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Chapter 15. Data migration in the open systems environment 297
15.2.3 IBM Piper migration
Piper is a hardware and software solution to move data between disk systems while
production is ongoing. It is used in conjunction with IBM migration services. Piper is available
for mainframe and open systems environments. Here we discuss the open systems version
only. For mainframe environments see Chapter 13, “Data Migration in zSeries environments”
on page 251.
The Piper hardware consists of a portable rack enclosure containing Fibre Channel routers, a
SAN Switch, and non disruptive power supplies.
Piper migration can be performed independently of the host operating system and the source
disk system. It doesn’t generate extra host workload. However, it does not support the
consolidation of small volumes into larger ones, because it is not aware of the data structure.
Since Piper has to be in the data path, between the host and the source storage system, it
can only be used to migrate Fibre Channel attached storage. It also requires two short
interruptions of data access, one to bring it into the data path, another one to take it out, after
the data has been moved. Figure 15-8 illustrates how Piper works.
Figure 15-8 Piper migration
For open systems migration, no additional software has to be installed on the host. IBM
migration services use some scripts to determine the exact storage configuration that has to
duplicated on the target system.
For more information about the Piper offerings refer to:
http://www.ibm.com/servers/storage/services/featured/hardware_assist.html
Host
Restart
Remove old copy
Host
Continue with Piper
Piper
Remove Piper
Host
Host
Stop applications
Add Piper
Initial Copy
Host
Continuous updates
Piper
Restart applications