Brad,  The VMAX doesn't have true BCV mirrors anymore -- If you continue to use symmir with BCVs on VMAX, it will emulate BCVs (TF/Mirror), but will actually use clone technology in the background. I would definitely recommend that you switch to native symclone commands. With symclone, you'll be able to activate and use your clone targets before the background copy completes. If your host requests a block of data on the clone that hasn't been copied yet, the VMAX will transparently use CopyOnAccess to retrieve that block from the source volume, copy it to the clone target, and send it to the host that requested it.  Thanks,  - Sean
Hello, we currently have DMX4s and will upgrade to VMAX next year.  We have IBM mainframe, Unisys mainframe, AIX, Windows, VMware etc connected to the Symm arrays.  We are using old style TimeFinder (symmir) with BCVs on our IBM mainframes.   Soon we will be implementing replication on our Unisys mainframe.  It seems the new direction is towards symclone with standard volumes and away from good old symmir and BCVs.  Is this correct?  As we work on new projects for replication should we use symclone or symmir?  Is there a stated direction from EMC?  It seems like symclone has a definte advantage in that it does not need to use a mirror position.
symmir vs symclone