ibm storwize 7000 unified, sonas, and vmware site recovery manager: an overview of disaster recovery...

IBM Storwize 7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager

An overview of disaster recovery preparation and workload migration for multisite VMware vSphere clouds using IBM NAS and vSphere host-based

replication solutions

Benton Gallun IBM Systems and Technology Group ISV Enablement

June 2012

© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2012

Table of contents Abstract........................................................................................................................................1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................1 Intended audience.......................................................................................................................1 Overview of a disaster recovery solution .................................................................................1 IBM Storwize V7000 Unified NAS...............................................................................................2

Storwize V7000 Unified overview ............................................................................................................ 3 Block hardware and concepts ........................................................................................... 3

Storwize V7000 Unified for SRM ............................................................................................................. 5 File hardware and concepts .............................................................................................. 5

IBM SONAS..................................................................................................................................6 Overview of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager with IBM SONAS............................................... 7 Common NAS features of Storwize V7000 Unified and SONAS ............................................................ 7

VMware overview ......................................................................................................................10 VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 .................................................................................................................... 10 VMware vCenter Server......................................................................................................................... 11 VMware vSphere Client ......................................................................................................................... 12 vCenter Site Recovery Manager............................................................................................................ 12 Protected and recovery sites ................................................................................................................. 12 Host-based replication ........................................................................................................................... 13 Database................................................................................................................................................ 13

Installation of SRM and vSphere Replication components...................................................14 Database preparation ............................................................................................................................ 14 SRM Server installation on vCenter Server........................................................................................... 14 Connect the sites ................................................................................................................................... 16

Resource mappings......................................................................................................... 21 Folder mappings.............................................................................................................. 22 Network mappings........................................................................................................... 23

Configuring vSphere Replication ............................................................................................23 Deploy the VRM Server ......................................................................................................................... 24 Configure the VMRS connection ........................................................................................................... 27 Deploy a VR server................................................................................................................................ 28 Registering a VR server with the VRM server ....................................................................................... 28

Configuring VM Replication .....................................................................................................28 Protecting workloads................................................................................................................30 Testing workloads.....................................................................................................................41 Migrating workloads .................................................................................................................43 Reprotecting workloads ...........................................................................................................45 Scaling / Improving replication times .....................................................................................45

Deploy multiple VRS appliances and multiple vCenters........................................................................ 45 Prepopulating virtual disks..................................................................................................................... 46

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager

Best practices............................................................................................................................47 Summary....................................................................................................................................48 Appendix A: Glossary...............................................................................................................49 Appendix B: Resources............................................................................................................50 About the author .......................................................................................................................51 Trademarks and special notices..............................................................................................52

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Abstract This paper offers configuration information regarding the IBM Storwize V7000 Unified network-attached storage (NAS) system and IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) solutions in an ESX environment with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager using VMware vSphere host based replication. The purpose of this paper is to set appropriate expectations for customers with regard to disaster recovery (DR) and workload migration options when using IBM NAS solutions with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) host-based replication.

Introduction

Until recently VMware SRM required the use of site recovery adapter (SRA) specific to the storage solution being used. SRAs from multiple vendors / solutions could not be used together. VMware host-

based replication, released with VMware vSphere 5.0 for SRM 5.0 support now enables customers to protect vSphere workloads on any VMware certified vSphere datastore opening new flexibility in the deployment of new data centers for disaster recovery preparation.

Intended audience

This paper is intended for anyone interested in using VMware SRM with IBM® Storwize® V7000 Unified

and IBM SONAS for business continuity. This paper assumes that the user has some background in both IBM scale out NAS and VMware products, specifically Storwize V7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware vCenter server. In addition, the reader must have sufficient knowledge about DR solutions and the work

flow required in a DR scenario.

Overview of a disaster recovery solution

As IT systems have become increasingly critical to the smooth operation of enterprises, the importance of ensuring their continued operation, including rapid recovery when subsystems fail, has increased. Before

selecting a disaster recovery strategy, a disaster recovery planner must refer to their organization's business continuity plan, which indicates the key metrics of recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) for various business processes. The metrics specified for the business processes

must then be mapped to the underlying IT systems and infrastructure that supports those processes. After mapping the RTO and RPO metrics to IT infrastructure, the DR planner can determine the most suitable recovery strategy for each system.

RPO – This refers to the point in time to which data must be recovered as defined by the organization. This is generally a definition of what an organization determines as an acceptable loss in a disaster situation.

RTO – This refers to the duration of time and a service level within which a business process must be restored, following a disaster or disruption, in order to avoid unacceptable consequences associated with a break in business continuity.


