IBM DS8000 manual IBM Piper migration

16.2.3 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 14, “Data migration in zSeries environments” on page 293.

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 16-8illustrates how Piper works.

Host

Host

Host

Host

Host

Piper

Piper

Stop applications

Add Piper

Restart applications Initial Copy Continuous updates

Remove old copy

Continue with Piper

Remove Piper

Restart

Figure 16-8 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

Chapter 16. Data migration in the open systems environment 341