Preparing the snapshot mirrors


Preparing the snapshot mirrors
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To prepare the snapshot mirrors in order to create a snapshot from the VEA or from the vxsnap command line, you can use either of the following methods:

The Prepare command from the VEA
The vxsnap prepare command from the CLI

You repeat the VEA console Prepare operation or vxsnap prepare command to prepare a mirror for each volume associated with the Exchange database or transaction log.

The snapshot mirrors remain attached to the original volumes and continue to be updated until you use the VSS Exchange Snapshot Wizard, the vxsnap create command, or the VSS Exchange Snapshot Scheduler Wizard to create the snapshot set.

For the snapshot volumes, make sure to select disks or LUNs that are not used for production data. You can create more than one snapshot volume on the same disk as long as there is sufficient space available and as long as the snapshots are of different production volumes.

To create the snapshot mirrors using the VEA console

Right-click the desired volume, select Snap > Snap Prepare option from the context menu.

Choose one of the following.

If the volume is not mirrored	Choose Manually select disks, use the Add and Remove buttons to move the desired disks to the Selected disks box, and click OK.
If the volume is mirrored and no additional disks are available to create a new mirror	Click on an existing plex and click OK.
If the volume is mirrored and there are additional disks available on your system	Choose either to use an existing mirror for the snapshot or to create a new mirror. To create a new mirror, click Select Disk, use the Add and Remove buttons to move the desired disks to the Selected disks box, and click OK. To use an existing mirror, click Select existing mirror for snap, select the desired mirror, and click OK.

Repeat step 1 and step 2 to create a snapshot mirror for each volume associated with the Exchange databases and transaction logs.
Verify that the lower pane of the VEA console indicates that the resynchronization process is complete before creating the snapshot set.

To create the snapshot mirrors using the command line

Type the command, as in the following example:

vxsnap prepare component=DB1/writer="Microsoft Exchange Writer"
    source=G:/harddisk=harddisk4 
    source=H:/harddisk=harddisk4
    source=I:/harddisk=harddisk5

In this example, snapshot mirrors for the database volumes mounted at G: and H: are created on disk 4 and a snapshot mirror for the log volume mounted at I: is created on disk 5.

Note:

For Exchange 2010, if replication is enabled and you want to create a snapshot mirror for the passive copy, specify the writer option as "Microsoft Exchange Replica Writer" or "Microsoft Exchange Writer Replica".

The complete syntax of the vxsnap prepare command is:

   vxsnap prepare component=<componentName>/writer=<writerName>
   [-b][source=<volume>/harddisk=<harddisk,...>] ...]

See vxsnap prepare.

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