Migrate Data from one to another SAN

[Juan M Leon]

Hello,

We have to plan data migration from a VA7400 to a new XP12000.
We have a few suggested commands:
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# cd /source
# fbackup -f - -i . | (cd /destination; frecover -rXf -)
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# cd /source
# tar -cf - . | (cd /destination ; tar -xf -)
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# bdf
# cd {source_dir}
# ls -lR | wc
# find . -xdev -depth -print | cpio -pdum {dest_dir}
# bdf
# cd {dest_dir}
# ls -lR | wc
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For example we have N lvols in the VG attached to the VA and we created N lvols attached to the XP then

pvmove /dev/dsk/ /dev/dsk/
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Does anybody has suggestions as what option is more reliable and accurate. We have to consider that we don't want to change the permissions, time stamp or structure (linked files).
Personally I find interesting the last option using pvmove however I had no experience using this command.
Any suggestions or comments will be appreciated.

Thank you
Juan

[Ivan Ferreira]

I would use fbackup/frecover if I have too choose from one of the backups tools.

tar is not good enough to these kind of data movement because of limitations of tar.

cpio is too complicated without reason, if you can use fbackup

pvmove must be executed between pvs of the same VG, so you must add the physical volume to the same volume group before executing that. If this is not an issue for you, there will be no problem. The only thing you must consider is that pmove will actually "move the data", you don't have a "rollback option". The good thing of this is that you can do this "online", you don't have to stop I/O to do this.

[Juan M Leon]

Ivan do you have any information as which option is faster cpio or vxdump. We are moving about 1.5 TB data.
VA7400-->XP12k

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Juan

Can you use mirror/UX?

Mirror the VA filesystem to the xp

lvextend -m 1

Reduce the filesystem from the VA

lvreduce -m 0

With this option you can do everything online

[Juan M Leon]

Luk,

LVM mirror is not an option.
I am trying to find the best to migrate the data in the quickest possible way

[dentistcorn]

If you are serious about migrting data you will definitelly need a block level migration tool.

The one I use is FalconStor. If you have a brocade SAN then consider Brocade's DMM appliance.

These tools aren't cheap but worth the money for migrations.

Other than that use the basic procedure everyone else uses: backup - restore.

[Tom O'Toole]

Just curious why you have eliminated host based mirroring as a solution. It's a very good way to do exactly what you want to do, often with zero downtime.

[Alzhy]

You should be able to safely use pvmove - IF:

1. You are simply dealing with simple LVOLS
2. You do not have any maxpe/pv issue
3. plan to maintain the same storage layout/structure
4. You want minimal or do not want to have downtime.


IF you have the luxury of downtime AND your LVOL sizes will remain the same, then the following will be my preference (fastest to possibly slowest):

1. dd raw copies

dd if=/dev/va7400vg/rora001 of=/dev/xp12kvg/rora001 bs=4096k

2. vxdump/vxrestore

vxdump 0bf - 126 /ora001|(cd /xp12k/ora001;vxrestore rf -)

3. fbackup/frestore as you've depicted above.



Good luck.