Dell PowerVault ME5 Series Administrator's Guide

Replication process

After you create a peer connection and replication set, you can then replicate volumes between the systems. The initial replication differs slightly from all subsequent replications in that it copies all of the allocated pages of the primary volume to the secondary volume. Depending on how large your source volume is and the speed of the network connection, this initial replication may take some time.

Each subsequent replication is completed by resetting one of the internal snapshots of the primary volumes to contain the contents last replicated and then resetting the other internal snapshot to the current primary volume contents and comparing the changes. The system writes any changes it finds on the internal primary snapshot to the internal secondary snapshot, after which the secondary volume is updated to contain the contents of the secondary snapshot. (This internal process happens automatically, and is not accessible to user control.)

The progress and status of the initial and subsequent replications are tracked and displayed. The timestamps for replication reflect the time zones of the respective systems. When viewed on a secondary system in a different time zone, for example, replication information will reflect the time zone of the secondary system.

You can initiate a replication manually or by using a schedule. When creating a schedule for a replication set, you cannot specify for replication to occur more frequently than once an hour.