fa_pg_snap

Python scripts for snapshot and cloning a protection group on an Everpure Flash Array

The script fa_pg_snap.py provides for taking a snapshot of a protection group on an Everpure Flash Array.
It will also optionally copy that snapshot to a target protection group. In this case the target protection group must have an equal or greater number of volumes of equal or larger size than the source.
The script can also copy an existing snapshot of a source protection group to a target protection group.
If replication is set up for the source protection group, the snapshot can be replicated to a second Flash Array.

Requirements

• Python 3.8 or later
• py-pure-client (python -m pip install py-pure-client)
• python -m pip install 'setuptools<72.0.0'

Arguments:

-s source protection group (required unless source_protection_group is set in the JSON config file)
-t target protection group (optional - may also be set with target_protection_group in the JSON config file)
-n the snapshot name. If this does not exist - it will create it. If it already exists, it will use the existing snapshot to sync to the target. (required)
-f JSON file with FQDN and API token to connect to the Flash Arrays (optional - if omitted, connection details are read from environment variables, see Notes)
-r replicate the snapshot to the targets specified in the source protection group (optional - may also be set with "replicate": "True" in the JSON config file)
-o output file with the names of the snapshot volumes (optional)
-i ignore tag (optional - see below)
-x execute lock - if this is NOT set, no destructive actions will be taken. Instead, the script will simply tell you what it would do. This may prove useful to make sure you have all the settings right before you overwrite a target protection group.

JSON config file

The config file supports the following keys:

Key	Purpose
src_flash_array_host (or flash_array_host)	FQDN of the source Flash Array
src_flash_array_api_token (or flash_array_api_token)	API token for the source Flash Array
tgt_flash_array_host	FQDN of the target Flash Array (replication only)
tgt_flash_array_api_token	API token for the target Flash Array (replication only)
flash_array_api_version	optional REST API version; auto-negotiated when omitted
source_protection_group (or src_protection_group)	source protection group, used when -s is not given
target_protection_group (or tgt_protection_group)	target protection group, used when -t is not given
replicate	"True" to replicate the snapshot, equivalent to -r
excluded_volumes	list of source volume IDs to exclude from the sync (see below)

Notes:

If replication is not specified, both the source and target protection groups are assumed to be on the source Flash Array, and the target Flash Array is ignored.
If replication is specified, the script verifies that the source protection group has at least one replication target configured, and after creating the snapshot it waits for the transfer to complete (up to ten checks at five second intervals).
Snapshots are tagged with a replicate tag recording whether they were created with replication. If -r is used against an existing snapshot, the script checks this tag and stops if the snapshot was not replicated when it was created.
If the JSON file does not specify authentication credentials, the code will try to read the OS variables FA_HOST and API_TOKEN for authentication to the source Flash Array.
If the JSON file does not specify authentication credentials, the code will try to read the OS variables FA_HOST_TGT and API_TOKEN_TGT for authentication to the target Flash Array.

Excluding Volumes in the Protection Group

In some scenarios you may wish to exclude volumes from the snapshot-copy. For example, RAC cluster disks might be included in the protection group to protect the source RAC cluster from failure or corruption, but you would not wish to overwrite RAC cluster disks on a target system if you were cloning the database to a new cluster. In this example, the JSON file allows the user to specify source volumes in the protection group that will NOT be sync'd to target volumes in the target protection group.

Excluded volumes are identified by their volume ID, supplied as a flat list of strings:

"excluded_volumes": [
    "dd246ff7-9104-71cd-0320-8915f47aa77e",
    "dd246ff7-9104-71cd-0320-8915f47aa77f"
]

Source snapshot/target volume pairing

If a target protection group is specified, the code will overwrite the volumes of the target protection group with the contents of the source snapshot.
To achieve this, the code first looks for a target volume that was tagged in a previous run as the pair for the source volume. If no tagged pair exists, the code will look for an unmatched target volume of the same size. If none can be found, then the code will consider unmatched volumes of larger size.
Volumes are considered in the order they are returned by the Flash Array, which is typically alphabetical, so if the same naming convention is used for both source and target, the volumes will be considered in order. Once a suitable target has been identified, the code tags the volume of the target protection group with the volume id of the source volume. This means that every subsequent execution of the code will see the same target volume overwritten from the same source snapshot volume.
The -i flag may be used to ignore these tags and re-establish a new source-snapshot/target volume pairing, such as when the user decides to snapshot from a different source protection group.

