[SunHELP] RE the EMC array migration question

Thu Sep 21 10:23:51 CDT 2006

EMC was comfortable with San Copy involving the FC4700 in the beginning, 
several months ago..

This was a recent response we got from our EMC representative:

------

XXX,

I had left you a message yesterday, but had not heard back so I wanted 
to follow-up with an email.  As I stated in my voicemail, the project 
team had requested that a Senior Solutions Architect take a look at your 
environment and the use of SAN Copy to migrate data. 

 /*/_The SSA found that SAN Copy will not function within XXX's 
environment.  Given that fact we will need to go back to the the initial 
plan of setting up mirrors via LVM._/*/

If you would like to speak with you and determine how your would like to 
proceed.

---

While this email response leaves things open to us as to what is the 
actual cause for that determination, I can safely say that a FC4700 and 
CX500 connected to the same Mcdata DS-24M2 fabric would not be the cause 
for this determination.  Since San Copy is not a host based operation, 
the hosts themselves aren't contributers to this determination.  The 
verbal communication was that the flare releases were incompatible which 
lead us to believe that perhaps earlier code levels between the FC4700 
and CX500 would have been compatible.

We went through EMC upgrading every array to the latest flare releases 
and figuring out what they needed to do to install San Copy.  Items such 
as trying to install an enabler on the FC4700 when an enabler was only 
needed for the CX series, installing a regular CX version of SAN COPY on 
the CX300 when internally there was a special version "_E" that was 
needed on the CX300.  The CX500 did not pose any trouble.  Yes after all 
that, the communication was finally made that San Copy only needed to 
exist on the CX500. 

Here on-site, we do not have the experience with San Copy to say one way 
or another, we can only count on EMC. In the meantime we had to come up 
with a viable alternative in order to allow us to press forward.  We've 
had this CX500 array on site since April '06 and I've only communicated 
a small portion of  what has been involved over the past serveral 
months.  We invested enough of our time under EMC's guidance for this 
migration. If our installation was much larger, I may be compelled to 
continue pressing for San Copy as the solution, but now it is time for 
us to push forward with the solution that is working for us today. Good 
luck on your endeavor and I would like to know how things turn out for 
you, so please keep me posted. 

David Strom wrote:
> Original post at the bottom.  We have the same 2 EMC arrays, an FC4700 & 
> a CX500, and we plan to migrate data (not Oracle, though) from the 
> FC4700 to the CX500.  My EMC tech says that the FLARE code version 
> shouldn't be a problem.  HTH.
>
> His reply:
> "I will address the SanCopy part of this...San Copy only needs to be
> installed on 1 array, in this case the CX500.  It uses LUN World Wide
> Names to address the LUN it is pushing data to or pulling data from, in
> this case a data pull.   SanCopy is used for data migration from other
> vendor's storage arrays as well, who would not have the Clariion
> operating system (Flare) installed.  Therefore I do not believe there
> will be any issues with a SanCopy data pull in your environment.  I will
> however forward your concerns on to other internal EMC resources for
> verification."
>
> --
> David Strom
>
>  From the SunHelp Digest:
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:05:17 -0400
> From: listmail <listmail at triad.rr.com>
> Subject: [SunHELP] REPOST: rsync for one time Oracle data migration to
> 	new	array
> To: sunhelp at sunhelp.org
> Message-ID: <451182DD.6060909 at triad.rr.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>   >>rewritten for those that are particular about presentation and for
> potentially better yields of course... =)
>
>       I would like feedback on a proposal that I have made to management
> which involves migrating an Oracle E-business suite installation from an
> older EMC FC4700 to a CX500 storage array.  One option proposed by EMC
> was to use LVM mirroring and detach the mirror later while the system
> was down.  This option does sound good because it allows us to bring the
> system up while resyncing.  We don't use Vertitas Volume manager for
> unlisted reasons and while I do use SDS for the root OS mirrors and have
> good success with it, I do not like altering my source data or access
> methods in any manner that could jeopardize its integrity.
>
>      EMC Sancopy was also investigated, but an SSA at EMC has recently
> advised us that differences in flare code between the FC and CX arrays
> have lead to incompatibilities.
>
>      I have cloned these installations many times both locally an across
> the wire using rsync and haven't had anything crop up which would lead
> me to believe my data was not 1 to 1.  I have proposed that I would
> perform an initial sync of the files during the day to get the majority
> of the work done before a migration weekend.  When the system could be
> brought down I would have rsync copy or delete what it needs on the
> target to get things 1:1 with the source.  Since the Oracle database
> files are every changing and large I've chosen to skip these files until
> we are down and executing the migration.
>
>       One of the questions I was asked by management was if rsync had any
> directory depth limitations.  My initial response is that I think rsync
> would complain if it ran into something like and I also believe that
> rsync would use up the system memory before it ran into a depth
> limitation.  I'm pretty certain that the file types (ie. regular files,
> links, etc) in an Oracle installation can be handled by rsync.  For any
> option I think most of the concern lies within mapping the luns
> correctly, copying the data to the right luns, making sure all relevant
> mount points for each server are considered, and using the original
> mount point names for the new luns.
>
> Do you guys have any feedback on this?  Its fuel to fire or perhaps
> things I should consider.
>
> Thanks.
>
> 2 servers Solaris 9, 2 Solaris 8
> all running rsync 2.6.8
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