Managing copy and tiering storage rules

You can use copy storage rules to create a second copy of your data on tape storage. Then, use tiering rules to move data in a directory-container storage pool on disk to cloud or tape storage.

About this task

If you plan to apply a tiering rule and a copy storage rule to the same node, virtual machine filespace, and source container storage pool, define a schedule to run the BACKUP STGPOOL command in order to maintain the currency of data in the target storage pool and to help optimize performance.

Procedure

  1. Review the following restrictions:
    • Storage rules that have an action type of TIERBYSTATE or TIERBYAGE with an off-premise cloud target storage pool cannot share source pools with a storage rule of type COPY. Using a common source storage pool for both copy storage rules and tiering storage rules might result in data access charges from your cloud storage provider during reclamation processing.
      Tip: If data access charges are not a concern, change the location setting for the target cloud-container storage pool to on-premises by issuing the UPDATE STGPOOL command and specifying CLOUDLOCATION=ONPREMISE. Then, define the storage rule again.
    • If you use copy storage rules and tiering rules to copy and tier data from the same node, filespace, and source container storage pool, data is tiered after copy operations are completed. When a tiering rule runs, the server skips any files that are not copied, and data is tiered the next time that the tiering rule runs. If more than one copy storage rule is defined to copy data for a node, filespace, and source container storage pool, all copy operations must be completed before the tiering operation begins.
    • You cannot use a stgrule to tier or copy data from IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus to tape. To store IBM Spectrum Protect Plus data on tape, copy the data to an IBM Spectrum Protect server for storage on physical tape media or in a virtual tape library. For instructions, see Configuring operations for copying data to tape.
    • You can tier data from IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to cloud-container storage pools, but only to cloud storage classes that support the rapid recall of data. For example, if you are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) with the Simple Storage Service (S3) protocol, do not move the data to Amazon S3 Glacier.
  2. To schedule backup operations for a directory-container storage pool, define a schedule to run the BACKUP STGPOOL command daily. Back up data from the tiering source storage pool to the target copy storage pool that is specified in the copy storage rule. For information about setting up a schedule, see DEFINE SCHEDULE (Define a schedule for an administrative command).
  3. If you are using the tiering option tier data by state to tier inactive data in a container storage pool, you can use the tape copy that you created by using a copy storage rule to fix any damaged data in the tiering source storage pool. Because inactive data is tiered out of the container storage pool, most of the remaining data is active.
    To restore damaged data in the tiering source storage pool that was backed up by using the BACKUP STGPOOL command, use the RESTORE STGPOOL or RESTORE VOLUME command.
    Restriction: You can only use the RESTORE STGPOOL or RESTORE VOLUME command to restore damaged data in a tiering source storage pool if you previously used the BACKUP STGPOOL command to copy the data to the copy storage pool. If you only used a copy storage rule to copy the data, you cannot use the RESTORE STGPOOL or RESTORE VOLUME commands to restore data from the copy storage pool.

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