Hello Roberto & Nick,
First of all thank you for your feedback!
I would say there are two layers of depth how this could be implemented:
1) Easily achievable to offer a backup&restore functionality for the basic settings of DS8000 what are included into the Configuration Worksheets (company information, mgm network, remote support, etc.). It could be possible to restore from USB drive (in case of no network configured), or via IP mgm network (FTP) and option to keep or overwrite existing IP config.
2) More complex scenario what Roberto described to enable backup&restore functionality for the stored data's logical configuration/metadata (LCUs, Volumes and Aliases). Then restore data into these from a backup.
I would let the product development team to decide in what order they would like to introduce these two functionalities of logical Configuration backup & restore, but of course both would be great.
------------------------------
Tamás Domján
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: Thu July 08, 2021 03:51 AM
From: Nick Clayton
Subject: DS8K Logical Configuration backup & restore functionality
Hi Roberto,
There are two use cases for this type of functionality and what you have described is more correctly described as export/import or cloning of a system. As you say this would require an ability to import only those aspects of the configuration which made sense rather than every aspect of the system.
Backup and restore of IT infrastructure configuration is something that has received more attention in recent years as organisations are more and more concerned about Cyber Resilience and malicious/deliberate attacks aiming to cause damage. This function would enable the support teams to restore a destroyed/corrupted configuration to the hardware and then for a storage system perhaps to restore data from a Cyber Vault to the newly recreated but empty system.
I suspect that given Tamas used backup/restore he is more oriented to this use case
------------------------------
NickClayton
Distinguished Engineer
IBM
Original Message:
Sent: Wed July 07, 2021 03:26 AM
From: Roberto Siconolfi
Subject: DS8K Logical Configuration backup & restore functionality
Hi Tamás,
if the objective is to replicate the logical configuration (LCUs, Volumes and Aliases) from an old DS8000 to a new DS8000, this is definitely a great idea, and I think it's achievable. But the export system configuration contains a lot of hardware elements of a DS8000 configuration that cannot be replicated on a different DS8000 (Arrays, Ranks and Extent pools for example) they need identical storage subsystems.
So if you adjust your RFE request to be more specific on LCUs, VOLs and Aliases you have more chance to have it approved, and I can support you with my vote. This coud be very useful for all storage specialists.
Ciao
Roberto
------------------------------
Roberto Siconolfi
Original Message:
Sent: Tue July 06, 2021 03:58 AM
From: Tamás Domján
Subject: DS8K Logical Configuration backup & restore functionality
Hello,
While I worked on a compliance related project I realized that DS8000 storage systems lack of proper backup & restore functionality about their logical configuration.
When I tried to search after it on the internet I mainly found articles about DS8K data replication features, but barely anything about the DS8K configuration. There is an article about Exporting and formatting the DS8000 Logical Configuration (link), but there is no way to restore this, so it look much more a report about the configuration, rather than a backup.
I have asked guidance from several people and I got a recommendation to raise an RFE for it. I have raised one with ID 151355, but in order to get proper attention from product development it would need to get enough votes from people.
Would you help to increase the visibility of this request by voting for it?
RFE vote link: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/execute?use_case=viewRfe&CR_ID=151355
Thank you in advance!
------------------------------
Tamás Domján
------------------------------