IBM FlashCopy Cloning

SAP’s system administration approach emphasizes the concept of testing, e.g. SAP release upgrades, patches, applications, under close to real-life conditions. For copying production to appropriate test systems, SAP have documented a process, called ‘Homogeneous System Copy’. While all the instances are newly installed with own parameters, the database is set up as a copy, a clone, of the production database.

There are several conventional methods for generating this database clone, mainly R3load (an SAP tool) or database backup and redirected restore, which both are time consuming and resource intensive (load on production system). The FlashCopy technology is ideally suited for database cloning, esp. for large and intensively used databases, because it is fast (short time to recover and to access copy) and can be used in an adhoc manner (database online, no load on production).

FlashCopy Cloning (FC Cloning) is a component of Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) based FlashCopy Solutions for SAP (FC Solutions), especially powerful for improving operational flexibility and administration productivity in SAP environments.

FC Cloning has enabled customers to find new ways to increase the efficiency of their operations:

• Offloading reporting from production to a dedicated reporting system by daily database cloning
• Analyzing production problems on a test system while maintaining production for most vital business processes

The FC Cloning Solution is built upon two components:

• Tivoli Storage Manager for Advanced Copy Services (TSM for ACS), which is the core product of FC Solutions covering the backup and restore functionality
• Tivoli Service Offering FlashCopy® Cloning (FC Clone), an additional program package by a local IBM service organisation