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The ideal solution will have both: a low RPO (in minutes) and RTO (ranges from minutes to hours). It is

important to test a DR solution to find whether it is suitable and efficient for business continuity.

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified NAS

The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified builds upon the proven IBM Storwize V7000 storage to offer both block and file storage services in a single unified storage array. It has been certified for virtualization using VMware vSphere 5.0 for comprehensive server and storage virtualization. The highly scalable storage

capacity of Storwize V7000 Unified can be used to start with smaller capacities and then grow to consolidate data from multiple servers and storage systems for more efficient infrastructure utilization (particularly storage efficiency) and ease of management and administration.

You can find certification information about Storwize V7000 (block) and Storwize V7000 Unified (NFS) on the VMware Storage HCL at the following links:

Block (SAN): http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/detail.php?deviceCategory=san&productid=18864&vcl=true

NFS (NAS): http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/detail.php?deviceCategory=san&productid=20569&vcl=true

The Storwize V7000 is a modular storage system built from the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller technology base and utilizing Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) technology from the IBM System Storage DS8000® family to deliver a virtualized, enterprise-ready, mid-range storage

solution. The IBM Storwize V7000 storage system enables customers to improve application flexibility, responsiveness, and availability, while reducing storage usage and complexity through storage virtualization and the following features:

Metro Mirror and Global Mirror perform synchronous and asynchronous data replication between IBM Storwize V7000 systems at varying distances to protect data and keep services online in downtime situations.

IBM Tivoli® Storage FlashCopy® Manager functionality enables for the creation of instant volume copies for data protection and flexibility

Virtualization enables volume migration and mirroring to any storage managed by the IBM

Storwize V7000 system.

IBM System Storage Easy Tier® automatically manages the efficient usage of solid-state drives (SSDs) and increases application performance by promoting frequently-accessed data to SSDs.

The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified storage system builds upon the proven IBM Storwize V7000 storage system by including two file modules, which adds the following features and functions:

File replication and file-level snapshots for business continuity and disaster recovery.

Support for Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) file protocols in addition to the existing Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI block functions provided by the

Storwize V7000 system.


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Intuitive, easy-to-use GUI which tightly integrates management for block and file capabilities.

IBM Active Cloud Engine™ technology delivers automated storage efficiency capabilities

including user-definable policy-based file management.

Integrated IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client for simplified backup to Tivoli Storage Manager servers and support for other third-party NDMP backup clients.

The subsequent sections describe the IBM Storwize V7000 Unified hardware and concepts.

Storwize V7000 Unified overview

The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified system is the first IBM-developed midrange unified storage offering that presents both file and block interfaces from the same storage system. It is built on the proven Storwize

V7000 storage system and therefore all block storage features and functions are available.

Block hardware and concepts

A Storwize V7000 system is made up of 2U drive enclosures. One control enclosure with the option to

add up to nine expansion controllers is required for additional capacity. All enclosures have the option of 12-drive slots (as shown in Figure 1) or 24-drive slots (as shown in Figure 2).

Figure 1: Storwize V7000 12-disk enclosure

Figure 2: Storwize V7000 24-disk enclosure

Within the control enclosure are two node canisters, also known as an I/O group (which form an

active-active processing unit), act as the management point for the storage system and service all I/O to host systems.

Storwize V7000 can have between one to nine expansion enclosures, which are connected to the

control enclosure through redundant serial-attached SCSI (SAS) connections and form the system’s internal storage capacity. The control and expansion controllers support a wide range of drives:

2.5-inch drive support

146 GB, 300 GB 15,000 rpm SAS disk 300 GB, 450 GB, 600 GB 10,000 rpm SAS disk 200 GB, 300 GB, 400 GB enterprise-grade multilevel cell (E-MLC) SSD

1 TB 7,200 rpm nearline SAS disk


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3.5-inch drive support

2 TB, 3 TB 7,200 rpm nearline SAS disk

Drive types can be intermixed between enclosures. The maximum number of internal drives supported by the Storwize V7000 system is 240. Figure 3 shows a Storwize V7000 system with mixed enclosure and drive types.

Figure 3: Storwize V7000 system with 10 enclosures

In addition to managing internal storage, one major feature of the Storwize V7000 system is the ability

to manage storage provided by the external storage systems. The Storwize V7000 system acts as the virtualization layer between the host and external storage system. Up to 32 PB of external storage can be managed by a single Storwize V7000 system, and as the storage is virtualized, volumes can

be non-disruptively moved between external and internal storage capacity. Figure 4 shows a representation of this technology.


