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Flashcopy and VSE data |
Modern IT environments need to be online 24 hours 7 days a week. Being Online means have permanent access to the production data. To achieve this goal but also secure the data with regular Backups, new technologies were developed in IBM System Storage products - Flashcopy.
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Overview |
Flashcopy is a function of modern storage systems like the IBM Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) and IBM System Storage DS8000 and DS6000 series servers. It allows to take 'virtual' copy of a volume or even parts of a volume in few seconds. This enables to take backup actions parallel to production environments without affecting them.
It helps to minimize the offline time in a production environment. VSAM has introduced a special support to allow taking a backup of VSAM files from copies volumes: Synonym backup.
Another possibility is to clone a whole VSE system, by copying the system disks (DOSRES, SYSWK1) and the data disks with Flashcopy. The cloned system can be IPLed, and backups can be taken while the original system is online.
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Benefits |
- Minimize offline time by flash-copying volumes and take backups from the copied volumes.
- Very fast copy function for Recovery purposes
- Very fast cloning of a Master System (i.e. for test purposes)
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Software requirements |
The following software requirements must be meet in order to implement this solution:
- VSE/ESA 2.6 or later
- IBM Enterprise Storage Server (ESS)
- DS8000
- DS6000 (VSE/ESA 2.7 or later)
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How to get started |
To get started, the following steps must be done:
- Define source target volumes
- Flashcopy volumes or parts of volumes
- To use Flashcopy for VSAM files, all volumes belonging to a catalog must be copied with Flashcopy to maintain data integrity
- Using z/VM you can start an additional guest using the copied volumes and do normal Backup actions without affecting the production environment
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Additional information |
Additional information for this solution scenario can be found:
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