1. VMware Site Recovery Manager on NetApp Storage

2. VMware Site Recovery Manager
Business Continuity
What is SRM?
A DR workflow automation product
What does SRM do?
Simplifies DR, lowers cost and risk
Integrates VI3 with storage replication
Makes DR protection a property of the virtual machine
Allows a preprogrammed DR response
SRM is a DR workflow automation product. It walks customers through DR setup, failover and test.
Throughout the various workflows, it does three specific things:
It tightly ties VM DR preparation and failover to the underlying array replications
It allows the customer to make per VM DR settings directly in VC.
DR becomes a property of the VM
Allows you to preprogram your disaster response.
SRM allows you to create infrastructure-wide DR automation. Instead of looking at things on an app by app basis like in clustering, it lets you do an orderly startup of the entire infrastructure through a process you configure in the VC UI

3. VMware Site Recovery Manager
Business Continuity
How does SRM work?
It is a plug-in for Virtual Center
Collects VMs in Protection Groups at primary site
Executes an orderly Recovery Plan at DR site
Protection Groups
Recovery Plan 1 4 2 5 3 6
SRM is a plug-in for the virtual center server. You collect virtual machines into protection groups at the primary site. At the recovery site you build recovery plans which recover the protection groups.
When the recovery plan is executed SRM brings up the virtual machines in an orderly fashion, as you specified in the plan.
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

4. VMware Site Recovery Manager
Business Continuity
It’s bidirectional
Sites can protect each other
Protection Group
Recovery Plan
Protection Group
Recovery Plan 1 1 2 2 3 3
SRM is bi-directional! This means that the two datacenters may protect systems for each other using the same ESX and NetApp hardware.
Protected / Recovery Site
Protected / Recovery Site

5. SRM on NetApp Technology
SRM is an elegant DR workflow solution.
It uniquely addresses RTO issues.
It utilizes underlying storage capabilities.
Core NetApp® technologies are perfect for SRM.
FlexClone
SRM is the first product in the industry to elegantly tackle the DR workflow problem allowing systems administrators to pre-program a response to a DR.
SRM specifically addresses issues around RTO which has been a point of frustration in just about every DR scenario. The storage itself may be recovered quickly but bringing up the servers that drive the business environment is a complex and time-consuming task. Processes can be thoroughly document and scripted but are still prone to human error. These issues are what make short RTO times difficult or impossible to achieve reliably without a product like SRM.
The SRM environment must make use of the capabilities provided by the underlying storage system.
Core technologies that NetApp has been developing for years that are a perfect fit for a SRM environment.
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

6. SRM on NetApp Technology
NetApp Snapshot™
Simplest snapshot model
Best disk utilization—no copy-out region
Fastest performance—no copy-on-write
Snapshot 2
NetApp has the simplest snapshot model in the industry. Maximized disk utilization, there is no copy-out region assigned specifically for snapshots. There is no copy-on-write that occurs when data is changed allowing for multiple snapshots to be kept without degrading performance.
Snapshot 1

7. SRM on NetApp Technology
NetApp Snapshot™
Simplest snapshot model
Best disk utilization—no copy-out region
Fastest performance—no copy-on-write
FlexClone
NetApp FlexClone®
Instant writable copies
Leverages Snapshot
Low storage overhead
Snapshot 2
NetApp FlexClone technology allows replicated data to be instantaneously made writeable and presented to the ESX hosts for storage. This enables very quick and space efficient DR testing with VMware SRM.
Snapshot 1

8. Example SRM on NetApp Environment

9. SnapMirror Replication
Efficient—replicates 4k blocks
Synchronous and asynchronous
Leverages Snapshot™ technology
SnapMirror provides the method of replicating data for a DR solution in a NetApp environment. It is extremely efficient - replicating only the 4KB blocks that have been changed or added since the previous update.
Snapmirror supports both synchronous and asynchronous modes of replication.
Snapmirror takes advantage of Snapshot technology to compare the source and destination storage to stay in sync. After the initial baseline is complete snapmirror transfers only the 4kb blocks that have changes since the last update.
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

10. SnapMirror Replication
Efficient—replicates 4k blocks
Synchronous and asynchronous
Leverages Snapshot™ technology
When a disaster occurs the replication destination is made writeable and new data is written there.
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

