Adding A Hard Drive To A Va 7400 Array; Backups And Snapshots - HP StorageWorks 8000 - NAS User Manual

adding a hard drive to a VA 7400 array

If there are empty drive bays in either the VA 74000 disk enclosure or within a previously attached
DS2400 enclosure, then storage can be added simply by inserting another hard drive. If the VA 7400
controller is configured to allow "Automatic inclusion" (the default), then the array will automatically detect
the new drive and prepare it for use. Auto Include can be set from the Command View NAS GUI by
selecting the Configuration tab, and then highlight the Storage Array Summary (from the left hand tree).
Click on the Actions button and select Advanced Array Management. This will start up the Command View
VA GUI for the VA array. Select the configuration tab, and then click on the "Array Settings" button. This
will pop up a window that will have a radio button in it that allows the administrator to turn "Automatic
Include" on or off. Setting "Automatic Include" to off will require manual intervention to include added
hard drive(s) into the storage pool. If, for some reason, the VA 7400 must operate with Automatic Include
turned off, then the process to include newly added hard drive(s) is to enter the VA GUI (as described
above); select the diagnostics tab, highlight the newly added disk(s), and press the include button. Once
the hard drives have added to the enclosure and have been included into the storage pool, their space can
made available to the NAS 8000. From within the Command View NAS GUI, select the Storage tab. It is
always best to select the "Storage Array Summary" from the left-hand tree, and then select "Scan for New
Storage" from the action button in order to ensure that all storage changes have been recognized by the
NAS 8000. The additional space from the newly added hard drives will appear under "Capacity
Available to LUNs". Remember that drives in the odd numbered bays will be assigned to redundancy
group 1 and drives in the even numbered bays will be assigned to redundancy group 2. Create one or
more LUNs and add the space to existing volume groups or create new volume groups. Take care not to
mix storage from different redundancy groups into the same volume group if you are configuring for the
highest degree of fault tolerance. Once the space has been allocated to a volume group, it is available to
be distributed to the file volumes on that volume group by increasing the allocated size of the appropriate
file volumes through the Command View NAS GUI. Once the new space has been assigned to a file
volume, it is immediately available to the clients of the NAS 8000 and happens without interrupting service.
Another method of adding capacity to the VA 7400 array is to add a DS2400 enclosure. The VA 7400
can have up to six DS2400 enclosures attached to it, up to a total of 105 drives. When a DS2400
enclosure is added, the NAS 8000 and the VA 7xxx storage subsystem must be shut down and restarted in
order for the hardware to recognize the new DS2400 enclosure.

backups and snapshots

The NAS 8000 supports several different backup environments. If the Oracle RMAN backup facility is
currently being used to backup existing databases on the Oracle server (or from a backup server), or if the
backup device is directly attached to the Oracle server, then the same general backup process can continue
to be used once the database has been migrated onto the NAS 8000. The paths to the Oracle database
data files may have changed, but all backups should function once all pathing issues have been resolved.
If it is the intention to use the HP OmniBack backup agent that is bundled with the NAS 8000, the
OmniBack Cell Manager must also be used. OmniBack Cell Manager can be purchased from OmniBack
and executes on a separate (from the NAS 8000) backup server. There are several other backup options
available for backing up data on the NAS 8000. Please refer to the NAS 8000 Users Guide and the
whitepaper NAS 8000 Backup Strategy (located off of the NAS 8000 home page) for further details on
these solutions.
The NAS 8000 has implemented "snapshot" technology that can greatly simplify backup and reduce
system contention during a backup. A snapshot is a read only "picture" of a file volume at a specific point
in time. Snapshots can also be used to revert changes and recover from accidental file deletions, etc.
Snapshots can be an important aspect of an overall data protection plan. They can greatly reduce the
amount of time a database is unavailable when performing a "cold backup". If snapshots will be used,
especially in a highly dynamic environment where data is rapidly changing, be sure to reserve space for
the snapshots in the appropriate volume groups. Snapshots are taken at the file volume level. That is, a
snapshot is taken of a single file volume. If the database data files are distributed across multiple file
volumes, multiple snapshots will be needed. Please refer to the NAS 8000 Users Guide for more
information on snapshots. There are two usual methods for backing up an Oracle database, a "hot
backup" or a "cold backup".
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