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Figure 4: IBM Storwize V7000 virtualizing external and internal storage

Storwize V7000 Unified for SRM

Storwize V7000 Unified offers a fully array of VMware integration options including an SRA for vSphere

VM protection between two Storwize V7000 block sites. Testing for this paper was focused on Storwize V7000 Unified and SONAS file-based vSphere

deployment for use with vSphere replication. As vSphere snaps into vSphere at the datastore level, it can also be used with existing Storwize V7000 block deployments or other VMware certified storage for protection by SONAS or Storwize V7000 files.

File hardware and concepts

A Storwize V7000 Unified system is made up of a Storwize V7000 storage system and two Storwize V7000 file modules. The Storwize V7000 storage system provides block storage volumes to hosts

and is also used by the Storwize V7000 file modules, which in turn provides file storage to hosts. Because of this architecture, the Storwize V7000 Unified provides the proven block storage capabilities of the Storwize V7000 system, including all features and functions mentioned in the

“Block hardware and concepts” section, but also adds file storage capabilities.

The Storwize V7000 Unified file modules are built upon the IBM System x®3650 M3 server running the IBM NAS stack developed originally for SONAS, and include the following specifications:

Processor – Single six core Intel® Xeon® X5650, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB L2 cache, 80W

Memory – 72 GB DDR3 RAM


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Storage – Two 500 GB 10K SAS disk drives

Network interfaces:

− Four 1 GbE ports, two for host access and two for management

− Two 10 GbE ports for host access

Host bus adapter (HBA) – Two 8 Gbps FC ports for disk access only

The minimum footprint of a Storwize V7000 Unified system is 6U. Figure 5 shows the minimum Storwize 7000 Unified configuration consisting of the two file modules and the Storwize V7000 control enclosure.

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V7000 Uni

Figure 5: Minimum footprint of a Storwize V7000 Unified system

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V7000 Unified

The Storwize V7000 Unified file modules run a common IBM network-attached storage (NAS) software stack which originates from the IBM SONAS product.

IBM SONAS

The IBM SONAS provides extreme scale out capability, a globally clustered NAS file system build upon

IBM General Parallel File System (IBMGPFS™). The global namespace is maintained across the cluster of multiple storage pods and multiple interface nodes. All interface nodes and all storage nodes share equally in the cluster to balance workloads dynamically and provide parallel performance to all users and

storage, while also assuring high availability (HA) and automated failover.

The IBM SONAS is a scalable virtual file storage platform that grows as data grows. It meets demanding

performance requirements as new processors can be added independently or as storage capacity is added, eliminating a choke point found in traditional scale-up systems. SONAS is designed for high-availability 24x7 environments with a clustered architecture that is inherently available and, when

combined with the global namespace, allows for much higher utilization rates than found in scale-up environments.

The IBM SONAS storage system offers the following features:

Provides extreme scalability to accommodate capacity growth for up to 21 petabytes


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Manages multiple petabytes of storage and billions of files in a single file system

Provides excellent performance for a single file system

Enables ubiquitous access to files from across the globe quickly and cost effectively with IBM Active Cloud Engine

Achieves operational efficiency with automated, policy-driven tiered storage

Lowers TCO by up to 40 percent with automated lifecycle management and migration to tape

Satisfies bandwidth hungry applications with scale-out performance

Supports both random access and streaming workloads

Enables disaster recovery and business continuity with asynchronous replication

Allows file set snapshots and file cloning for increased availability

Offers ease of use and manageability

Overview of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager with IBM SONAS

The SONAS advanced architecture virtualizes and consolidates hundreds to thousands of spinning disks into an enterprise-wide file system, and can scale I/O and capacity dynamically as storage nodes are

added. SONAS scales up to 21 petabytes of storage managed in a single pane of glass. SONAS storage can be provisioned as a single datastore or hundreds as needed. No consideration needs to be given to SCSI reservation issues when choosing SONAS NFS datastore sizes resulting in larger datastores for

improved manageability. SONAS GPFS performance improves as disks are added to GPFS pools and storage and infrastructure nodes scale out the deployment. IBM SONAS translates into reduced total cost of administration, reduced capital expenditure, and enhanced operational efficiency, making it an

excellent choice for DR sties protecting multiple data centers with VMware Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication.

Common NAS features of Storwize V7000 Unified and SONAS

Data can be accessed using a variety of protocols, including: CIFS, NFS, FTP, HTTPS, and SCP. Internally, the NAS uses the IBM GPFS to store data.