11. SnapMirror Replication
Efficient—replicates 4k blocks
Synchronous and asynchronous
Leverages Snapshot™ technology
Reversible for resynching
If the storage at the primary site remained intact through the outage then Snapmirror is easily reversible for re-syncing if primary storage is intact after a disaster. Only the 4k blocks that were changed or newly written at the DR site will need to be replicated back.
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

12. SnapMirror and Deduplication
FAS deduplication on primary storage
Data Deduplication
After
Dedupe
Additional efficiency is gained when SnapMirror can be combined with FAS Deduplication. This can result in significant telecommunication savings as well as storage capacity savings at the DR and Primary sites.
Data has been written to the primary site and deduplicated. Only the dedup’ed amount of data is transferred via snapmirror to the DR site.
SnapMirror®
Before Dedupe
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site) 12 12

13. SnapMirror and Deduplication
FAS deduplication on primary storage
Only unique data is replicated to the DR site
Data Deduplication
New Data Written
After
Dedupe
Additional data is written, some of this is new data and some may be duplicate of data that already exists in the flexvol.
Deduplication occurs again before the next snapmirror transfer, only the unique data needs to be transferred to the DR site.
SnapMirror®
Before Dedupe
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site) 13 13

14. Vmware Requirements Installed at BOTH Protected and Recovery Sites*:
ESX Server 3.0.2, ESX 3.5 or ESXi 3.5
VirtualCenter 2.5 and Virtual Infrastructure Client
Site Recovery Manager 1.0
NetApp Site Recovery Adapter 1.0
Perl 5.8
(by default Perl is included in the SRM distribution)
* This information is current as of Sept 2008, please check latest documentation for up-to-date support

15. NetApp Requirements Installed at BOTH Protected and Recovery Sites*:
FAS 2000, FAS 3000, or FAS 6000 Series Storage platforms
DATA ONTAP or above
NetApp APIs use simple HTTP by default.
To use secure HTTPS, you must set up SecureAdmin and ensure that ssl/ssh is running.
Because SOAP/HTTP/SSL is used, you must configure the firewall (if any) between Data ONTAP and Site Recovery Manager to keep the corresponding port open
* This information is current as of Sept 2008, please check latest documentation for up-to-date support

16. NetApp License Requirements
NetApp licenses required on Protected and Recovery Storage:
SnapMirror
iSCSI and/or FCP
FlexClone
(required for creating flex clone volumes for Recovery Test)

17. Supported Replication Products
The following NetApp data replication products are supported with SRM on NetApp
Volume SnapMirror (async & sync)
Qtree SnapMirror
The following is not supported
SnapVault
MetroCluster

18. Supported Configurations
The following configurations are supported
NetApp FCP protocol
NetApp iSCSI protocol
NetApp FlexVol Volumes
The following configurations are not supported*
NFS protocol
Traditional Volumes
(FlexClone technology is not available with traditional volumes)
* This information is current as of Sept 2008, please check latest documentation for up-to-date support

19. Configuration Guidelines
FlexVol Volumes should be replicated to only one destination
LUNs having multiple replication destinations cannot be failed over
NetApp SnapMirror replicates data at the volume or qtree level
Only VMs to be replicated should be contained in replicated volumes
Guest attached storage
software iSCSI inside Guest, SRM does not recover this storage
Applications running inside VMs are not application consistent

20. Configuring the NetApp SRA
With sites already
paired and connected

21. Configuring the NetApp SRA

22. Configuring the NetApp SRA

23. Configuring the NetApp SRA

24. Configuring the NetApp SRA

25. Configuring the NetApp SRA

26. SRM on NetApp DR Testing
SRM Recovery Plan testing
If ever there were products made for each other it is VMware’s SRM and NetApp’s Snapmirror with FlexClone. The power and simplicity this combination brings to an SRM environment can really be seen in SRM’s DR testing function.
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

27. SRM on NetApp DR Testing
SRM Recovery Plan testing
FlexClone® volumes instantly created using very little space
FlexClone
When an SRM Recovery Plan is tested NetApp FlexClones are instantly created to present the datastores to the ESX servers. There are no pre-allocated containers or physical disks set aside populated with a copy of data. FlexClones share common data blocks with their parent FlexVols but behave as independent volumes, they are created as SRM needs them, and removed when the testing is finished. FlexClones require only a small percentage of additional capacity (only enough for a pointer which references the parent FlexVol) and for any new data written into the FlexClone during testing.
A test bubble network is created and the VMs booted. Testing of the DR environment may begin.
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

