9.5.01 HP P4000 SAN Solution User Guide (AX696-96168, February 2012)

Safely use production data for test, development, and data mining
Use SmartClone volumes to safely work with your production environment in a test and development
environment, before going live with new applications or upgrades to current applications. Or,
clone copies of your production data for data mining and analysis.
Test and development
Using the SmartClone process, you can instantly clone copies of your production LUNs and mount
them in another environment. Then you can run new software, install upgrades, and perform other
maintenance tasks. When the new software or upgrades testing is complete, either redirect your
application to the SmartClone volume you have been using, or delete the SmartClone volume and
proceed with the installation or upgrades in the production environment.
Data mining
Assume you want to track monthly trends in web requests for certain types of information. Once
a month, you create a SmartClone volume of the web server transaction, mount the volume to a
different server, and analyze and track usage or other trends over time. This monthly SmartClone
volume takes minimal additional space on the SAN, while providing all the data from the web
server database.
Clone a volume
In addition to the cases described above, SmartClone volumes can be created as needed for any
purpose. These volumes provide exact copies of existing volumes without the need to provision
additional space, until and unless you want to write new data.
Planning SmartClone volumes
Planning SmartClone volumes takes into account multiple factors, such as space requirements,
server access, and naming conventions for SmartClone volumes.
Space requirements
SmartClone volumes inherit the size and data protection level of the source volume and snapshot.
(When creating a SmartClone volume, you first create a snapshot of the source volume and create
the SmartClone volumes from that snapshot, which is then called the “clone point.”) You can select
the provisioning method when creating SmartClone volumes. See “Provisioning storage” (page 141)
for a complete discussion of volume and snapshot characteristics and space planning.
• The space required for the volumes created using the SmartClone process is the same as for
any other volumes on the SAN. SmartClone volumes can have schedules to snapshot a volume
and remote snapshot a volume, just like other volumes, so the space requirements for
SmartClone volumes should take into account the space needed for their local and remote
snapshots.
• Number of SmartClone volumes—Plan the total number of SmartClone volumes you intend to
create as part of your space requirements.
Note that you can create up to 25 SmartClone volumes as one operation in the HP P4000
Centralized Management Console, and then repeat the process to create the desired number
of SmartClone volumes.
Use the CLI to create larger quantities of SmartClone volumes in a single operation.
• Thin or full provisioning—The type of provisioning you select affects the amount of space
required on the SAN, just as it does for regular volumes.
• Data protection level—The data protection level of the source volume must be retained when
creating SmartClone volumes, though you can change the data protection level after the
SmartClone volumes are created. However, if you change the data protection level for any
SmartClone volume, the data protection level for all replicated volumes automatically changes.
180 SmartClone volumes