InfoScale™ 9.0 Replication Administrator's Guide - AIX
- Section I. Getting started with Volume Replicator
- Introducing Volume Replicator
- Understanding how Volume Replicator works
- How VVR uses kernel buffers for replication
- Replication in a shared disk group environment
- Using SmartTier with VVR
- Understanding the VVR snapshot feature
- About VVR compression
- Planning and configuring replication
- Before you begin configuring
- Choosing the mode of volume replication
- Planning the network
- Sizing the SRL
- Understanding replication settings for a Secondary
- Configuring VVR in a VCS environment
- Using the primary-elect feature to choose the primary site after a site disaster or network disruption
- Requirements for configuring VVR in a VCS environment
- Example setting up VVR in a VCS environment
- Configuring the agents for a bunker replication configuration
- Section II. Setting up and administering VVR
- Setting up replication
- Creating a Replicated Data Set
- Creating a Primary RVG of an RDS
- Adding a Secondary to an RDS
- Changing the replication settings for a Secondary
- Synchronizing the Secondary and starting replication
- Starting replication when the data volumes are zero initialized
- Displaying configuration information
- Displaying RVG and RDS information
- Displaying information about data volumes and volume sets
- Displaying information about Secondaries
- Displaying statistics with the vrstat display commands
- Collecting consolidated statistics of the VVR components
- Displaying network performance data
- Administering Volume Replicator
- Administering data volumes
- Associating a volume to a Replicated Data Set
- Associating a volume set to an RDS
- Associating a Data Change Map to a data volume as a log plex
- Resizing a data volume in a Replicated Data Set
- Administering the SRL
- Incrementally synchronizing the Secondary after SRL overflow
- Administering replication
- Administering the Replicated Data Set
- Administering Storage Checkpoints
- Creating RVG snapshots
- Using the instant snapshot feature
- About instant full snapshots
- Preparing the volumes prior to using the instant snapshot feature
- Creating instant full snapshots
- About instant space-optimized snapshots
- Creating instant space-optimized snapshots
- About instant plex-breakoff snapshots
- Administering snapshots
- Using the traditional snapshot feature
- Using Veritas Volume Manager FastResync
- Verifying the DR readiness of a VVR setup
- Backing up the Secondary
- Administering data volumes
- Using VVR for off-host processing
- Transferring the Primary role
- Migrating the Primary
- About taking over from an original Primary
- Failing back to the original Primary
- Choosing the Primary site after a site disaster or network disruption
- Troubleshooting the primary-elect feature
- Replication using a bunker site
- Introduction to replication using a bunker site
- Setting up replication using a bunker site
- Using a bunker for disaster recovery
- Replication using a bunker site in a VCS environment
- Configuring and administering VVR using System Management Interface Tool
- Accessing Volume Replicator interface in SMIT
- Setting up a simple Volume Replicator configuration using SMIT
- Displaying configuration information using SMIT
- Administering Volume Replicator using SMIT
- Taking instant snapshot of data volumes of an RVG using SMIT
- Associating a volume to a Replicated Data Set using SMIT
- Transferring the Primary role using SMIT
- Troubleshooting VVR
- Recovery from configuration errors
- Errors during an RLINK attach
- Errors during modification of an RVG
- Recovery on the Primary or Secondary
- Recovering from Primary data volume error
- Primary SRL volume error cleanup and restart
- Primary SRL header error cleanup and recovery
- Secondary data volume error cleanup and recovery
- Tuning replication performance
- SRL layout
- Tuning Volume Replicator
- VVR buffer space
- Tuning VVR compression
- VVR buffer space
- Setting up replication
- Section III. Analyzing your environment with Volume Replicator Advisor
- Introducing Volume Replicator Advisor (VRAdvisor)
- Collecting the sample of data
- About collecting the sample of data
- Collecting the sample of data on UNIX
- Collecting the sample of data on Windows
- Analyzing the sample of data
- About analyzing the sample of data
- Analyzing the collected data
- Understanding the results of the analysis
- Viewing the analysis results
- Recalculating the analysis results
- Installing Volume Replicator Advisor (VRAdvisor)
- Section IV. VVR reference
- Appendix A. VVR command reference
- Appendix B. Using the In-band Control Messaging utility vxibc and the IBC programming API
- Using the IBC messaging command-line utility
- Examples - Off-host processing
- In-band Control Messaging API
- Appendix C. Volume Replicator object states
- Appendix D. Alternate methods for synchronizing the Secondary
- Using the full synchronization feature
- Using block-level backup and Storage Checkpoint
- Using difference-based synchronization
- Examples for setting up a simple Volume Replicator configuration
- Appendix E. Migrating VVR from IPv4 to IPv6
- Migrating VVR to support IPv6 or dual stack
- About migrating to IPv6 when VCS global clustering and VVR agents are not configured
- About migrating to IPv6 when VCS global clustering and VVR agents are configured
- About migrating to IPv6 when VCS global clustering and VVR agents are configured in the presence of a bunker
- Migrating to IPv6 when VCS global clustering and VVR agents are configured in the presence of a bunker
- Appendix F. Sample main.cf files
Overview of VRAdvisor
Volume Replicator Advisor (VRAdvisor) is a planning tool that helps you determine an optimum Volume Replicator (VVR) configuration. This document assumes that you understand the concepts of VVR.
This document provides information on installing and using this tool on different platforms. Wherever applicable, the information that is specific to a platform has been appropriately indicated. For Windows, note that the Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) has been renamed to Storage Foundation for Windows (VSFW) from Release 4.1 onwards.
Planning is the key to successfully configuring VVR. To set up an optimum configuration, you must understand the components of VVR and their interactions with each other. In addition, you must consider the factors that are specific to your environment while planning your VVR configuration.
The important factors to consider while planning include:
Needs and constraints of the business
Application characteristics
Mode of replication
Network characteristics
These factors are dependent on each other and these dependencies must be considered during planning. For example, if your business requires that the data on the Secondary to be as up to date with the Primary as possible, you must choose synchronous mode and provide enough network bandwidth to handle the peak application write rate on the Primary. Or, if the available network bandwidth is less than the peak write rate of the application, you must choose asynchronous mode of replication. Also, the size of the Storage Replicator Log (SRL) must be able to handle the Secondary outages and network outages for the given application characteristics. VRAdvisor considers these dependencies and enables you to determine the parameters to suit your VVR environment.
VRAdvisor does the following:
Collects a sample of data that reflects the application characteristics.
Analyzes the sample of the application characteristic and calculates the size of the SRL and the network bandwidth required for replication.
Enables you to perform a What-if Analysis by varying the needs and constraints of your business, based on your future requirements.
Note that the replication log of VVR is referred to as SRL (Storage Replicator Log) on UNIX and as Replicator Log on Windows. The terms SRL and Replicator Log are used interchangeably in the document.