System requirements

SI license capacity

The installed license capacity must be greater than or equal to the combined size of all P-VOLs and S-VOLs.

For more information about license capacity requirements, see ShadowImage licensed capacity requirements.

License key

Must be installed.

RAID level

RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6

HDvM - SN

Required

CCI

Required if you are running commands through an in-band Fibre Channel connection. Otherwise, CCI is not required.

For more information about CCI and running commands through an in-band Fibre Channel connection, see the Command Control Interface User and Reference Guide.

Pair volumes

The pair volumes.

Values:

• Number of P-VOLs per S-VOL: 1
• Number of S-VOLs per P-VOL:

  L1 pairs: 1 to 3

  L2 pairs: 1 or 2

  For more information about cascading pairs, see Cascaded pairs.

• Volume Capacity: The P-VOL and S-VOL must be the same size in blocks.

  If the capacity is displayed in GB or TB, a small difference between P-VOL and S-VOL capacity might not be displayed. To view the capacity in blocks in HDvM - SN, select Options > Capacity Unit > block in the Logical Devices window.

• The maximum size of the P-VOLs is the maximum size of the volumes that can be created in a storage system. The maximum size of the S-VOLs is also the maximum size of the volumes that can be created in a storage system. However, the total size of the P-VOLs and the S-VOLs cannot exceed the maximum size of the volumes that can be created in a storage system. For details, see the Provisioning Guide for your system.
• Supported volume types:
  • Internal volumes
  • External volumes

    Note: Universal Volume Manager license is required.

  • Custom-sized volumes (VSP 5000 series)
    Note: VLL is required. Pair volumes must have the same capacity and emulation type.
• Mirror Unit number (MU number):

  Values:

  • L1 pairs: 0, 1, or 2
  • L2 pairs: 1 or 2
• You can share volumes with other software applications (see Sharing ShadowImage volumes).

• You cannot use the following volumes as pair volumes:
  • UR journal volumes
  • Virtual volumes except Dynamic Provisioning (HDP) volumes
  • Pool volumes
  • Volumes that belong to parity groups for which accelerated compression is enabled
  • Deduplication system data volume
• The value of the T10 PI attribute must be the same for the P-VOL and S-VOL.
• LU paths or namespaces on the NVM subsystem with an NVM subsystem port added for NVMe must be defined on both the P-VOL and S-VOL before SI paired volumes are created. In addition, while the P-VOL and S-VOL are used as paired volumes, at least one LU path or namespaces on the NVM subsystem with an NVM subsystem port added for NVMe must be defined on both the P-VOL and S-VOL.

Maximum number of pairs

Pairs per storage system (if you pair one S-VOL per P-VOL):

• VSP 5000 series: 32,768
• VSP E990, VSP E1090: 32,768
• VSP E790: 24,576
• VSP E590: 16,384

For more information about the number of pairs your VSP 5000 series configuration supports, see Workflow for determining the maximum number of ShadowImage pairs.

Consistency groups

Maximum per storage system: 2,048 (including SI, SIz, Thin Image, and Thin Image Advanced)

Maximum for SI and SIz: 128

Note: You cannot place SI, SIz, Thin Image, and Thin Image Advanced pairs in the same CTG.

Maximum SI pairs per CTG:

• VSP 5000 series: 8,192
• VSP E series: 8,192

CTG IDs are numbers between 0 and 7FF. CTG IDs 00 to 7F (or 0 to 127) are used for SI, SIz, Thin Image, and Thin Image Advanced. CTG IDs 80 to 7FF (or 128 to 2,047) are used for Thin Image and Thin Image Advanced only.