Assimilate FlashCopy pairs on DS8000 storage systems

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Starting with Copy Services Manager 6.2.9, you can assimilate existing hardware relationships in a Copy Services Manager FlashCopy® session on DS8000® storage systems.

Copy Services Manager has a Discover command on the FlashCopy session type for DS8000 sessions. When the Discover command is issued, Copy Services Manager queries the hardware for any existing relationships on defined pairs. If a defined pair is determined to be established on the hardware, then the pair is set to Target Available and consistent.

The Discover command behaves in the following ways:
  • The Discover command can be run from the Defined or Target Available state. Defined pairs are set to consistent and Target Available if a relationship is found on the hardware. However, they do not indicate a time of the flash.
  • Although discovered pairs are set consistent, the session is not able to validate that they are consistent to the time of all other pairs in the session.
    Remember: Be careful when using the feature, and keep this situation in mind if a restore has to be performed.
  • If the FlashCopy session is set with the Incremental option turned off, even if the Discover command assimilated an incremental relationship, the flash always terminates and reflashes the relationship.
  • If the FlashCopy session is set with the Incremental option turned on, if the Discover command finds an incremental relationship on the hardware for a logical subsystem (LSS), the Flash command to the session attempts an incremental reflash for all pairs on that LSS.
  • After the Discover command is run, if you have a situation where some pairs on an LSS were flashed with incremental and some were not, the session still attempts an incremental reflash, which fails on the pairs that have not been flashed with incremental.
    Tip: When this situation occurs, you need to remove the copy sets that were not flashed with incremental. You can then flash the copy sets with incremental outside the session before adding them back in.