GPFS is an IBM developed file system that has been in development since 1995 and is highly scalable

while providing the simplicity of a single flat file system. The GPFS spans multiple physical disks, also known as Network Shared Disks (NSDs).

Inherited in GPFS is the ability to perform policy-based snapshots of the file system. There can be a maximum of 256 snapshots per file system. Thirty-two snapshots are reserved for services such as Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP), which leaves 224 snapshots for customer use. Snapshots

can be named and scheduled, and policies can be defined, which control retention of snapshots. Figure 6 shows a screen capture of the snapshot rules from the GUI.


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Figure 6: Examples of snapshot rules from the NAS GUI

IBM NAS also includes the IBM Active Cloud Engine, which is a policy-driven engine that helps improve

storage efficiency by automatically:

Placing files when they are created on the appropriate storage.

Moving files during their life to the right tier of storage, including tapes in an IBM Tivoli

Storage Manager hierarchy.

Deleting expired or unwanted files.

Identifying files for backup or replication to a DR location.

IBM Active Cloud Engine is designed for high performance and can scan a large number of files very rapidly. Figure 7 shows an example of the IBM Active Cloud Engine, migrating a file between different tiers of storage based on time policies.


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Figure 7: Example of IBM Active Cloud Engine file migration

The system also has the ability to asynchronous replicate one or more file systems through file-based replication to a secondary site. Replication is performed by the rsync tool which efficiently replicates only the changed portions of files to the destination, and uses Secure Shell (SSH) to provide an encryption

mechanism to replicated data.

The well-received management GUI was updated to include the management of file objects, which means customers use a unified management GUI to administer both block and file storage, as shown in

Figure 8.

Figure 8: IBM Storwize V7000 Unified user interface


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VMware overview

VMware is one of the largest providers of virtualization and cloud solutions with solutions ranging from application and desktop PC virtualization to enterprise clouds with up to 10,000 servers linked per vSphere environment.

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

VMware ESXi 5.0 is installed directly on the hardware and does not require any operating system. It is a virtualization platform used to create the virtual machines (VMs) as a set of configuration and disk files that together perform all the functions of a physical machine. Through ESX, you can run virtual machines,

install operating systems, run applications, and configure virtual machines. Configuration includes identifying virtual machine resources, such as storage devices.

Each ESX host has a vSphere Client available for management use. If the ESX host is registered with the

vCenter Server, a vSphere Client that accommodates the vCenter Server features is available. An ESX system has the following key components:

Virtualization layer - This layer provides the idealized hardware environment and

virtualization of underlying physical resources to the virtual machines. This layer includes the virtual machine monitor (VMM), which is responsible for virtualization, and the VMkernel. The VMkernel manages most of the physical resources on the hardware,

including memory, physical processors, storage, and networking controllers. The virtualization layer schedules the virtual machine operating systems and, if you are running an ESX host, the service console. The virtualization layer manages the access to

physical resources by operating systems. The VMkernel must have its own drivers to provide access to the physical devices.

Hardware interface components - The virtual machine communicates with hardware,

such as processors or disk by using the hardware interface components. These components include device drivers, which enable hardware-specific service delivery while hiding hardware differences from other parts of the system.

User interface - Administrators can view and manage ESX hosts and virtual machines in several ways. A VMware vSphere Client can connect directly to the ESX host. This setup is appropriate if your environment has only one host. A vSphere Client can also connect

to the vCenter Server and interact with all ESX hosts that the vCenter Server manages.

Figure 9 shows how the components interact. The ESX host has four virtual machines configured. Each virtual machine runs its own guest operating system and applications. Administrators monitor the host

and the virtual machines in the following ways:

Using a vSphere Client to connect to an ESX host directly. Using a vSphere Client to connect to a vCenter Server. The vCenter Server can manage

a number of ESX hosts.


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Figure 9: VMware components interacting

VMware vCenter Server

VMware vCenter Server is a service that acts as a central administration point for ESX hosts connected to a network, their virtual machines, and connected resources. Multiple vCenter Server systems can be

joined to a Linked Mode group allowing logon to any single instance of vCenter Server to view and manage the inventories of all linked vCenter servers. vCenter Linked Mode supports up to 10,000 live virtual machines.

With vCenter, an administrator can manage components of a virtual infrastructure: ESX servers, VMs, and extended functions such as Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), VMware vMotion, datastores, virtual switches, and virtual machines.

vCenter requires a database to store its information. You can find a list of supported databases in the “Database” section.

To connect to the vCenter service, the VMware vSphere Client is used.


