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

Using instant restore when a virtual disk is mounted
To use instant restore when a virtual disk is mounted:
1. Stop host I/O to the disk that you want to restore.
2. Unmount the disk. This forces the disk's write cache to be flushed (emptied).
3. Select Actions→Instant Restore for the host volume or the virtual disk in the replication manager
to perform an instant restore to the disk.
When the restore completes, you can mount the disk.
NOTE: If the restored host volume does not show consistent data in cache, it is possible that the
unmount procedure was not followed correctly. Repeat the procedure if necessary.
Verifying instant restore data
To ensure that instant restore data is up-to-date and online, HP recommends running a "flush cache"
operation from the server running HP P6000 Replication Solutions Manager. Additional action
may be required as follows:
For Linux, AIX, Solaris, Tru64
1. When the instant restore is complete, mount the host volume, if necessary.
2. Check the instant restore data.
For HP-UX
1. When the instant restore is complete, check the file system using the fsck command.
Example: fsck –F vxfs /dev/kiranvg/lvol1
2. Remount the logical or host volumes.
3. Check the instant restore data.
For Windows
1. When the instant restore is complete, unpresent the virtual disk.
2. Present the virtual disk back to the same host.
3. Check the instant restore data.
Containers
A container is disk space that is preallocated for later use as a snapclone, snapshot, or mirrorclone.
There are two types of containers:
• Empty containers
• Space-efficient empty containers
An empty container is comprised of a metadata container and a fully-allocated user data space.
Empty containers can be used to create fully allocated snapshots, snapclones, or mirrorclones.
Fully allocated snapshots and snapclones that are created using empty containers are called
preallocated snapshots and preallocated snapclones. Because the capacity has been preallocated,
there is no risk of running out of space and becoming invalidated.
A space-efficient empty container is comprised of a metadata container only. Space-efficient empty
containers can be used to create demand allocated snapshots only.
Use containers when you need faster copies; for example, to reduce the time a host application
is suspended for a backup. Time is saved because the metadata container was created ahead of
time.
Local replication concepts 15