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AlexGosh
Contributor
Contributor

NAS protection

Hi,

we plan to use SRM replication to protect in VM level. Now we are looking for a solution to protect NFS datastore as well. does vmware provide such a solution for NAS or should we go with solution from different vendors like EMC?

thanks

Alex

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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the Community - A core requirement of SRM is the replication of the datastores from the production site to the recovery site so your NFS datastores will be protected from a DR scenario or are you referring an availability solution in the Production - if that is the case then yes you might need to look at solution from a storage vendor -

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VirtuallyMikeB

I'm not sure I'm reading your question right, but here goes.

It sounds like you're using vSphere Replication today to replicate at the VM-level using host-based replication.  That's awesome.

If you want to protect at the datastore level, NFS included, then you're looking at using array-based replication.  In this case, VMware has you covered as well with the full-blown vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) product.  With SRM, your storage vendor software is responsible for the actual replication and SRM provides the back-end scripting and automation, using a hook or plug-in to your storage array (written by your storage vendor), to orchestrate and manage site-to-site failover.

Cheers,

Mike

https://VirtuallyMikeBrown.com

https://twitter.com/VirtuallyMikeB

http://LinkedIn.com/in/michaelbbrown

----------------------------------------- Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you found it useful (you'll get points too). Mike Brown VMware, Cisco Data Center, and NetApp dude Sr. Systems Engineer michael.b.brown3@gmail.com Twitter: @VirtuallyMikeB Blog: http://VirtuallyMikeBrown.com LinkedIn: http://LinkedIn.com/in/michaelbbrown
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AlexGosh
Contributor
Contributor

thanks for info Mike,

we've already deployed vsphere replication in SRM, is it possible to have mixed environment with array based replication? the problem is NFS data store is shared folder inside quest OS and it's not vmdk file.

one more question, how about in situation when guest OS is using iSCSI initiator to bunch of LUNs. how vsphere replication handle these kind of scenarios?

thanks again

Alex

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TimOudin
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

AlexGosh wrote:

thanks for info Mike,

we've already deployed vsphere replication in SRM, is it possible to have mixed environment with array based replication? the problem is NFS data store is shared folder inside quest OS and it's not vmdk file.

one more question, how about in situation when guest OS is using iSCSI initiator to bunch of LUNs. how vsphere replication handle these kind of scenarios?

Alex,

Yes, it's definitely possible to have a mixed environment using both VR and array replication provided that the array vendor has released a SRA for SRM.  The shared folder from your NAS will not be replicated via VR.  The same holds true to in-guest iSCSI, that also cannot be replicated by VR.

If you're running both NAS and in-guest iSCSI you'll need to either replicate those independently or convert that data to VMDK files on a virtual machine.

Tim

Tim Oudin
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