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Status Needs more information
Workspace IBM Copy Services Manager (CSM)
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 26, 2023

RELATED IDEAS

Disallow to run a SGC recover when R1 devices are already in use (by another recover or by a practise H3)

In our configuration R1 devices for SafeGuardedCopy are the same as H3 devices for practice. When we flash I3 devices on H3 devices for practise and then we run a recover backup for SGC the task failed with a x0FAE error code.
But one time the H3 devices were corrupted after the SGC recover.

It would be good to disallow the command recover if the R1 devices are already in use

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     May 2, 2023
    Thank you for the information. But that's not necessarily true. The No Copy option merely indicates that the background copy will not run in the background for all tracks. As a track is updated on the FC source it will be hardened on the target (or in this case the H3 volume). Because you didn't select the "Incremental" option, the relationship is not actually persistent, which means if all tracks on the volume get updated, the relationship actually goes away on the hardware.

    It's kinda rare for that to happen though. But is it possible that for some of the volumes all tracks were update? That is the only explanation I can think of which would cause the Recover for the SGC session to actually work for some volumes but not others. Cause normally, all the volumes would fail the SGC recover because all the volumes are already FC targets and a volume get be the target to two different sources at the same time.

    If the above is the case, like I said, I don't think CSM will be able to stop the recover on SGC, because there wouldn't be a relationship on the hw. And if it's not the case, then we may need to pursue this as a defect so we can better figure out what might have caused the corruption you mentioned.
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     May 2, 2023

    The practice volume was flashed from a MMGMP session with options "NoCopy", "Prevent Reflash of Practice volume after Flash or Recover", and "Fail Flash if target is online (CKD only)"

    With the NoCopy option there is no background copy so the hardware relationship is always present ?

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Apr 26, 2023
    Will look into what we can do but this is one of the risks with using the same set of volumes for two different purposes. To prevent this we'd need to check if those targets are "in-use". But what is the criteria for "in-use".

    The only way I believe an SGC Recovery action could end up corrupting an H3 practice volume, is if the practice volume was not flashed with the persistent option. This means as soon as the background copy completes the relationship is no longer on the hardware. That means that the volume is no longer a target and there's nothing on the hardware itself for CSM to check to confirm that it's still "in-use".

    So when do you no longer consider the H3 practice volumes "in-use" such that the SGC recovery can be run? Is it when ALL of the FCs for the practice session have finished the background copy? Or is something else?

    If you would like a discussion on this RFE please feel free to setup a meeting. I would be more than happy to discuss the scenario so that we can meet your needs.

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