Multiserver UNIX array-to-array migration with consolidation
A Fortune 500 financial services firm had a mission-critical DB2 data ware-
house (24TB DB2, 10TB supporting files) on seven IBM AIX
®
5.1 server
platforms with the storage allocated to nine different storage arrays, some
more than five years old.
The firm faced these key migration challenges:
• Storage growth — Storage capacity grew from 4TB to 30TB in three years,
with storage added in a demand-driven, rather than a planned, fashion.
• Locating storage — Storage administrators were unable to precisely locate
storage.
• Complex environment — The system could be upgraded or changed only with
difficulty, resulting in numerous end user complaints about system performance.
• Relocating data—A new storage array was purchased to improve performance
by migrating and reconfiguring volumes.
• Source/target incompatibilities—The firm was unable to perform migration
due to the complexity of the environment; this created incompatibilities
between the source and target storage arrays, so the new array sat unused
for two months on the data center floor.
The firm evaluated several different migration options:
• Offline backup and restore from tape — This option was rejected due to
time constraints.
• Operating system (OS) synchronization tools — This option was rejected
due to the inability to control migration start/end times.
• Array-based replication — This was not an option because of the incompat-
ibilities between source and target storage.
• AIX server-native Logical Volume Manager mirroring — This was rejected as
Volume Manager was too slow and was not configured for mirroring.
Storage migrations made simple.
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Highlights
A financial services firm struggled
with excessive storage growth and
other related challenges.
