How does rebind work in VMAX?

Question

Facts

Solutions Enabler version 7.2 and higher is required!

The following is a list of requirements and restrictions to be able to rebind a Thin device to another pool:

• A thin device has to be in the Bound state before issuing a rebind.
• The new binding has to comply with the oversubscription ratio of the new pool.
• If devices in a range, device group, or storage group are bound to different pools, then all the devices will be rebound to the specified pool.
• If a thin device is part of a storage group that is under FAST management, the thin device can only be bound to a pool in a tier that is part of the FAST policy associated with the storage group. Therefore, the device can only be rebound to a pool that is within the policy.
• If all the devices that are being rebound are already bound to the destination pool, an error is returned. If some devices get bound to a pool different from the one that they are currently bound to, the CLI operation will return a success status.
• Only one bind, unbind, or rebind operation can be performed on the same device in any one session.
• When needing to migrate data in conjunction with rebind, symmigrate, aka, vlun migration should be used. Refer to VCE Article 4736: How to lively migrate data to different pool in VMAX?

Answer

It allows a rebind of a thin device to the other pool without moving its data or losing any data. Rebind simply changes the binding configuration. All new allocations to the thin device will go to the newly bound pool after the rebind action completes. It works at device, storage group, consistency group, and arbitrary devices level in a "file".

>symcfg list -tdev -bound -detail -gb -sg apple_sean -sid xxx

Symmetrix ID: 000xxxxxxxxx

Enabled Capacity (GBs) :    15146.9
Bound   Capacity (GBs) :       16.0

                     S Y M M E T R I X   T H I N   D E V I C E S
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     Pool         Pool           Total      Compressed
        Bound      Flags      Total  Subs      Allocated        Written     Size/Ratio
Sym   Pool Name    ESPT         GBs   (%)        GBs (%)        GBs (%)        GBs (%)
----- ------------ ----- ---------- ----- ---------- --- ---------- --- ---------- ---
03153 AAA_PK_FC_1  F..B        16.0    42          0   0        0.1   0        0.0   0
      AAA_PK_SATA  -.--           -     -          0   0          -   -        0.1   0

Total                    ---------- ----- ---------- --- ---------- --- ---------- ---
  GBs                          16.0     0        0.1   0        0.1   0        0.1   0

>symconfigure -sid xxx -cmd "rebind tdev 3153 to pool AAA_PK_SATA;" prepare

Execute a symconfigure operation for symmetrix '000xxxxxxxxx' (y/[n]) ? y

A Configuration Change operation is in progress. Please wait...

    Establishing a configuration change session...............Established.

    Error occurred while Defining change number 1:
    The requested feature is not supported for this microcode or SYMAPI version
    Terminating the configuration change session..............Done.

The configuration change session has failed.
>symcli
Symmetrix Command Line Interface (SYMCLI) Version V8.0.2.0 (Edit Level: 2004)
built with SYMAPI Version V8.0.2.0 (Edit Level: 2004)

10/17/2016 21:35:29.456  17620  20324 EMC:SYMCONFIGURE          iSymConfigChangeSess Starting a local CfgChg session for SID 000xxxxxxxxx, symapi V8.0-2004 (2.0) ucode 5876
10/17/2016 21:35:29.654  17620  20324     Establishing session with Local cfg srvr (000xxxxxxxxx)...Established.
10/17/2016 21:35:29.654  17620  20324     Session ID    5499136 (0x0053e900)
10/17/2016 21:35:36.405  17620  20324       SymConfigChange Define error in dfn 1:
10/17/2016 21:35:36.406  17620  20324       rebind tdev 03153 to pool AAA_PK_SATA;
10/17/2016 21:35:36.406  17620  20324       The requested feature is not supported for this microcode or SYMAPI version.
10/17/2016 21:35:36.409  17620  20324 EMC:SYMCONFIGURE          User Generated       The requested feature is not supported for this microcode or SYMAPI version
10/17/2016 21:35:36.476  17620  20324     Terminating session with configuration server.............Done.

>type 1.txt
03153
>symdev -f 1.txt rebind -pool AAA_PK_SATA -sid xxx
Execute a 'Rebind' operation for devices in file '1.txt' (y/[n]) ? y
'Rebind' operation succeeded for devices in file '1.txt'.

>symcfg list -tdev -bound -detail -gb -sg apple_sean -sid xxx

Symmetrix ID: 000xxxxxxxxx

Enabled Capacity (GBs) :    15146.9
Bound   Capacity (GBs) :       16.0

                     S Y M M E T R I X   T H I N   D E V I C E S
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     Pool         Pool           Total      Compressed
        Bound      Flags      Total  Subs      Allocated        Written     Size/Ratio
Sym   Pool Name    ESPT         GBs   (%)        GBs (%)        GBs (%)        GBs (%)
----- ------------ ----- ---------- ----- ---------- --- ---------- --- ---------- ---
03153 AAA_PK_SATA  F..B        16.0   160          0   0        0.1   0        0.1   0

Total                    ---------- ----- ---------- --- ---------- --- ---------- ---
  GBs                          16.0     0        0.1   0        0.1   0        0.1   0