While starting a consistency group, a "CMMVC7102E" error does not disclose the names of problem secondary volume(s).

Normally starting a consistency group on a IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) is a fairly simple and straightforward process. However, occasionally you may run into an error condition where the consistency group is unable to start because of a conflicting flashcopy/secondary volume. In specific, I am referring to this error:

CMMVC7102E - The action could not be performed because one or more of the requested secondary volumes is the target of an active Flashcopy mapping.

The purpose of this request is to ask for an enhancement which makes this error message more specific - by having it include the name(s) of the secondary volumes that are registering as "conflicted."

IBM Support has confirmed that there is no way for them to determine which volume(s) is/are conflicting. (e.g. nothing in the logs) However they were able to provide commands that can be run against each flashcopy that would allow a storage administrator to determine if it contained conflicted volume(s). The commands are useful if you only have a few (<10 or so) flashcopies that you need to validate. However, when you have >2800 flashcopies on the SVC these commands become quite time consuming - unless of course you are a good scripter.

By enhancing the error message description, so that it tells you what volume(s) are conflicted, it could save storage administrators from having to reach out to IBM Support for assistance as well as saving them time in manually running commands against the flashcopies or creating scripts.

Observation: When the command to start a consistency group is executed the SVC microcode obviously does some validating to determine if it is safe to start the consistency process. If it is smart enough to detect such conflicts as described in this RFE, it should be smart enough to report what volumes it finds as being conflicted. The reporting of conflicted volumes could be included in the body of the error message OR they could be included in the system logging that IBM Support is able to review.