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VMware vSphere Client

The vSphere Client software can be installed on a Microsoft® Windows® host and is the primary method of interacting with VMware vSphere. The vSphere Client acts as a console to operate virtual machines

and as an administration interface to the vCenter Server systems and ESX hosts. You can download the vSphere Client from the vCenter Server system and ESX hosts.

When using SRM, a SRM plug-in for the vSphere Client is required. It can be installed with the SRM

service itself.

vCenter Site Recovery Manager

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager is a business continuity and disaster recovery solution that helps you plan, test, and run a scheduled migration or emergency failover of data center services from

one site to another.

SRM is an extension to VMware vCenter that enables integration with vSphere host-based replication for management of virtual machine replication, testing disaster recovery preparedness, and migrating

workloads from one vCenter to another. SRM servers coordinate the replication operations with vCenter servers at multiple sites so that when virtual machines at a protected site become unavailable, virtual machines at the recovery site can be started using the data replicated from the protected site. Transfer of

services from one site to the other is controlled by a recovery plan that specifies allocation of vSphere resources and the order in which virtual machines are shut down and started up. SRM recovery plan testing dynamically mounts storage for non-persistent disk writes and starts VMs with no virtual network

connectivity so that testing can occur without disruption of live operations or replication integrity.

Figure 10 shows the Site Recovery Manager host-based architecture.

Protected and recovery sites

In a typical SRM installation, the protected site provides business-critical data center services, and the

recovery site provides an alternative facility to which these services can be migrated. The protected site can be any site where virtual infrastructure supports a critical business need. The recovery site can be located thousands of miles away, or the same campus. In the typical case, the recovery site is located in

a facility that is unlikely to be affected by any environmental, infrastructural, or other disturbances that affect the protected site. SRM has several requirements for the vSphere configurations at each site:

Each site must include at least one vSphere data center.

The recovery site must have hardware and network resources that can support the same virtual machines and workloads to be recovered or migrated.

The protected and recovery sites must be connected by a reliable IP network with

sufficient bandwidth for the scheduled replication. The recovery site must have access to the same public and private networks as the

protected site, though not necessarily the same range of network addresses.


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Figure 10: Site Recovery Manager host-based architecture

Host-based replication

vSphere Replication (VR) is conducted by vSphere Replication Management Server (VRMS) virtual

machines at both protected and recovery sites. The VRMS relies on a vSphere Replication Agent (VRA), which is dynamically deployed in virtual machines and a vSphere Replication Server (VRS), which is deployed at the recovery site.

Database

Both vCenter and SRM require a database for storing information. Numerous popular versions of IBM DB2®, Microsoft SQL, and Oracle are supported. Consult the VMware product interoperability matrix (at

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php?) to confirm that your preferred

database is supported.

VMware vCenter Server requires its own database to store data. SRM server stores recovery plans, inventory information, and other associated data in another database, and VRMS also requires its own

database.

Before installing the vCenter and SRM server, vCenter and the SRM database must be configured.

The SRM database at each site holds information about virtual machine configurations, protection groups,

and recovery plans. SRM is unable to share the vCenter database as it uses an alternative database schema, though you may use the vCenter database server to create and support the SRM database and VRMS database instances.

For testing purposes, SQL Server 2008 was used to host each site’s required databases.


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Installation of SRM and vSphere Replication components

Two full vSpehre vCenter deployments are required for starting an SRM deployment. For more information refer to the following IBM and VMware documentation on setup:

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified: A feature-rich environment for VMware vSphere 5.0

ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/5cb5ed706d254a8186256c71006d2e0a/8f6584379d62c9728525797d005efc6f/$FILE/IBM%20V7000%20Unified_vSphere5_v7.pdf

IBM SONAS and VMware vSphere 5 scale-out cloud foundation ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sto_wp_ibm_sonas_vmware_vsphere_cloud

vSphere Installation and Setup

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-

vcenter-server-50-installation-setup-guide.pdf

Database preparation

Before SRM installation can begin, an SRM database must be configured at each site. The VRS

database must also be configured at this time. SQL 2008 on Windows 2008 with SQL authentication was used for testing.

For details, refer to the following guide : Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf Refer to page 28 for the topic, Configuring the SRM Database.

Refer to page 29 for the topic, Configure the VRM Database.

SRM Server installation on vCenter Server

Before SRM installation begins, a DSN for the local SRM database is created on both the vCenter servers.

The SRM installation executable is run on both the vCenter servers. A fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for both the sites is required for installation. It is important that the DNS name for each site be available at both the sites and that the corresponding IP reverse lookup record resolves to the FQDN.

