partner create

Establishes a replication partnership between two groups.

Notes: The partner create command must be run on both the primary group and the secondary group in order to establish a replication relationship.

Before configuring a partner, be sure that all members of both groups have network connectivity.

To establish a replication partnership between the group on which you are running the partner create command and another group (the partner), you must specify on the command line:

Partner group name and IP address.
Passwords for mutual authentication. Replication between groups cannot occur until the reciprocal passwords are set on both groups.
If the group will be storing replicas from the partner, the amount of group pool space to delegate to the partner. Delegated space is automatically reserved from free pool space and can only be used to store replica sets from the partner. When you configure a volume to replicate to a partner, you specify the portion of delegated space to allocate to the volume’s replica set (the replica reserve).

The amount of space to delegate to a partner depends on the number of the partner volumes being replicated to the group and the replica reserve for each volume. For example, if two volumes are being replicated and they each require a replica reserve of 4GB, then you must delegate at least 8GB to the partner. The replica reserve requirement for each volume depends on the volume size, in addition to the amount and rate of change to the volume between subsequent replication operations.

Communication between two groups configured as replication partners is not established until the first time replication is enabled on a volume or a replication is attempted. Therefore, keep in mind the following:

You will not know if partner password or configuration problems exist until the first time replication is enabled on a volume. If you receive a login error message, check the reciprocal passwords on the partners and make sure they match.
Delegated space will not be visible in the CLI until the first time replication is attempted on a volume.
If you increase the size of a replicated volume, the secondary group will not recognize the change until the next replication attempt.

After creating a replication partnership between two groups, you can log in to the group where the volume resides (the primary group) and enable replication on the volume. See volume select replication enable. Then, you can create replicas.

Format

partner create partner_name ipaddress ip_address [parameter...]

Variable

partner_name

Group name of the partner.

Parameters

contact name	Name of the person responsible for the partner, up to 64 alphanumeric characters. If the name variable contains spaces, surround it with quotation marks (for example, "M Chen").
description text	Description for the partner, up to 64 alphanumeric characters. If the text variable contains spaces, surround it with quotation marks.
email email_address	E-mail address, up to 64 alphanumeric characters, for the person responsible for the partner.
inbound-password password	Password for group authentication of the partner, up to 255 alphanumeric characters. If not specified, the password is generated automatically. The partner group administrator must specify this exact password with the outbound-password parameter.
ipaddress ip_address	Group IP address of the partner.
mobile mobile_number	Mobile phone number (up to 32 characters) for the person responsible for the partner.
phone phone_number	Telephone number (up to 32 characters) for the person responsible for the partner.
outbound-password password	Password for partner authentication of the group, up to 255 alphanumeric characters. The partner group administrator must specify this exact password with the inbound-password parameter.
pool-delegated pool	Pool from which delegated space will be consumed. The default is the default pool.
space-delegated size[GB]	Delegated space for storing partner replica sets. Size is assumed to be in megabytes (MB) unless you explicitly specify gigabytes (GB). You can specify size with any of the following suffixes: m, mb, MB, g, gb, GB. Delegated space is immediately consumed from free space either in the default pool or the pool specified with the pool-delegated parameter.

Example

The following commands create a partnership between two groups, AGroup and CGroup. AGroup (primary group) is replicating volumes to CGroup (secondary group).

The following command is run on AGroup:

AGroup> partner create CGroup ipaddress 182.1.2.18 inbound-password goforit outbound-password bigtime

_______________________ Partner Information _______________________

Name: CGroup IPAddress: 182.1.2.18

Space-Received: 0MB Space-Received-Used: 0MB

Outbound-Password: ******* OutboundDesiredStatus: enabled

Description: Space-Delegated: 0MB

Space-Delegated-Used: 0MB Inbound-Password: *******

InboundDesiredStatus: enabled Contact:

Email: Phone:

Mobile: Pool-Delegated: default

__________________________________________________________________

The following command is run on CGroup:

CGroup> partner create AGroup ipaddress 182.9.2.116 space-delegated 200GB inbound-password bigtime outbound-password goforit

______________________ Partner Information _______________________

Name: AGroup IPAddress: 182.9.2.116

Space-Received: 0MB Space-Received-Used: 0MB

Outbound-Password: goforit OutboundDesiredStatus: enabled

Description: Space-Delegated: 200GB

Space-Delegated-Used: 0MB Inbound-Password: bigtime

InboundDesiredStatus: enabled Contact:

Email: Phone:

Mobile: Pool-Delegated: default