Planning for AIM
During installation, source and destination buffers were automatically created. If using the default program file location, the buffers Source and Destination (shared as AimBuffer) are created in C:Program Files (x86)DataCore SoftwareSANmelodyAIM. Depending on your needs, these buffers may be adequate, but if not, they may be changed.
In order to understand if the buffers meet your needs and plan for other contingencies, please consider the following questions and review the referenced and related topics for a clear understanding of AIM. A clear understanding of why the data is critical or needs to be moved off-site is crucial in order to configure for data transfer.
Important questions to ask include:
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How much latency between source and destination volume is tolerable?
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How many discreet applications need to be protected by AIM? This influences the number of AIM sets required.
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It is beneficial to determine which application server files must be replicated and organize them. Files that can be easily re-installed, don’t have to be replicated if space or bandwidth is an issue. You can keep files that need to be replicated (such as user or data files) on different volumes than the files that don’t (such as system or program files). Limiting the amount of less important replication allows vital information to be replicated on the destination at a faster rate.
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If AIM sets are to be initialized over the inter-site link then they should be faster and more reliable.
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Disks used to transfer AIM data should be fast (RAID0 or JBOD) so that the transfer rate is not limited. External or portable disks are the best practice.
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How much data is expected to be changed during the latency period? This will influence the size of the link and buffer. Buffer size should be adequate to support the collection of buffer data to support production data change rate for the duration of the worst case IP link outage. Buffers should reside on disks that are outside of SANmelody control (not virtual volumes). Refer to AIM Buffers for more information.
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How much data can be transferred over the link? This must be measured; the advertised speed is not actually achieved across the link. This will influence what is important enough to be AIM protected. Refer to AIM Initialization Time Estimates for more information.
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Refer to Unidirectional Single Source to Single Destination for a graphic representation of the AIM configuration model.