IBM Flex System V7000 Expansion Enclosure 4939H29 ユーザーズマニュアル

Chapter 9. IBM Flex System V7000 Storage Node Copy Services 

Draft Document for Review January 29, 2013 12:52 pm

business perspective, and then determine if FlashCopy fulfills the technical needs of those 
business requirements.

With an immediately available copy of the data, FlashCopy could be used in various business 
scenarios, which include:

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Rapidly creating consistent backups of dynamically changing data

FlashCopy can be used to create backups through periodic execution of FlashCopy; the 
FlashCopy target volumes can be used to complete a rapid restore of individual files or the 
entire volume through Reverse FlashCopy (using the 

 option). 

The target volumes created by FlashCopy may be also used for backup to tape, by 
attaching them to another server, which to a great extent relieves the production server. 
After the copy to tape completes, the target volumes can be discarded if required or kept 
as a rapid restore copy of the data. 

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Rapidly creating consistent copies of production data to facilitate data movement or 
migration between hosts.

FlashCopy can be used to facilitate the movement or migration of data between hosts 
while minimizing downtime for applications. FlashCopy allows application data to be 
copied from source volumes to new target volumes while applications remain online. After 
the volumes are fully copied and synchronized, the application can be stopped and then 
immediately started on the new server accessing the new FlashCopy target volumes. This 
mode of migration is swifter than other migration methods available through the IBM Flex 
System V7000 Storage Node, because the size or the speed of the migration is not as 
limited.

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Rapidly creating copies of production data sets for application development and testing.

Under normal circumstances, to perform application development and testing, data must 
be restored from traditional backup media, such as tape. Depending the amount of data 
and the technology in use, this process could easily take a day or more. With FlashCopy, a 
copy can be created and online for use in just a few minutes. The time varies based on the 
application and the data set size.

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Rapidly creating copies of production data sets for auditing purposes and data mining.

Auditing or data mining normally require the usage of the production applications. This 
situation can cause high loads for databases track inventories or similar data. With 
FlashCopy, you can create copies for your reporting and data mining activities. This 
situation reduces the load on your production systems, increasing their performance.

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Rapidly creating copies of production data sets for quality assurance.

Quality assurance is an interesting case for FlashCopy. Because traditional methods 
involve so much time and labor, the refresh cycle is typically extended. This reduction in 
time required allows much more frequent refreshes of the quality assurance database.

FlashCopy occurs between a source volume and a target volume. The source and target 
volumes must be the same size. Multiple FlashCopy mappings (source-to-target 
relationships) can be defined, and point-in-time consistency can be maintained across 
multiple point-in-time mappings using consistency groups. FlashCopy consistency groups are 
further described in “FlashCopy consistency groups” on page 348.

The minimum granularity that the IBM Flex System V7000 Storage Node supports for 
FlashCopy is an entire volume; it is not possible to use FlashCopy to copy only part of a