Creating volume groups and assigning source volumes

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A volume group is a container for managing a set of related volumes as a single object. The volume group provides consistency across all volumes in the group.

A Safeguarded volume group describes a set of source volumes that can span different pools and are backed up collectively with the Safeguarded Copy function. .

For the Safeguarded Copy function, Safeguarded source volumes have the following restrictions:

Safeguarded source volumes cannot be in a Safeguarded backup location.
Safeguarded source volumes cannot be mirrored volumes.
Safeguarded source volumes cannot be in an ownership group.
Safeguarded source volumes cannot be a change volume that is used in either HyperSwap® or Global Mirror relationships.
Safeguarded source volumes cannot be used as cloud backups with the transparent cloud tiering function.

Using the management GUI

To create a volume group, complete these steps:

In the management GUI, select Volumes > Volumes Groups.
Click Create Volume Group.
On the Create Volume Group page, enter the volume group name. If you do not specify a volume group name, the system automatically assigns the name.
To assign volumes, select the following options:
Choose existing volumes
Select this option if you want to add existing volumes to a volume group by completing these steps:
1. Select Choose existing volumes and click Next.
2. From the list, select the volumes that you want to add to the volume group.
3. Click Create Volume Group.

Note: If you select volumes in a parent pool that do not contain a child pool to use as the Safeguarded backup location, select Navigate to Pools. For each parent pool with source volumes, you must configure a child pool as the Safeguarded backup location.

Using the command-line interface (CLI)

To create and configure a new volume group and assign volumes to that group, complete these steps:

To create the new volume group, enter the following command:
```
mkvolumegroup -name volumegroup_name -safeguardedpolicy safeguarded_policy_id | safeguarded_policy_name
```
where volumegroup_name specifies a volume group name and safeguarded_policy_id | safeguarded_policy_name specifies the ID or name of one of the predefined policies, 0, 1 or 2. This command creates the volume group and assigns the policy to the volume group.
After creating the volume group, either create new volumes or change existing volumes and assign them to volume group that you created in Step 1.
If you are assigning a new volume to the volume group, enter the following command:
```
mkvolume -pool <pool_name_or_id> -volumegroup <volumegroup_name_or_id> -size <disk_size>
```
where <pool_name_or_id> is the name or identifier of the parent pool that contains the Safeguarded backup location; <volumegroup_name_or_id> is the name or identifier of the volume group; and <disk_size> indicates the capacity that is provisioned for the volume from the parent pool.
If you are assigning existing volumes to the volume group, enter the following command:
```
chvdisk -volumegroup <volumegroup_name_or_id> <name_or_id>
```
where <volumegroup_name_or_id> is the name or identifier of the volume group and <name_or_id> of the volume.