After installation, the SRM plug-in is available in vCenter and this need to be downloaded and installed in the vCenter Client, which will be used in managing the SRM operations.


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Figure 11: vCenter Plug-In Manager

After downloading and installing the SRM plug-in, navigate to the vCenter Client home page and click Site Recovery. SRM then displays the Getting started page, as shown in Figure 10.


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Figure 12: SRM Getting Started page, displaying the next steps to deploy and test SRM.

Connect the sites

With SRM installed at both the sites, click Configure Connection, and populate the resulting dialogs with FQDNs and authentication information for SRM partner site. After completing this step, log on to the recovery site vCenter and repeat the steps for creating the reverse connection.

Note: It is useful to think of SRM protected and recovery sites. However, it is common for all sites to be protected or primary and recovery or secondary in different operations. In this testing, vctr100 is considered as the primary (protected) site and vctr200 as the recovery site unless otherwise noted.


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Figure 13: Connecting SRM connection


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Figure 14: FQDN for SRM remote vCenter


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Figure 15: Authenticating remote SRM vCenter


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Figure 16: SRM vCenter Server authentication


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Figure 17: Connection completed

After the connection has been completed at both the sites, inventory mappings must be set up for Resource, Folder, and Network.

Resource mappings

Resource mappings will generally be made on a cluster to cluster level.


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Figure 18: Resource mappings

Folder mappings

Figure 19: Folder mappings

Folder mappings are administratively useful for keeping track of the preferred protected site and recovery site vSphere folders. It is recommended that you use folder names that clearly indicate the

purpose of the VMs they contain when using SRM. The preferred protected and recovery site mappings will be dynamically populated by default in the GUI when creating jobs. It is easy to change these settings globally or on a job-by-job basis.


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Network mappings

Figure 20: Network mappings

Default network mappings are similar to folder mappings and are used to define the default network in the recovery data center to use based on the vSphere network used in the source data center. These names may map perfectly by name or may have very different names depending on the way vSphere

is administered in the two data centers.

Configuring vSphere Replication

After setting up SRM, a replication mechanism is required for SRM to be useful. In order to facilitate cross-storage replication, the test team used the vSphere host-based replication.

In the left pane of the Site-Recovery module, navigate to vSphere Replication. The Getting started page

(as shown in Figure 21) is displayed, identifying the steps to configure vSphere Replication. Once again the steps must be completed at both the sites.


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Figure 21: Getting started with configuring vSphere Replication

Deploy the VRM Server

Perform the following steps to deploy the VRM Server.

1. Click Deploy the VRM server on the Getting started page and then click Next. Then enter the appropriate data for the name, cluster, host, disk target, network, IP configuration fields that would be relevant to your environment.

2. Validate the appropriateness of data on the Ready to Complete page and click Finish.


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Figure 22: The Ready to Complete page displaying the deployment settings

3. After receiving the Deployment Completed Successfully message, click Configure the VRM Server on the Getting Started page.

4. Log in with the root credentials provided during template deployment, and click Configuration

page on the Getting Started with vSphere Replication Management page.


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Figure 23: Getting started with vSphere Replication Management (VRM)

5. Populate the configuration tab with IP and authentication data for the VRMS database for the site

being configured. 6. Click Save and Restart Service.

The message stating that VRM service is stopped should change to started after DB attachment is complete.


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Figure 24: Configuration tab

Figure 25: VRM service running

Configure the VMRS connection

After the VRMS is deployed and configured at both the sites, connection between them is established.

Figure 26: VRMS connection succeeded


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Deploy a VR server

A VR server is required at every recovery site. As protected sites become recovery sites when re-protecting workloads, it is recommended that a VR virtual machine be deployed at both the sites to

support two-way SRM.

Click Deploy a VR Server and fill in the necessary information in the resulting dialogs to deploy the VM.

Registering a VR server with the VRM server

To register a VR server with the VRM server, click Register a VR Server and then click the VR server to

register, and confirm.

Figure 27: Confirming the registration

Configuring VM Replication

After the vCenter, SRM, VR, and VRM servers are properly set up at both the sites, virtual machine replication can be configured for a virtual machine by right-clicking its display name and clicking Replicate.


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Figure 28: Configuring replication


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Figure 29: Configuration of replication succeeded

Protecting workloads

After scheduling replication, replication progress can be verified by opening the SRM plug-in and clicking

vSphere Replication in the left pane. Workloads being replicated for the first time, displays the status as Initial Full Sync along with progress indicator (in percentage) during first replication. When the replication is completed, the status changes to Success.


