I am using EMC RecoverPoint 3.4 to replicate between 2 x CX4-960 Disk Arrays. We also have SRM 5.0.1 with the RecoverPoint SRA installed. In a Real DR invocation, SRM will be used to manage the failover of the virtual environment but we have some issues with a test scenario as per below:
We need to do DR Tests for prolonged periods of time e.g. 20 days. The DR tests for ESX must be managed by VMware SRM but due to the length of time of the testing, the RecoverPoint Journals with EMC's proposed configuration fill up before testing is anywhere near complete and thus we cannot use the 2 technologies together in this manner.
For our physical Windows and UNIX Servers we use SnapView Clone to make independent clones (not snaps) of the RecoverPoint Replicated LUNs. This means we can do DR tests for as long as we like without affecting RecoverPoints replication. We would like to do the same with SRM and our virtual environment. Unfortunately, it would appear that RecoverPoint SRA does not support SnapView Clones when it is used with VMware SRM.
Proposal 1:
- 1. To increase the RecoverPoint Journal sizes to something like 40% of the source LUN sizes and to increase the target side processing tunings on the RecoverPoint Journal.
This is also called "Proportion of journal allocated for image access log" in the RecoverPoint GUI. This means when RecoverPoint DR LUN is mounted (Using SRM snapshotting) at DR site the ESX Host can write into the target side processing area which is now larger and the testing can take place for a longer timeframe using SRM with only the Recover Point SRA installed.
Possible Issues:
- The increase in the journal sizes could cause a lag that might cause a possible for resynchronisation of the LUNs, which we couldn’t have.
- After the DR Test is complete RecoverPoint will have some work to roll the journals back into the DR LUN (constantly being replicated from production array). That is to catch-up on distribution of the RecoverPoint journal images.
Proposal 2:
- 2. Install both recoverpoint and VNX / Clarrion SRA onto the same SRM server
Pointing at the same Disk Array. This would allow the use of a single array as 2 separate arrays from an SRM perspective and create separate protection and recovery plans
The key here is that both the Snapview Clones (Full clones) and the RecoverPoint DR LUNs (SRM Snaphots) will co-exist on the same DR Array and I want SRM to be able to manage both of them for our virtual environment. If SRM could manage both RecoverPoint (SRM Snapshot) and SnapView Clones (Full Clones) on the same Disk Array, then there would be no need for large RecoverPoint Journals to allow for prolonged DR Testing.
Possible Issue:
- Can a single SRM Server connected to a single VCenter in each site have both SRM SRA’s for RecoverPoint and VNX/CLARiiON installed that are pointing to the Same Disk Array?
- Can SRM have 2 placeholder datastores containing the same protected Virtual Machine - 1 for a Real DR invocation and 1 for a test of DR using SRM test mode?
Would anyone have experience with this scenario or any comments regarding the proposed solution / possible issues?
(I’ve posted on both SRM community sites, as I didn’t know which would be the correct one)
