Power on the virtual machine

  8. Brings the service group(s) online

Unplanned Failback

  1. Brings the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the virtual machine

  3. Detaches the data disks from the virtual machine

  4. Unregisters the virtual machine from the target ESX

  5. Registers the virtual machine using the original boot disk to the primary ESX

  6. Attaches the data disks to the virtual machine

  7. Power on the virtual machine on primary ESX

  8. Brings the service group(s) online on the virtual machine

Scheduler Settings

While creating a plan for unplanned recovery, with Scheduler Settings, you can set up a schedule for taking a back up of boot disk of all the virtual machines that are a part of the plan.

To use the Just In Time Availability solution, go to vSphere Web Client > Home view > Veritas AppProtect.

See Setting up a plan.