Snapshot (Createsv) vs Clone (Createvvcopy) on HP 3PAR 8400

[alainb06]

Hello,

I'm looking for the best possible technology compared to our HP3PAR full Flash 8400 array to create a test environment similar to that of production.
  

The goal is to allow the restoration of PROD's VMs on new TEST VMs during the day for testing purposes or as a result of possible overnight batch issues to replay production batches with updates on this test environment.

For this purpose a snapshot or clone operation of the luns would be done by script every day before batch processing.

I do not know if a prod snapshot could be mounted and updated directly by a new test server?

If choosing the snapshot over the clone, the performance should not be diminished by that.

Thank you in advance for all your advice.

[Sheldon Smith · Accepted solution]

You should read the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage Concepts Guide, look at the chapter on Virtual Volumes. It discusses physical copies, virtual copy snapshots and exporting virtual volumes.
Whether a writable physical copy (clone) or writable virtual copy (snapshot), the copy can be exported and mounted on a test server.

A virtual copy snapshot will be much faster to create and update daily.
In the HPE 3PAR Command Line Interface Administrator's Manual, look at the chapter on Using mySnapshot. "The mySnapshot feature enables safe and easy copy and provisioning access to non-storage professionals such as DBAs, software developers, and test engineers working with systems. Users can safely and easily restore their own copies of test data in seconds, without relying on the storage administrator." The HPE 3PAR OS Command Line Interface Reference has all the details of the "updatevv" command used by mySnapshot.