PowerVC

Starting PowerVC 2.0.2, volume group features and clone volume using Pure Storage are supported. Now, you can easily perform operations like adding consistency groups, group snapshots, multiple volume clone along with VM clone using few simple steps.
This blog provides details about -

• Consistency group
• Group snapshots
• CG from group snapshots
• PowerVC volume clone
• Pure Storage multiple volume clone
• Pure storage VM clone
• Limitations of Pure Storage
• Reference links

Consistency group

PowerVC consistency groups feature uses OpenStack generic volume group APIs. A consistency group is a set of volumes that can be used to create a point in time snapshots or to create a consistency copy of volumes.

For more information, see Consistency groups.

You can create a Consistency group with Pure Storage volumes by performing these steps.

1. Go to Consistency Groups.
2. Click Create.
   
3. Provide Consistency Group name and select PureStorage from the Storage provider drop-down.
   
4. Select required volumes and Click ‘Add’.

   Consistency group created can be viewed under the 'Consistency groups' tab.

Group snapshots

Consistency groups and generic groups allow the volume driver to snapshot a group of volumes at one point in time. This allows you to produce a set of volumes with consistent data that could be used to restore the data in a virtual machine to a known point in time.

 Perform these steps to create Group snapshots

1. Go to Consistency Groups.
2. Select the required CG
3. Click on Group Snapshot
   
4. In the dialog box that appears, specify Name and Description.
   
5. Confirm Consistency Group and click Create. The group snapshot created can be viewed under 'Group Snapshots' tab.

CG from Group snapshots

Group snapshots in turn allow users to create Consistency groups at any given point in time. This is also a way to help prepare your environment for recovery. 

Perform these steps to create Consistency groups from group snapshots.

1. Go to Consistency Groups --> Group snapshots.
2. Select the required group snapshot.
3. Click Create consistency group.
   
   
   2. In the dialog box, enter Name and Description.
   
   
   3. Confirm the source Group Snapshot and click Create.
   4. The Consistency group created can be viewed under 'Consistency group' tab. This also creates volume clones that can be viewed under 'Data volumes' and 'Volume snapshots' tabs.
   
   

PowerVC volume clone

Volume clone internally uses OpenStack volume group APIs to allow consistent clone copies of volume. You can also clone single or multiple volumes at a given point of time.

For more details, see Clone Volumes || PowerVC 2.0.0.

Pure Storage multiple volume clone

To perform multiple volume clone operations, perform these steps.

1. Go to Data volumes. 
2. Select volumes with Pure Storage template.
   
3. In the dialog box that appears, specify Common suffix name.
   You can enter any name under Common suffix name section as a suffix to the name of the cloned volume.
   
   5. Click Clone.
   6. Multiple volumes are be cloned together and the volume has a new name with the keyword “clone-“ suffixed with the name entered. 

Pure Storage VM clone

The VM which is deployed using the Pure Storage volume can be cloned. This feature is also applicable for VM with multiple boot and data volumes.

Perform these steps to clone a VM.

1. Go to Virtual machines --> VM List.
2. Select the VM with Pure Storage volumes.
3. Click Clone VM.
   
   
   4. In the page that appears, enter VM name and Networks details.
   5. Select required volumes and click Clone VM.

The cloned VM can be viewed under VM list.

Limitations of Pure Storage

• Virtual machine snapshot and restore is not enabled yet for Pure Storage volumes.
• Retype of volume is also restricted for Pure Storage volumes.

Reference links:

• Find more information on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFXJib8pYPM
• Refer to this KC link for Clone volumes: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/powervc/2.0.2?topic=volumes-clone

 

Hope this blog helped you to understand the few features and operations of Pure Storage in PowerVC 2.0.2.

Happy reading, Stay connected for more blogs.😊

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Blog authors:
Smita Vaidya
Chhavi Agarwal