HP StorageWorks File Migration Agent V2.1 administrator guide (T4274-96105, October 2006)

18 Product information

An application or user still has transparent access to “released” data through a stub file on the FMA

managed volume, which contains the link information where the file is stored in the archives. It also

contains other HSM relevant metadata such as migration and recall timestamps and file status.

When a read or write operation on the content of a released file is started, FMA is automatically triggered

by its file system filter component, and the file content is retrieved from the archive to the local file system.

Access to released files is the same as accessing locally stored data, except for a short delay caused by

the archive retrieval process.

Figure 2 Migration results

To implement a fault-tolerant environment FMA can be used in a Windows cluster environment.

Additionally, multiple redundant archive copies on different locations are supported, which is a significant

enhancement in data protection. If one archive device is not available due to maintenance reasons or a

system or network failure, data will be automatically retrieved from the redundant location.

During the downtime of one archive location, data movement is still processed on the accessible archive

locations.

FMA provides a simple and cost-effective solution for aggregating multiple storage locations into one

virtual central archive pool.

Currently FMA supports the following archive types:

• HP StorageWorks File System Extender (FSE) Archive

• HP StorageWorks Reference Information Storage System (RISS)

• NAS appliances (CIFS)

The following example describes an FMA concept of a three-tier hierarchical storage management solution

in heterogeneous networks:

• FMA acts as the 1

tier,

• the 2

tier is an FSE system,

• and the 3

tier is tape media where data will be migrated to by the 2

tier.