backing up Vg and restore to another storage

[Muda Ikhsan_1]

Hi.. i wondering is anybody could help me out here.
My server is HP-UX B.11.11 U 9000/800. Now i have a couple of VG's contain informix data in a storage box ( Clarion ).
I planned to change the storage into another box, for the database i can do data restore, but first i need to re-construct all the Vg's and all the Lv's ?

How should i do the migration ?
really appreciate the help.. thanks
Thanks you.

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

To be simple I would suggest to recreate VG's on the new box with new storage. Allthough the migration can be done in several ways and the best would be to allocate new storage also parallel to the old one and present the LUNs to the same host.

Now on the server, create a copy of all the LVOL's on the new LUNs from the new storage box after extending existing VG's to new LUNs. When mirroring is done reduce the VG's from old LUNs. Like this you do not even require to even restore backup and the same can be done online with compromize on the performance.

Allthough take a tested good backup prior to the change.

HTH,
Devender

[Muda Ikhsan_1]

Hi.. sorry not to make my explaination clear enough.
My current HP-UX box is only having one FC card that currently attached to the current storage.
Then i want to change the storage with another one that having bigger capacity.

So the migration is happening ini one host only.

after i attaached the new box, i believe i will have different new set of disk id's.

How can i retore my vg's, Lv's ?

thank you very much sir

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

Allthough your server has only one FC card but the storage must be connecting through FC switch. Is not it?

If not then this is not possible and you need to recreate VGs with new devices. There is no way of importing VG's back with new devices.

If FC switch is there you can connect both storage boxes at a time and can do vgextend / vgreduce as mentioned earlier.

HTH,
Devender

[Jayasuntar · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Another way of doing the vg creation is vgexport and vgimport.

With old storage connected to system,
#vgexport -v -m -p vgxx.map /dev/vgXX
Then connect the new storage and import the file here.

#mkdir /dev/vgxx
#mknod dev/vgxx/group c 64 0x0X000
#vgimport -v -m vgxx.map /dev/dsk/cxtydz /dev/dsk/cxtydz etc...

then restore ur data from tape.

Regards

Jay

[Sยภเl Kย๓คг]

Hi,

Storage migration part can be done as easier by replicating data across both storages. If the LDEV sizes are same, u can use some kind of replication utilities like HORCM to replcate the LUNS. Then export the vg with the vgid. Disconnect ur old storage and import the vgs with the new storage.

If u have enough time for migration, u can very well take a backup of the fileystem and then mannually restore it into the new storage. If u have DP or veritab bkup softwares, with ultirum tape drives, this option will be safe.

Regards,
Sunil

[Ted Buis]

Think of this as a great opportunity to test your backup and restore process. Backup off the old storage to tape, shutdown, disconnect the old storage, connect the new storage and try your recovery. This would be similar to what you might need to do in the case of disaster recovery, except that you would have the core OS already set up.

[Muda Ikhsan_1]

Hi.. but if i do a vgimport totally to new sets of brand new disks, will it crate problem with the lv information in the vg ? like the headers ?

[Ted Buis]

If you have backed up the data from the old volume groups and created new vg's and lvols, then they are set up and you are just restoring the data. Is your Informix raw access or file system access?

[Muda Ikhsan_1]

hi. it's using raw

[Sยภเl Kย๓คг]

Hi,
Your job has become easy now. YOu need just import the VG and activate it. Then restore the raw backup as it is. Your storage data migration part is completed

Regards,
Sunil