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What's New in Copy Services Manager 6.3.13.0

By Randy Blea posted Mon December 16, 2024 06:37 PM

  


In Dec 2024 IBM GA'd a new version of IBM Copy Services Manager 

Copy Services Manager 6.3.13.0 Download


IBM Copy Services Manager is a storage replication product that provides a single place to manage all the replication across your IBM storage environment.  With IBM Copy Services Manager customers can simplify the management of their replication solutions while providing disaster recovery and high availability to their applications. 

As always, we're very excited to provide the following key features being released in this new version.  We develop Copy Services Manager in an agile development cycle and as such have included a number of customer requested features!!!

Rename Spectrum Virtualize to Storage Virtualize in CSM

Disable Email Notifications Temporarily

Provide Warning for CSM certificate is about to expire

Do not enforce password rules for Automation users

Do not include DS8000 G10 volumes in replication volume counts on Health Overview

Support for FlashSystems Policy Based Asynchronous Replication with High Availability

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

Rename Spectrum Virtualize to Storage Virtualize in CSM 

  • When CSM connects to a storage system, it creates a unique ID which includes the type of storage.  For storage systems based on the SAN Volume Controller (SVC) software, such as FlashSystems, CSM has labeled these systems as Spectrum Virtualize storage systems.  Spectrum Virtualize however has been rebranded to Storage Virtualize. 
  • Starting with the 6.3.13 release, CSM will automatically rename all connected SVC based systems as Storage Virtualize systems.  This will appear in the name of the storage system and the volumes under the storage system.  From the Storage Systems panel the Type column will continue to show the detailed product name (such as IBM FlashSystems 7200).  Scripts may need to be adjusted for the new name.

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

IDEA CSM-I-154 - Disable Email Notifications Temporarily  

  • During planned events such as site switches or region swaps, customers know that there will be a lot of state changes or other events that might occur.  If email notification has been set up on the CSM server though, these actions can lead to a flood of emails. 
  • Starting with the 6.3.13 release, you can now go to the Settings->Alert Notification panel and on the Email tab at the top of the screen under the Alert Notification header, you'll now see whether Email Notifications are Enabled or Disabled as well as a link that will allow you to enable or disable the notifications.  When Email notifications have been disabled, no emails will be sent for any of the alert categories. 
  • When email alerts are disabled the icon will display with a bell that has been crossed out so that you can easily see that notifications are disabled.

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

IDEA CSM-I-111 - Provide Warning when CSM certificate is about to expire 

  • CSM is installed with a default set of self signed certificates.  However, customers requiring more security can request 3rd party certificates and apply those certificates to the CSM server via the Advanced Tools panel.  These certificates then help ensure a securely encrypted connection is made between the browser and the CSM server when logging into the CSM GUI.
  • Starting with the CSM 6.3.13 release, the server will check the expiration of certificates that have been loaded on the CSM server once a day.  If the certificates will expire in less than 30 days, an alert will be thrown and a message will be set to the CSM console.  IWNR2306I will be sent or displayed warning the customer that a new certificate will need to be loaded.  This message will repeat every day and the alert sent every day until the certificate is sent or has expired.

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

IDEA CSM-I-180 - Do not enforce password expiration for Automation users 

  • In the CSM 6.3.12 release, Administrators and User Administrators could define a set of rules for the passwords that basic users could setup on the CSM server, in order to meet the company security requirements. As par of this, the expiration time in days can be setup so that a customer would be required to change the password after so many days. 
  • The Automation user role was created to setup a user with limited access with the sole purpose of running automation through the CSM CLI, REST, python or Ansible interfaces.  Customers that have setup and user with the Automation role however, found that if the password expired, this could break their automation.  In the 6.3.13 release, Automation users will no longer be affected by the password expiration.  This will help ensure that automation continues.  If tighter security is required for automation, we would suggest setting up an Operator role with access only to the selected actions who will be subject to the password expiration.

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

Do not include DS8000 G10 volumes in replication volume counts on Health Overview 

  • With the release of the DS8000 G10 storage system, CSM is not only installed on every DS8000 HMC, but customers are automatically entitled to use CSM if they have purchased the copy services feature code for the device.   DS8000 R9 systems as well as FlashSystems still require a full CSM license based on source TiB replicated. 
  • The CSM Health Overview panel was designed to provide information for customers to help them audit their CSM usage.  This panel shows the number of remote copy sources, FlashCopy and Snapshot sources, Safeguarded Copy sources and number of target volumes.  It also added up the source capacity managed and displayed the total TiB.
  • Starting with CSM 6.3.13, the total TiB replicated on the Health Overview panel will no longer include the capacity for DS8000 G10 volumes.  Only DS8000 R9 or FlashSystem (Storage Virtualize) volumes will be counted in the total TiB.

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

Support for FlashSystems Policy Based Asynchronous Replication with High Availability  

  • CSM has supported Asynchronous Policy Based Replication (PBR) for FlashSystems since it was released.  When a Volume Group is setup with an Asynchrouns PBR policy on the storage system, CSM would detect this and automatically create a CSM session to manage that volume group.  CSM would not only monitor and indicate the state of the replication but would allow customers to perform acts like Failover or to put the replication in a Test mode. 
  • In 6.3.13, CSM now supports the newly released Asynchronous Policy Based Replication with High Availability. This solution not only provides Asynchronous disaster recovery across sites, but provides local high availability.  CSM will automatically detect any volume group with this policy and create a session.  This session will monitor and shows you the status of you high availability as well as your disaster recovery capability.  This includes seeing which of the storage systems is currently the active management system.
  • When setting up this new solution on the storage system, you will setup the environment to user partitions.  These partitions help define the environment and the replication needs.  On the session details panel, you can see the upper (H1) partition as well as the lower (H2) partition names.  All failover and DR test capabilities are available on this session type as well.

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

CSM 6.3.13.0 What’s New Video

  • https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

Download the What's New CSM 6.3.13 Presentation!!

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7178742

  • https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/IMWUC/UploadedImages/d5d5d759-cab6-4adb-ae53-b03967a4252d/CSM628/line.png

IDEA/RFE support for Copy Services Manager

 
If you wish to open a new IDEA (formally called a Request for Enhancement) on IBM Copy Services Manager, you can now do so through the following link.
https://ibm-sys-storage.ideas.ibm.com/ideas?project=CSM



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