HP P6000 Replication Solutions Manager Administrator Guide (T3680-96069, June 2012)

• Minimize the number of virtual disks with active snapshot copies. Use fewer virtual disks; it is
better to have a few large virtual disks than many small virtual disks.
• Minimize the number of snapshot copies for a virtual disk. Do not keep extra snapshot copies
unless you have a plan for their use.
• Minimize the life of a snapshot copy. If snapshot copies are used for backup, consider deleting
the snapshot virtual disk at the completion of the copy to tape.
• Delete snapshot virtual disks in order of age (oldest first).
• Use mirrorclone snapshots for backups.
Mirrorclone best practices
• To create a mirrorclone:
Create a container before the mirrorclone is needed.1.
2. Prepare the container for the mirrorclone.
3. Within 60 seconds, attach the virtual disk parent to the container, thus creating the
mirrorclone.
• Create or delta resync mirrorclones duing low-demand periods, or size the array to meet
performance demands during copy activities.
• A mirrorclone must be fractured before creating a snapshot of the mirrorclone. (HP P6000
Command View blocks the snapshot operation if the mirrorclone is not fractured.)
• To fracture a mirrorclone:
Set the parent virtual disk to write-through cache state (flush data from cache of the virtual
disk to the physical media that represents the virtual disk).
1.
2. Fracture the mirrorclone, thus causing it to become a point-in-time copy.
• Create copies of fractured mirrorclones using snapshots.
• Resynchronize the mirrorclones with the original data regularly, preferably during low-demand
periods.
• Resynchronize the original data with the data from other copies of the mirrorclone using the
rollback capability.
34 Managing the replication manager