Selective data replication

1. A method of performing data replication comprising:

receiving, on a host, a write operation that writes first data to a target location on a first logical device having storage provisioned on a first data storage system;

determining, on the host and in accordance with one or more criteria, whether the first data is to be replicated on a second logical device on a second data storage system; and

issuing the write operation from the host to the first data storage system, wherein the write operation denotes whether to disable replication of the first data to the second logical device on the second data storage system, wherein an I/O driver on the host performs said determining and said issuing, and wherein the I/O driver performs first processing comprising:

determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria on the host, whether all the first data of the write operation is to be replicated to the second logical device of the second data storage system; and

responsive to determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria, that not all of the first data is to be replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system, performing second processing by the I/O driver, said second processing including:

partitioning the write operation into a plurality of write operations each writing some of the first write data to the first logical device;

determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria, a set of one or more of the plurality of write operations each writing a portion of the first write data to the first logical device where the portion is not being replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system; and

inserting an indicator into each write operation of the set denoting that replication is disabled for data written by said each write operation of the set whereby data of said each write operation of the set is not replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first logical device on the first data storage system is configured to have data automatically replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

writing the first data to the target location on the first logical device on the first data storage system; and

determining, on the first data storage system in accordance with an indicator of the write operation previously set by the I/O driver of the host, whether to replicate the first data to the second logical device on the second data storage system.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:

responsive to determining to replicate the first data to the second logical device on the second data storage system, issuing another write operation from the first data storage system to the second data storage system, said another write operation writing the first data to the target location on the second logical device of the second data storage system.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

sending the plurality of write operations from the host to the first data storage system; and

selectively replicating, on the second logical device on the second data storage system, data that is written by each of the plurality of write operations not included in the set.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the I/O driver has a mapping indicating which portions of the logical device are selectively replicated.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more criteria include one or more predefined types of data for which data replication of the first logical device is selectively indicated as enabled or disabled.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the predefined types of data include any one or more of: user data, metadata, paging data sets, dump data sets, work files, and temporary files.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the one or more criteria indicate, for at least a first of the predefined types, to disable replication of data of the first logical device of the first data storage system to the second logical device of the second data storage system.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the one or more criteria indicate to selectively enable or disable data replication for a specified portion of at least one of the predefined types of data.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the one or more criteria indicate to selectively enable or disable data replication for any of: one or more user data files, one or more user file systems, one or more logical device portions, one or more specified extents or portions of a file, one or more particular data sets, one or more specified portions of metadata, data written by one or more specified applications, and data written by code executing on a particular operating system image on the host.

12. The method of claim 7 , wherein the one or more criteria include a schedule denoting a frequency of when data written to specified portions of the first logical device are selectively replicated from the first logical device of the first data storage system to the second logical device of the second data storage system.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the schedule indicates to replicate, at a single point in time, all data written to a particular portion of the first logical during a first time period.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

monitoring a frequency of modifications made to the particular portion of the first logical device; and

modifying the schedule by adjusting, in accordance with said monitoring, a frequency of data replication of the particular portion of the first logical device.

15. The method of claim 7 , wherein the one or more criteria includes at least a first criterion defining a significant data change for a particular portion of the first logical device, and the method includes:

enabling replication of the particular portion of the first logical device responsive to detecting the significant data change for the particular portion of the first logical device, and otherwise disabling replication of the particular portion of the first logical device.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second data storage system is one of a plurality of remote data storage systems and wherein the write operation is selectively replicated on one or more of the plurality of remote data storage systems in accordance with the one or more criteria.

17. A computer readable medium comprising code stored therein, that, when executed, performs a method of data replication comprising:

receiving, on a host, a write operation that writes first data to a target location on a first logical device having storage provisioned on a first data storage system;

determining, on the host and in accordance with one or more criteria, whether the first data is to be replicated on a second logical device on a second data storage system; and

issuing the write operation from the host to the first data storage system, wherein the write operation denotes whether to disable replication of the first data to the second logical device on the second data storage system, wherein an I/O driver on the host performs said determining and said issuing, and wherein the I/O driver performs first processing comprising:

determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria on the host, whether all the first data of the write operation is to be replicated to the second logical device of the second data storage system; and

responsive to determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria, that not all of the first data is to be replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system, performing second processing by the I/O driver, said second processing including:

partitioning the write operation into a plurality of write operations each writing some of the first write data to the first logical device;

determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria, a set of one or more of the plurality of write operations each writing a portion of the first write data to the first logical device where the portion is not being replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system; and

inserting an indicator into each write operation of the set denoting that replication is disabled for data written by said each write operation of the set whereby data of said each write operation of the set is not replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17 , wherein the write operation is received from an application executing on the host.

19. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory comprising code stored therein that, when executed, performs a method of performing data replication comprising:

receiving, on a host, a write operation that writes first data to a target location on a first logical device having storage provisioned on a first data storage system;

determining, on the host and in accordance with one or more criteria, whether the first data is to be replicated on a second logical device on a second data storage system; and

issuing the write operation from the host to the first data storage system, wherein the write operation denotes whether to disable replication of the first data to the second logical device on the second data storage system, wherein an I/O driver on the host performs said determining and said issuing, and wherein the I/O driver performs first processing comprising:

determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria on the host, whether all the first data of the write operation is to be replicated to the second logical device of the second data storage system; and

responsive to determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria, that not all of the first data is to be replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system, performing second processing by the I/O driver, said second processing including:

partitioning the write operation into a plurality of write operations each writing some of the first write data to the first logical device;

determining, in accordance with the one or more criteria, a set of one or more of the plurality of write operations each writing a portion of the first write data to the first logical device where the portion is not being replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system; and

inserting an indicator into each write operation of the set denoting that replication is disabled for data written by said each write operation of the set whereby data of said each write operation of the set is not replicated on the second logical device of the second data storage system.