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44 IBM System Storage DS6000 Series: Copy Services with IBM System z
6.1 Operational environments
It takes only a few seconds to establish the FlashCopy relationships for tens to hundreds or
more volume pairs. The copy is then immediately available for both read and write access. In
a 24x7 environment, the quickness of the FlashCopy operation allows us to use FlashCopy in
very large environments and to take multiple FlashCopies of the same volume for use with
different applications. Some of the different uses of FlashCopy are shown in Figure 6-1.
Figure 6-1 FlashCopy uses
FlashCopy is suitable for the following operational environments:
Production backup system
A FlashCopy of the production data allows data recovery from an older level of data. This
might be necessary due to a user error or a logical application error. Let’s assume that a
user deleted accidentally a customer record. The production backup system could work
with a FlashCopy of the data. The necessary part of the customer data can be exported
and then be imported into the production environment. Thus, the production continues,
and while a specific problem is being fixed, the majority of the users can work with the
application without recognizing any problems.
The FlashCopy of the data could also be used by system operations to re-establish
production in case of any server errors.
Data backup system
A FlashCopy of the production data allows the client to create backups with the shortest
possible application outage. The main reason for data backup is to provide protection in
case of source data loss due to disaster, hardware failure, software failure, or user errors.
Data mining system
A FlashCopy of the data can be used for data analysis, thus avoiding performance
impacts for the production system due to long running data mining tasks.
Test system
Test environments created by FlashCopy can be used by the development team to test
new application functions with real production data, thus speeding up the test setup
process.
Test
System
Production
System
Integration
System
Production
data
FlashCopy
Reverse
Business
Integration
Development
Production
Backup
System
System
Operation
Data
Backup
System
Data Mining
System
System
Operation
Application
Help desk
or
System
Operation
other
systems
Analysis
Team