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Figure 30: vSphere replication shows VMs nat1 and Veeam have replicated successfully, srm100_2k8-1and 2 are still undergoing initial full disk synchronization.

Before testing can begin for a group of VMs, they must be placed in a protection group. A protection group is generally used to protect all the required VMs for a particular application or solution.

By separating VMs into multiple protection groups, VM migration or failover can be done on an application-by-application basis, allowing an SRM administrator to start the most critical business applications first during a disaster scenario.

Click Protection Groups in the left pane and then click Create a Protection Group in the All protection Groups pane.


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Select vSphere Replication (VR) and then click Next.

Figure 31: Selecting virtual machines for protection group

Note: A protection group can be created with synchronization pending, but VMs cannot be migrated or

recovered until the first synchronization is completed.


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Figure 32: Naming the protection group


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Figure 33: Ready to complete the protection group

As soon as the protection group is in place, a recovery plan can be created for testing, migration, or

disaster response.

To create your recovery plan, perform the following steps.

1. Click Recovery Plans in the left pane and then click Create Recovery Plan in the All Recovery

Plans pane.


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Figure 34: All Recovery Plans pane, with the Create Recovery Plane option


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Figure 35: Selecting the recovery site

2. Select the appropriate site for recovery and click Next.


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Figure 36: Selecting the recovery groups for recovery

3. Select the recovery groups to be included in the plan and click Next.


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Figure 37: Selecting the network to use at the recovery site

4. Select the appropriate recovery network and click Next.


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Figure 38: Naming the recovery plan

5. Enter an appropriate name for the recovery plan, clearly identifying its purpose. Use the optional

description field to include further description, if needed, and then click Next.


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Figure 39: Completing recovery plan creation

6. Review the recovery plan details and click Back if corrections are necessary or click Finish to

complete.


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Figure 40: Configure restore customization

Testing workloads

As soon as the recovery plan is in place and VM replication is complete, right-click the recovery plan in the Recovery Plans pane and click Test. Then click Next and wait until you see the Test Complete

message.


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Figure 41: Test execution on a recovery plan

Figure 42: Recovery plan test successful

The VMs should be running at the recovery site with non persistent writes and no network connectivity. It

might be necessary to click Refresh to update the recovery status to Success after the message Test Complete is reported. After validating the integrity of the VMs at the recovery site, click Cleanup, then Next, and then Start. SRM will shut down the VMs and resume protection of the VMs.


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Migrating workloads

After a successful test, you can confidently proceed with migrating a workload to the protected data center by right-clicking the recovery plan.

Figure 43: Selecting the Recovery option


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Figure 44: Recovery confirmation page

It is necessary to select the check box in the Recovery Confirmation section clicking Next. In the event of a disaster failover, select Disaster Recovery to fail over to the last complete replication. Retain the

Planned Migration option selected for failover to take place gracefully after completing one more data replication.


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Figure 45: Recovery review page

Reprotecting workloads

After workloads have been migrated, their recovery plan and protection groups must be re-created in-reverse. As earlier, a properly configured virtual replication server is required at the former protected site which will become the recovery site for the operation. Create a protection group and a recovery plan

containing the virtual machines to reprotect, test the plan, and migrate as before.

Scaling / Improving replication times

While testing for this paper, two vSphere 5.0 vCenter environments were deployed. A protected SRM environment was build hosting virtual machines on a Storwize V7000 Unified NFS share, and a vCenter and SRM environment for recovery was built hosting virtual machines on a SONAS NFS share. Both sites

had a single VRS to enable replication in either direction.

Deploy multiple VRS appliances and multiple vCenters

Assuming sufficient bandwidth exists between sites, deploying multiple virtual replication servers is the easiest way to improve throughput. The Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide (at:


46

https://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf) lists a limit of one VRMS and five VRS appliances per vCenter Server instance (refer to page 25, Table 1-8 in the guide). Use of multiple vCenter servers, each

with multiple VRS might be required to reach the replication capacity required for protecting large workloads.

Prepopulating virtual disks

VMware recommends prepopulating the recovery site virtual disks for a VM before configuring the VMs

replication to reduce the time required to protect a VM for the first time.

