HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring evaluation guide (T2558-96075, February 2008)
7 - 7
Testing your target data
At this point in your evaluation, you have completed a disaster recovery scenario. You may want to test your target data. The
type of testing you will need to perform will depend on the type of data you are protecting.
User data—If you are protecting user files, you can use the associated application to open the files on the target. Open
one or more of the files to test the integrity of the data. Do not save the file after you have opened it, because that will
update the copy of the data on the target, which you do not want to do at this point in the evaluation.
Application data—If you are protecting application data, for example a database application, you will need to use that
application to test the integrity of the data and the files. Use the following instructions to test application data on the
target.
1. In order to test the application data on the target, you will need to start the application on the target. But Storage
Mirroring requires applications to be in a standby mode in order to update files on the target. In order to meet both of
those requirements, you will need to pause the target. When you pause the target, the source begins to queue the data
changes that are occurring. This will give you an opportunity to start the services on the target, test the data, stop the
services, and then resume the target. Make sure your mirror is
Idle and then pause the target by right-clicking the
connection in the Management Console and selecting
Pause Target.
2. Now that the target is paused, you will need to take a snapshot of the data at its current state. This will allow you to go
back to this point in time before resuming the target. (Once you start your applications on the target, the application
files will be updated and will no longer be synchronized with the data that is queuing on the source. The snapshot will
allow you to return to this point in time so that the source can continue sending data changes.) Make sure your target is
paused and then take a snapshot of your target data by right-clicking the connection in the Management Console and
selecting
Snapshot Now.
3. After you have taken the snapshot, you can start the application services on the target. Test the application data by using
clients to connect to the application. For this evaluation, the clients will need to be configured to access the application
from the target. In a real-world scenario, if failover has occurred, the target would be standing in for the source and the
clients would still be accessing the application from the source.
4. After you have completed your testing, stop the application services on the target.
5. While you were testing the application on the target, the application files were updated. You now need to revert these
files back to their point before you tested them. This will synchronize the data from the point where you paused the
target. You can only revert a Storage Mirroring snapshot using the
snapshot revert Storage Mirroring DTCL
command. Use the following instructions to revert your snapshot.
a. Determine the ID number of your connection in the Management Console. Highlight your source machine and
check the
Connection ID column in the right pane.
b. Open the Storage Mirroring Text Client by selecting Start, Programs, Storage Mirroring, Text Client.
c. At the Text Client prompt, login to your source by using the login command.
d. Repeat the login command for your target.
NOTE: Because of name limitations, the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is the only Exchange
service that can be started on the target without having failed over without causing problems. Therefore,
the variety of Exchange tests that can be performed on the target server is limited.
Command LOGIN
Description Log on to a Storage Mirroring machine
Syntax
LOGIN <machine> <username> <password> [domain]
Options machine—Name of the machine
username—Name of the user
password—Password associated with the user name
domain—If logging in using a domain account, this is the domain name. If logging in using a local
account, this is the machine name.
Examples
login alpha administrator ******
Notes Options that contain non-alphanumeric characters must be enclosed in quotation marks.