Rewind and Recover Data

The rewind feature allows the data on the target disk to be rewound back to any previous disk write.

The steps involved are:

1. The mirror is paused.

2. A timestamp associated with previous disk write is selected and the disk is rewound to that time.

3. The user is asked to verify the rewound data and indicate its condition (good or bad).

4. The user then has the option to use the current data (go to Step 5) or continue rewinding by selecting another timestamp (go to Step 2).

5. The user has the choice of recovering the data manually and then resuming the mirror (erasing the rewound data) or switching the mirror and any protected applications to the target system and using the rewound data as the new production data.

The user is led through the steps above with a series of wizard dialogs. The dialogs are explained below:

1. Confirm that you wish to rewind the data. Click Continue.

2. The mirror is being paused in preparation for the rewind. Click Next.

3. Select or type in a timestamp that you wish to rewind to. Bookmarked log entries as well as a random sampling of other log entries appear in the dropdown list. The progress bar at the bottom of the dialog displays which data is good (green), bad (red) or unknown (yellow). So, at the beginning of the rewind process, the progress bar is all yellow. Once the data has been rewound and you have indicated that the data is good or bad, the progress bar is updated with green and red sections accordingly.

Dialog 3

4. The data is being rewound. After the data is rewound, the target disk is mounted for read-only access so that the data can be verified. Click Next.
   
   

Dialog 4

5. You are asked for comments on the data. Enter any comments (not mandatory) and click Next.

6. You are now asked to indicate whether the data is valid or not. Answer Yes or No and click Next.

7. You are now asked if you wish to continue rewinding (go back to Dialog 3) or accept the current rewound data and begin recovery (go on to Dialog 8).

8. You are now asked to choose a recovery method. The choices are:

   1. Move applications to <target system> (go on to Dialog 9)

   2. Manually copy data to the source system (go on to Dialog 10)

   3. Make your selection and click Next.

9. The hierarchy is now being switched over to the target server. The rewound data will be resynced to the old source disk. Click Finish. Rewind is complete.

10. You are asked to manually copy files to the source system. Copy any rewound data that you wish to keep to a safe location, then click Next.

11. The mirror is now being resumed. A full resynchronization will occur from the source to target. Click Finish. Rewind is complete.