Popular strategies for prepopulation include:

Couriering backup media to recovery DC for restore

Mounting datastore across high bandwidth WAN, cloning VM in vCenter, and unregistering clone before configuring SRM replication

Using deduplicated backup tool across high bandwidth WAN to restore virtual disks at

recovery site before first SRM configured replication Using SONAS / Storwize V7000 Unified asynchronous replication of snapshot across

high bandwidth WAN

For more information about backup and asynchronous replication with IBM NAS, refer to the following websites:

IBM SONAS and VMware vSphere 5 scale-out cloud foundation, pg. 28 Backup and restore of VM images stored in SONAS ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sto_wp_ibm_sonas_vmware_vsphere_cloud

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified: A feature-rich environment for VMware vSphere 5.0, pg. 37

VMware vSphere / View backup ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sto_wp_sonas_storwize_v7000_unified_vmware_vsphere

DR solution for IBM SONAS hosted VMware virtual environment using Veeam

ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102052

IBM SONAS business continuity solution with SONAS asynchronous replication and VMware vSphere 4.1 ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sys_wp_sonas_asynchronous_replication_vmware_vsphere

Replicate Virtual Machine Using Physical Couriering pg 64 SRM Administrators Guide

https://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf


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Best practices

Always test your recovery plan before considering the plan to be in production.

Most recovery plans intended for production use must be customized to suit specific needs. For example, a recovery plan for an emergency at the protected site is likely to be different from a planned migration of

services from one site to another.

A recovery plan can be customized to run commands, display messages that require a response, and change the recovery priority of protected virtual machines. In the protection group, it is important to set

critical infrastructure virtual machines at high priority and make sure that they are recovered first. Also, consider inserting a message step into the recovery plan, after the step that recovers the high-priority virtual machines. This causes the execution of the recovery plan to be paused at this point. During a DR

test or true DR scenario, verify that the infrastructure services are available before the other servers with dependencies are recovered.

Always perform a realistic test. Do not depend on any infrastructure or services that will not be

available during a real DR scenario.

Some recovery plan steps are run during all recoveries, some are run only during test recoveries, and some are always skipped during test recoveries. Understanding these steps, their order, and the context

in which they run is important when customizing a recovery plan.


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Summary

This paper provides and overview of the steps required to implement a disaster recovery solution between IBM Storwize V7000 Unified and IBM SONAS using VMware SRM host-based replications and demonstrates that SRM helps to manage disaster recovery preparation and workload migration in

VMware vSphere clouds. The methodologies presented can be used to protect any VMware datastore with a Storwize V7000 Unified or SONAS based SRM deployment utilizing vSphere replication.


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Appendix A: Glossary

IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) - Build on IBM high-performance computing experience and based upon IBM GPFS, scale out network-attached storage (NAS)

solution provides the performance, clustered scalability, high availability, and functionality that are essential to meet strategic Petabyte Age and cloud-storage requirements.

VMware vSphere – Formerly developed as VMware Virtual Infrastructure, it is VMware’s first

cloud operating system that can manage large pools of virtualized computing infrastructure,

including software and hardware.

VMware ESXi - VMware ESXi is bare-metal embedded hypervisor, which runs directly on server

hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.


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Appendix B: Resources The following websites provide useful references to supplement the information contained in this paper:

IBM Systems on IBM PartnerWorld® ibm.com/partnerworld/systems

IBM Redbooks®

ibm.com/redbooks

IBM Publications Center www.elink.ibmlink.ibm.com/public/applications/publications/cgibin/pbi.cgi?CTY=US

IBM SONAS on PartnerWorld

ibm.com/partnerworld/systems/sonas

IBM SONAS documentation

IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Concepts ibm.com/redbooks/redpieces/abstracts/sg247874.html?Open

IBM SONAS Introduction and Planning Guide (GA32-0716):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_ipg.pdf IBM SONAS administration and user documentation:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/index.jsp IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Administrator's Guide (GA32-0713):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_admin_guide.pdf

IBM SONAS User's Guide (GA32-0714):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_user_guide.pdf

IBM SONAS Configuration Guide (GA32-0718):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/configuration_guide.pdf

IBM SONAS Troubleshooting Guide (GA32-0717):

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_pd_guide.pdf

VMware documentation

vSphere FAQ http://www.vmware.com/products/site-recovery-manager/faqs.html

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Documentation http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/srm_pubs.html

Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide https://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf


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vSphere PowerCLI Administration Guide

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/PowerCLI/PowerCLI41U1/doc/viwin_admg.pdf

VMware Virtual Networking Concepts http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf

About the author Benton Gallun is a Systems Architect in ISV Enablement Group for IBM NAS. He has 15 years of experience working with thin client, virtualization, and storage technologies. His focus is on server virtualization, Virtual Dekstop Infrastructure (VDI), and cloud solutions from ISVs which use the power of scale out NAS.

You can contact Benton at [email protected].


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