The Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager integrates with Microsoft VSS - Volume Shadow Copy Services - to protect MS SQL Server databases & logs. Tivoli FlashCopy manager help you back up and restore data to and from local shadow volumes with automated tasks, utilities, and interfaces.

_Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services - MS VSS Service

The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is a Microsoft component that is provided with the Windows operating system. VSS manages and directs the Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager VSS requestor and other VSS software applications.

In today’s business world, where application servers are operational 24 hours a day, the data on these servers must be fully protected. You can’t afford to lose any data, but you also can’t afford to stop these critical systems for hours so you can protect the data adequately.As the amount of data that needs protecting continues to grow exponentially and the need to keep the downtime associated with backup to an absolute minimum, IT processes are at their breaking point.

As it takes only a few seconds to establish the FlashCopy relationships for tens to hundreds or more volume pairs. The copy is then immediately available for both read and write access. In a 24×7 environment, the quickness of the FlashCopy operation allows us to use FlashCopy in very large environments and to take multiple FlashCopies of the same volume for use with different applications. Some of the different uses of FlashCopy are shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 FlashCopy different uses

FlashCopy is suitable for the following:

_ Production backup system:

The Point-in-Time Copy feature, which includes FlashCopy, enables you to create full volume copies of data in a storage unit. When you set up a FlashCopy operation, a relationship is established between the source and target volumes, and a bitmap of the source volume is created. Once this relationship and bitmap are created, the target volume can be accessed as though all the data had been physically copied. While a relationship between the source and target volume exists, optionally, a background process copies the tracks from the source to the target volume.

Copy Services are a collection of functions that provide for disaster recovery, data migration, and data duplication functions. There are two primary types of Copy Services functions: Point-in-Time Copy and Remote Mirror and Copy.

Generally, the Point-in-Time Copy functions are used for data duplication, and the Remote Mirror and Copy functions are used for data migration and disaster recovery.

With the Copy Services functions, for example, you can create backup data with little or no disruption to your application, and you can back up your application data to the remote site for disaster recovery.

Copy Services run on the DS8000 Storage Unit and support open systems and System z environments. A subset of these functions is supported also on the previous generation of disk storage systems, the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (ESS).

In the past few years, the speed of backup & restore has made it to most of the large enterprise CEO “to achieve” list. The problem is raising up as the amount of the data is growing exponentially, where the backup window is shrinking. Its no longer acceptable to take a database down for backup or even keep it in backup mode for few hours. The restore time is even getting more critical. Its no longer acceptable to require few hours to restore a 1TB database or an e-mail. Few hours database downtime in a financial firm can mean a loss in millions of dollars, I am not sure how would the IT department make up for that. Will they be able to get back to their desk next morning? For all that storage snapshotting technology has came into play.

Many of you who had figured out that I was away of writing on my blog for a while, I will have to tell you IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager is the reason behind it. This product which is a bit more than two weeks old, is going to replace IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Copy Services & IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for advanced Copy Services. I have been lucky to start testing the product about three weeks back even before it went GA, as we had to build a proof of concept for one of our large clients for Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager for SQL on DS8000.

As more companies are virtualizing their infrastructure based on VMware ESX, more need are araising for a disaster recovery solutions supporting these enviornments. VizionCore vReplicator & Veeam backup & Replicaiton are two host based replication solutions supporting VMware.  If you are planning to build a DR for your VMware Infrastructure & Storage replication is not an option you might want to look at the following comparison: VizionCore vReplicator (esxReplicator) vs Veeam Backup & Replication. It will help you pick up the one matching your DR requirment for your VMware Infrastructure.

I hope that help you out, and leave a comment of your thoughts on the comparison as ITComparison team will be following this post as well the comments on their blog at: VizionCore vReplicator vs Veeam Backup & Replication Blog Post

If you have been using IBM Blades for a while, you would know that currently IBM does not offer any Intel four socket blades. The only four socket blades offered by IBM at the moment is an AMD blade. IBM Has not offered a four processor intel blade for over 2 years, since HS40. If you were hoping to get a four socket intel blade into your IBM Chassis then read below.

As part of his keynote address today, Sean Maloney, General Manager at Intel, disclosed that IBM will soon have a 4 socket blade using the next generation Intel® Xeon® processor. The blade is based on IBM’s next generation of X-Architecture, eX5. This new blade extends IBM’s influence in the fast growing high-end x86 marketplace, and opens up a range of new application environments for clients.

My colleague has been facing a problem installing Windows 2003 R2 SP1 as boot from SAN on IBM HS22 connected to IBM Storage DS4700 for over 2 days. The new HS22 is using the Qloigc QMI2572 with IBM Part#46m6067. Windows was accepting the driver, but when ever it try to start setting up windows the following error used to popup:

The file ql2300.sys is corrupted. press any key to continue.

Please see the image below illustrating the error message.

(hs22 Qlogic QMI2572 boot from san error snapshot)