How the SSI component works
The Storage Systems Integration (SSI) component is an XBM component that provides the following functions:
- Snapshot processing by using intelligent storage DASD devices
- An interface to allow active manipulation of storage devices
- A monitor to show storage device status
To perform a traditional hardware or Instant Snapshot, you must enable the SSI component. XBM requires this component to communicate to the supported hardware devices.
When you start the SSI component, either at initial startup of XBM or manually, it discovers the available intelligent hardware devices. The amount of time that the discovery process takes depends on the number of hardware devices you have. This discovery process determines the hardware snapshot capability of supported devices. For each device, the SSI component determines whether volume-level or data-set-level snapshots (or both) are allowed. The SSI component also passes this information to the SSI monitor, so that the XBM ISPF interface can display the hardware devices. Through the SSI monitor, you can issue commands to the hardware, such as displaying device information, establishing pairs, suspending pairs, and so on. (For more information about these commands, see Monitoring-and-managing-storage-devices.)
To control whether the SSI component starts when the XBM subsystem starts, use the XSSI keyword in the XBM PROC (as described in Parameters). To start or stop the SSI component manually, use the procedure described in Starting-and-stopping-components.
SSI component options enable you to control how XBM processes the snapshots. These options control such things as whether to allow hardware snapshot and Instant Snapshots, as well as whether to perform volume-level or data-set-level snapshots. For more information, see Specifying-snapshot-types-through-options.
XBM provides commands that allow you to set some commonly used vendor-specific hardware device options. For more information, see Commands-for-managing-SSI-options.