BC Copy

[Prashanth Waugh]

which are the factors or points we have to consider while selecting the Business copy or snap shot technology like array ,replication methods.

Regards,
Prashant

[PP BIJU KRISHNAN]

I guess you are referring to Business Copy on a HP XP series Storage array.

BC
BC requires equivalent space for a secondary copy. For example if you are protecting a 20 TB database, you will need 20 TB of additional storage. There is no performance impact on the production volumes during or after copy/split.
There will be however a short span when you put the DB in backup mode for split operations.

COW - copy on write technology (snapshot)
This scores over BC in only one area, requires less space, typically admins allocate 20% of the production space as additional storage for protection.
But if the IO exceeds this threshold during the time the snapshot is active, the copy is rendered useless.

For
>>highly critical
>>IO intensive
workloads, I recommend BC

For
>>non-critical
>>low IO
workloads I recommend COW

Please assign points if you are satisfied else feel free to ask more questions.

[Prashanth Waugh]

Hi Biju,

Thanks for your reply. We are planning to use the IBM storage and BC copy but I think that we cant use the BC copy with IBM storage. Only XP storage are supporting for BC copy. As per my knowledge cloning ,replication technologies like Business copy , CA replication is depends on hardware array we are going to use (means server model).

Regards,
Prashant

[PP BIJU KRISHNAN]

Prashant,

IBM has equivalent technologies.

On the DS4XXX series you have

Volume Copy = BC

Flashsnap = Snapshot

Regards,
Biju Krishnan

[Prashanth Waugh]

Hi Biju,

I am agree with you. But I am trying to clear my conpcept like any replication or bc or volume copy selcetion depends upon which array (storage) we are selecting right. I cant use BC with IBM storage.

Regards,
Prashant

[PP BIJU KRISHNAN]

If you virtualise the IBM storage behind the HP XP then the XP can use this storage for BC volumes.

Apart from this scenario, BC is exclusively available only for to HP XP and HP EVA

There are other technologies that allow you to perform replication between different arrays.
Example - EMC Recovepoint

Then there are host based replication software from Softek, Symantec, Inmage which allow you to perform cross platform replication.