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Moving files between tiers in a scale-out file system

Veritas Access Administrator's Guide

By default, a scale-out file system has a single tier (also known as a primary tier), which is the on-premises storage for the scale-out file system. You can add a cloud service as an additional tier. After a cloud tier is configured, you can move data between the tiers of the scale-out file system as needed. There can be up to eight cloud tiers per a scale-out file system. For example, you can configure Azure and AWS Glacier as two tiers and move data between these clouds.

Use the commands in this section to move data as a one-time operation. For example, if you have just set up a cloud tier, and you want to move some older data to that tier.

If you want to specify repeatable rules for maintaining data on the tiers, you can set up a policy for the file system.

See Creating and scheduling a policy for a scale-out file system

You can specify the following criteria to indicate which files or directories to move between tiers:

file or directory name pattern to match
last accessed time (atime)
last modified time (mtime)

Because a scale-out file system can be large, and the size of the files to be moved can be large as well, the Storage> tier move command lets you perform a dry run.

See the storage_tier(1) man page.

To move data between storage tiers in a scale-out file system

(Optional) Perform a dry run to see which files would be moved and some statistics about the move.

Storage> tier move dryrun fs_name source_tier destination_tier 
                        pattern 
[atime condition] [mtime condition]

The dry run starts in the background. The command output shows the job ID.

Move the files that match pattern from source_tier to destination_tier based on the last accessed time (atime) or the last modified time (mtime).
```
Storage> tier move start fs_name source_tier destination_tier 
                        pattern
 [atime condition] [mtime condition]
                  
```
pattern is required. To include all the files, specify * for pattern.

The condition for atime or mtime includes an operator, a value, and a unit. Possible operators are the following: <, <=, >, >=. Possible units are m, h, and d, indicating minutes, hours, and days.

The name of the default tier is primary. The name of the cloud tier is specified when you add the tier to the file system.

The move job starts in the background. The command output shows the job ID.

Examples:

Move the files that match pattern and that have not been accessed within the past 100 days to the cloud tier.
```
Storage> tier move start lfs1 primary cloudtier1 pattern 
atime >100d
                  
```
Move the files that match pattern and that have been accessed recently in the past 30 days to the specified tier.
```
Storage> tier move start lfs1 cloud_tier primary pattern atime <=30d
                  
```
Move the files that match pattern and that have not been modified within the past 100 days to the cloud tier.
```
Storage> tier move start lfs1 primary cloud_tier pattern 
mtime >=100d
                  
```
Move only the files that match pattern and that were modified within the last three days from the cloud tier to the primary tier.
```
Storage> tier move start lfs2 cloud_tier primary pattern mtime >=3d
                  
```
Move all files to the primary tier.
```
Storage> tier move start lfs2 cloud_tier primary *
                  
```

View the move jobs that are in progress in the background. This command lists the job IDs and the status of the job.

Storage> tier move list 
Job        Fs name   Source Tier  Destination Tier  Pattern        Atime   Mtime  State
========== ========  ============ ================= ===========    ======  ====== ========
1473684478 largefs1  cloudtier    primary           /vx/largefs1/* >120s   -      not running
1473684602 largefs1  cloudtier    primary           /vx/largefs1/* -       -      scanning

View the detailed status of the data movement for the specified job ID.

Storage> tier move status jobid

For example:

Storage> tier move status 1473682883
Job run type:        normal
Job Status:          running
Total Data (Files):  4.0 G (100)
Moved Data (Files):  100.0 M (10)
Last file visited:   /vx/fstfs/10.txt

If required, you can abort a move job.

Storage> tier move abort jobid