Partnerships are used to connect systems together to enable migration, data replication,
and high-availability solutions.
A system can have partnerships with up to three remote systems. The connectivity for each
partnership can be either Fibre Channel or IP.
A partnership configuration requires actions on both systems involved. This
ensures that there is authority to access each system and share data between them.
You can create a partnership in the following ways:
To use partnerships for policy-based replication (asynchronous or high-availability) or partition migration, IP
connectivity is required between management IP addresses of partnered systems.
Replication
requires REST API connectivity between the partnered systems. Replication setup using the management
GUI requires management GUI connectivity between the systems. Ensure that firewalls between the
systems allow traffic to ports 6443, 7443, and 443 on the system management IP
addresses.
Note: The communication on ports 6443, 7443, and 443 between the two partnered systems must occur on
the default management IP address of each system.
The management traffic uses authentication certificates to prevent unauthorized access and ensure
secure communications between the systems. Therefore, ensure that valid authentication certificates
are installed on both the systems. For more information, see Configuring system certificates.
Replication between IBM Storage Virtualize systems
Systems that run
IBM® Storage Virtualize software are in one of two layers: the replication layer or the storage layer.
- A SAN Volume Controller system
is always in the replication layer.
- A FlashSystem is in the
replication layer by default, but the system can be configured to be in the
storage layer instead.
To create a partnership between systems, both systems must be in the same
layer. For more information, including how to change the layer, see System layers.
Partnership states
The state of the partnership helps determine whether the partnership operates as
expected. A partnership can have the following states:
- Configured
- Both the local and remote systems have a partnership that is defined and are running as
expected.
- Partial Local
-
For the partnership to be fully configured, you must create a partnership from the remote system
to the local system.
- Local Stopped
- Indicates that the partnership is defined on both the systems, but the partnership is stopped on
the local system.
- Remote Stopped
- Indicates that the partnership is the defined on both the systems, but the partnership is
stopped on remote system.
- Partial Local Stopped
- Indicates that only the local system has the partnership that is defined and the partnership is
stopped on the local system.
- Local Excluded
- Indicates that both the local system and the remote system have the partnership that is defined,
but the local system is excluding the link to the remote system. This state usually occurs when the
link between the two systems is compromised by too many errors or slow response times of the
partnership.
- Remote Excluded
- Indicates that both the local system and the remote system are defined in a partnership, but the
remote system is excluding the link to the local system. This state usually occurs when the link
between the two systems is compromised by too many errors or slow response times of the
partnership.
- Exceeded
- Indicates that the partnership is unavailable because the network of systems exceeds the number
of systems that are allowed in partnerships. To resolve this error, reduce the number of systems
that are in partnerships in this network.
- Not Present
- Indicates that the remote system is not visible. This state can be caused by a problem with the
connectivity between the local and remote system or if the remote system is unavailable.