Storageworks MA8000 copy

[joseph morrison_1]

Hi

I have 2 copies of a 1 TB Oracle DB running on a S/Works MA8000.Once a month the one has to be "refreshed" from the other.The LUN and VG layout for the 2 are identical.Would it be possible to perform the copy on the array without involving the O/S (HPUX 11.00) ?

Thanx

[Vincent Fleming]

There are several factors that are probably affecting your copy speed...

First off, cp is not a speedy copy mechanism. It tends to use smaller blocksizes. If you can use dd, you can increase the blocksize to something more optimal, such as 64k. (use the bs=64k argument)

You can also run several dd's at the same time to get concurrency.

Secondly, the number of drives you're writing to is a significant factor. 2 drives are faster than one. 10 are faster than 5... 20 are faster than 10. If there's any way you can increase the number of drives, it would be helpful.

The third thing I can think of is to use some sort of snapshot technology; some of the newer arrays (notably the EVA) contain snapshot and snapclone technology. Snapclone sounds like it would fit your needs well - it will take a point-in-time space-efficient copy of the data, then (in the background) copy the data to the backup drives. Your problems with your copy window completely go away! It would be "done" in seconds, as far as your server is concerned.

Good luck, I hope this helps.

Vince