Manually starting replication

You can start replication for a source replication server if you do not want to wait for a scheduled replication.

About this task

Restriction: You can use the following procedure to start replication only if the replication server pair is configured for command-initiated replication. For replication server pairs that replicate by using replication storage rules, you can complete this action from the Storage Rules page by using the Run Now action.
Consider using replication storage rules: The following information applies to command-initiated replication, which was the only way to configure and start replication in versions earlier than IBM Spectrum Protect 8.1.13. With command-initiated replication, you define a replication server pair by using the SET REPLSERVER command, and create administrative schedules for the REPLICATE NODE and PROTECT STGPOOL commands. Although you do not issue these commands directly in the Operations Center, certain actions and wizards in the Operations Center issue the commands in the background or define administrative schedules for the commands.

Starting in version 8.1.13, you can use storage-rule initiated replication. With storage-rule-initiated replication, you configure and schedule replication by defining replication storage rules. You can define replication storage rules from the Storage Rules page of the Operations Center. To open the Storage Rules page, on the Operations Center menu bar, click Storage > Storage Rules.

Storage-rule-initiated replication has the following advantages over the earlier approach:

  • By using replication storage rules, you can configure replication of client data from a source replication server to multiple target replication servers. For example, you might want to replicate data to an additional target server for disaster recovery preparedness or to transition to a new server or to a new cloud service provider. You also might want to distribute data across different target replication servers to balance the load or for faster recovery based on the location of the servers and clients.
  • If a storage rule replicates data from a container storage pool on the source replication server to a container pool on a target replication server, you can later use the REPAIR STGPOOL command to repair damaged extents on the source replication server. The damaged extents can be repaired by using undamaged copies from the target replication server. Unlike command-initiated replication, you do not have to schedule the PROTECT STGPOOL command to run protection processing separately. Unlike the PROTECT STGPOOL command, which enables only directory-container storage pools to be repaired, replication storage rules also enable cloud-container storage pools to be repaired.

If you are currently using command-initiated replication, consider storage-rule initiated replication instead. To review the high-level steps for moving to replication storage rules, see Transitioning from command-initiated replication to storage-rule-initiated replication.

Client data is replicated automatically and at a scheduled frequency. If scheduled replication fails, you can explicitly start replication for a source replication server. For example, if a network outage caused scheduled replication tasks to fail, you can start replication after network connectivity is restored.

This action starts replication for all clients on a server that are enabled for replication. All data in file spaces that belong to the clients is replicated. If a replication task is already running for a client, the client is skipped and replication begins for other clients that are enabled for replication.

Procedure

To manually start replication for a source replication server, complete the following steps:

  1. On the Operations Center menu bar, hover over Storage and click Replication.
    The Replication page opens.
  2. On the Replication page, select a source-to-target server pair and click Replicate Source.