A Worked Example

In the example below, the source protection group gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg is snapshot and then sync'd to the target protection group gct-oradb-demo-tst01-pg.
The JSON file excludes two volumes from the snapshot/sync process.\

[oracle@gct-oradb-demo-tst01 py]$ python fa_pg_snap.py -f json/prd01_2_tst01.remote.nodb.json -n jun121235a -x -r
============
fa_pg_snap.py 1.2.0 started at 2026-06-12 12:35:38.738854
============
connecting to Flash Array:source_flash_array.localdomain API Version:2.44
connected
============
connecting to Flash Array:target_flash_array.localdomain API Version:2.44
connected
============
determining if snapshot jun121235a exists for protection group:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg
source protection group:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg
target protection group:gct-oradb-demo-tst01-pg
============
querying the volumes for protection group:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg on array source_flash_array
gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-00
gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-01
gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-00
gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-01
============
creating snapshot for gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg
============
============
listing the volumes for snapshot:jun121235a
name:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-00 sz:150.0 GB
name:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-01 sz:150.0 GB
name:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-00 sz:40.0 GB
name:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-01 sz:40.0 GB
============
querying the volumes for protection group:gct-oradb-demo-tst01-pg on array target_flash_array
gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-00
gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-01
gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-00
gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-01
============
querying target volume details
nm:gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-00
  id:dd1b6dc5-78f1-a03c-dd4e-1f606a196909
  is a target for source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-00
  sz:150.0 GB
nm:gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-01
  id:69fdd003-bf27-3768-3a0c-d1a0d10022c1
  is a target for source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-01
  sz:150.0 GB
nm:gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-00
  id:71c8587f-0250-659e-5ace-07d2cbea11e5
  is a target for source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-00
  sz:40.0 GB
nm:gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-01
  id:68bff308-f1c6-a2ba-31f6-8bdbd574000d
  is a target for source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-01
  sz:40.0 GB
============
determining volume mapping
nm:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-00
  src id:eb6d1f1d-ffe9-2845-46fc-af9a65c36166 map:0
  sz:150.0 GB
  checking for tag matched volume
  will be synced to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-00
nm:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-01
  src id:ee8c5202-be2e-90d3-aa4f-dd4d56a05dfd map:0
  sz:150.0 GB
  checking for tag matched volume
  will be synced to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-01
nm:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-00
  src id:e7d2d644-2b34-b551-5cc1-de87f8824525 map:0
  sz:40.0 GB
  checking for tag matched volume
  will be synced to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-00
nm:source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-01
  src id:3cd04a42-8511-b8cb-61e3-4284e417b1c3 map:0
  sz:40.0 GB
  checking for tag matched volume
  will be synced to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-01
============
waiting on snapshot replication
..
replication complete
============
mapping the volumes
source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-00
  src key:eb6d1f1d-ffe9-2845-46fc-af9a65c36166
  map:dd1b6dc5-78f1-a03c-dd4e-1f606a196909
  will be syncd to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-00
source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-data-01
  src key:ee8c5202-be2e-90d3-aa4f-dd4d56a05dfd
  map:69fdd003-bf27-3768-3a0c-d1a0d10022c1
  will be syncd to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-data-01
source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-00
  src key:e7d2d644-2b34-b551-5cc1-de87f8824525
  map:71c8587f-0250-659e-5ace-07d2cbea11e5
  will be syncd to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-00
source_flash_array:gct-oradb-demo-prd01-pg.jun121235a.gct-oradb-demo-prd01-fra-01
  src key:3cd04a42-8511-b8cb-61e3-4284e417b1c3
  map:68bff308-f1c6-a2ba-31f6-8bdbd574000d
  will be syncd to gct-oradb-demo-tst01-fra-01
============
complete