Chapter 11. Advanced Copy Services 555
4. The administrator configures the systems ports on each node in both of the systems by 
using the GUI (or the cfgportip CLI command), and completes the following steps:
a. Configure the IP addresses for remote copy data.
b. Add the IP addresses in the respective remote copy port group. 
c. Define whether the host access on these ports over iSCSI is allowed. 
5. The administrator establishes the partnership with the remote system from the local 
system where the partnership state then changes to Partially_Configured_Local.
6. The administrator establishes the partnership from the remote system with the local 
system. If this process is successful, the partnership state then changes to the 
Fully_Configured, which implies that the partnerships over the IP network were 
successfully established. The partnership state momentarily remains Not_Present before 
moving to the Fully_Configured state. 
7. The administrator creates MM, GM, and GM with Change Volume relationships. 
11.8.7  Remote copy groups
This section describes remote copy groups (or remote copy port groups) and different ways to 
configure the links between the two remote systems. The two IBM Spectrum Virtualize 
systems can be connected to each other over one link or, at most, two links. To address the 
requirement to enable the systems to know about the physical links between the two sites, the 
concept of remote copy port groups was introduced.
Remote copy port group ID is a numerical tag that is associated with an IP port of an IBM 
Spectrum Virtualize system to indicate which physical IP link it is connected to. Multiple nodes 
might be connected to the same physical long-distance link, and must therefore share the 
same remote copy port group ID.
In scenarios with two physical links between the local and remote clusters, two remote copy 
port group IDs must be used to designate which IP addresses are connected to which 
physical link. This configuration must be done by the system administrator by using the GUI or 
the cfgportip CLI command.
The IBM Spectrum Virtualize system IP addresses that are connected to the same physical 
link are designated with identical remote copy port groups. The system supports three remote 
copy groups: 0, 1, and 2.
The systems’ IP addresses are, by default, in remote copy port group 0. Ports in port group 0 
are not considered for creating remote copy data paths between two systems. For 
partnerships to be established over IP links directly, IP ports must be configured in remote 
copy group 1 if a single inter-site link exists, or in remote copy groups 1 and 2 if two inter-site 
links exist. 
Partnership consideration: When the partnership is created, no master or auxiliary 
status is defined or implied. The partnership is equal. The concepts of master or auxiliary 
and primary or secondary apply to volume relationships only, not to system partnerships.
Remember: IP ports on both partners must have been configured with identical remote 
copy port group IDs for the partnership to be established correctly.