Remote Copy overview

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy software provides the remote replication and disaster recovery features on HPE 3PAR storage systems.

The features are installed on storage systems as part of certain versions of HPE Storage OS but require an HPE 3PAR Remote Copy software license to use. For information about HPE 3PAR storage platform support, see the HPE SSMC Administrator Guide.

Remote Copy configurations and operations are based on a linked pair of storage systems. In a Remote Copy pair, one storage system acts as the source storage system and the other acts as the backup storage system. The source storage system contains the source virtual volumes and the backup storage system contains the corresponding backup virtual volumes. Backup virtual volumes are snapshots of the source virtual volumes. Learn more: Remote Copy configurations overview.

You can use HPE SSMC to perform many Remote Copy tasks. Learn more: Data Protection screens, views, and actions summary.

Disaster recover overview

In normal operation, data is replicated from the source storage system to the backup storage system. This is called the natural direction of replication.

Tip: Source and backup storage systems are also known as primary and secondary storage systems.

An overview of disaster recovery steps follows.

1. The source storage system fails or is taken offline. Replication to the backup storage system stops.
2. A failover changes the virtual volumes on the backup storage system to source virtual volumes and host I/O with the virtual volumes is enabled.
3. The source storage system comes back online.
4. The direction of replication is reversed so that data is replicated from the backup storage system to the source storage system. The source and backup virtual volumes are synchronized.
5. Replication returns to its natural direction and host I/O with the source virtual volumes is re-enabled.