Scheduling activity on a replication link
The amount of send activity that can occur on a replication link at any given time is controlled by the performance level that applies to the sending system. An active/active link has two performance levels at any given time, one for each system involved in the link. An active/passive link has only one performance level at any given time. That level applies to the primary system during replication and to the replica during data recovery.
The performance levels for different replication links are independent of each other, as are the performance levels for the two systems involved in an active/active link. In each case, the performance level can be low, medium, high, custom, or off. Off means that no send activity is occurring for the applicable link on the applicable system.
For each system involved in an active/active link and for an active/passive link, you can schedule the performance level to change automatically over the course of a week. At any time, if you don’t want to use the schedule, you can override it by selecting a single performance level to apply until you cancel the override.
Overriding a replication schedule lets you change the performance level without changing the configured schedule. You might do this, for example, on a holiday when the load on the applicable HCP system is expected to be light.
The performance level for a sending system determines the amount of load replication or recovery processing puts on that system and on the network connecting that system to the other system involved in the applicable replication link. If a system is sending data on multiple links, the total load on the system is determined by the performance levels for all of those links together. To minimize the load, you should schedule the links to be active at different times.
About replication schedules
You use the Schedule panel on the Replication page in the HCP System Management Console to set the schedule for replication activity on a replication link. For an active/active link, this panel has two tabs on each system involved in the link — one labeled Local for the local system and one labeled Remote for the remote system.
For an active/passive link, you set the schedule only for the primary system. Therefore, on the primary system the Schedule panel has a tab labeled Local. On the replica, the Schedule panel has a tab labeled Remote.
Each Local and Remote schedule panel contains a grid in which the weekdays from Sunday through Saturday are each broken out into 24 hours. To set a schedule, you assign performance levels to time periods in the grid. The Console makes it easy for you to do this for the whole week, individual days, individual hours, or ranges of hours within a day.
In the schedule grid, the top of each time period with a given performance level displays the start and end times for that period (for example, 8 am to 6 pm). These times are in the time zone of the primary system.
The top of each time period also displays the performance level for that period. Additionally, each time period is color coded in the schedule grid to indicate the performance level so you can easily see which levels are assigned to which periods:
- Low:
(light green) - Medium:
(green) - High:
(dark green) - Custom:
(blue) - Off:
(gray)
While a schedule is overridden, the words Schedule Overridden appear on the schedule grid.
You cannot set a schedule to off for the entire week. Instead, to disable activity on a replication link for an extended period of time, suspend activity on the link.
Modifying a replication schedule
By default, the schedules for an active/active link and the schedule for an active/passive link specify a performance level of medium for the entire week.
Procedure
In the top-level menu of the HCP System Management Console, select .
On the replication Links page, click the link with the schdule you want to modify.
On the replication link details page, click Schedule.
In the link Schedule panel, click the Local or Remote tab, as applicable.
In the Local or Remote panel, as applicable, take any of these actions as many times as needed to set the schedule you want:
- To set the performance level for the entire week:
- Hover over All to display the list of performance levels.
- Click the performance level you want.
- To set the performance level for an individual day:
- Hover over the name of the day to display the list of performance levels.
- Click the performance level you want.
- To set the performance level for a single hour or a range of hours:
- Either click an hour, or click and drag from one hour to another in the same day.
The Set Performance Level window opens.
- (Optional) Select different start and end times in the Start time and End time fields, respectively.
- In the Level field, select the performance level you want.
- Click Submit.
- Either click an hour, or click and drag from one hour to another in the same day.
- To set the performance level for the entire week:
Click Update Schedule.
Overriding a replication schedule
In the top-level menu of the HCP System Management Console, select .
On the replication Links page, click the link with the schedule you want to override.
On the replication link details page, click Schedule .
In the Schedule panel, click the Local or Remote tab, as applicable.
In the Local or Remote panel, as applicable, click Schedule Override.
In the Schedule Override section:
Select Override schedule.
Under Performance Level, select the performance level you want.
Click Update Schedule.