28. SRM on NetApp DR Testing
Test Bubble
Network
SRM Recovery Plan testing
FlexClone® volumes instantly created using very little space
FlexClone
Test Bubble created and VMs booted
Because the test is running on FlexClones instead of the original volumes, testing can be performed while SnapMirror replication is still occurring to the parent FlexVol in the background. This allows DR testing to be performed without impacting the existing replication processes.
When Testing is completed the FlexClones are removed.
NetApp FlexClone technology allows SRM DR testing to be so easy and efficient that the DR testing environment can be created at any time, used to test the functionality of the DR plan itself, or any other changes in the Primary environment that might affect DR.
SnapMirror® replication continues while testing
SnapMirror®
Transfers
Continue
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)
Instant cleanup

29. SRM on NetApp Automated Disaster Recovery
Primary site being replicated to DR
A representation of a simple SRM on NetApp environment. Virtual machines are running at the primary site with their flexvol volumes containing the configuration files and virtual disks and these are being are being replicated to the DR site via SnapMirror.
Note the VMs at the DR site are placeholders, this is a SRM concept, and the volumes at the DR site are in a read/only state as they are being snapmirrored.
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

30. SRM on NetApp Automated Disaster Recovery
Primary site being replicated to DR
A disaster occurs
SRM Recovery Plan is executed
When a disaster occurs and the SRM recovery plan is run the SnapMirror replication is stopped and the volumes at the DR site are made writeable. the placeholder virtual machines are activated using the configuration files and virtual disks that were replicated from the primary site.
SRM will apply any reconfiguration as designed in the recovery plan (for IP address changes etc…) and boot the virtual machines according the the order established in the recovery plan.
SnapMirror® stopped and storage presented
SnapMirror®
Virtual machines started
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

31. Failback – Reversing SnapMirror
If Primary storage recovered
SnapMirror “resync” in reverse direction
Only delta of data transferred
SnapMirror “update” during failback outage
If Primary storage lost
Snapmirror “initialize” in reverse direction
All lost data transferred
See TR-3671: VMware Site Recovery Manager in a NetApp Environment

32. SRM on NetApp Flexibility & Scalability
Data ONTAP® through whole storage product line
FCP
FCP
FAS3000
FAS3000
One very flexible feature of SRM is its ability to be used to protect only certain parts of an environment if all the systems are not required during a DR event. The primary site may have a large number of virtual machines to maintain production, but in a DR scenario only a few systems my need to be recovered for core operational functionality. A key enabler of simple DR in a VMware environment is that fact that the two sites can run dissimilar hardware, eliminating complexity with maintaining drivers and supporting different hardware platforms, and allowing the recovery site to run more cost effective systems.
FC Storage
FC Storage
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

33. SRM on NetApp Flexibility & Scalability
Data ONTAP® through whole storage product line
Dissimilar hardware between sites
FCP
FCP
FAS6000
FAS3000
FAS3000
NetApp enables similar strategies. NetApp storage products run one operating system called Data ONTAP through the whole storage product line. This means that from the low-end FAS2000 to the high-end FAS6000 there is one operating system to learn to manage and support, the same method of data replication is supported, and the same monitoring/reporting methods. Other solutions may require you to learn a different management paradigm if you run a high-end product at one site and a low-end product at the other. If you know how to configure and manage SRM on NetApp in a DataCenter-to-DataCenter sized protection scenario, then you know how to configure and manage SRM on NetApp to protect smaller environments as well.
NetApp technology allows the primary site to deploy a high-end platform while the DR site has a lower-end platform.
FC Storage
FC Storage
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

34. SRM on NetApp Flexibility & Scalability
Data ONTAP® through whole storage product line
Dissimilar hardware between sites
FCP
iSCSI
FCP
FAS6000
True unified storage allows mix of FCP/iSCSI protocols
FAS3000
A true unified storage architecture allows for differing storage protocols to be deployed at the sites without any difference in LUN management processes. The primary site may run on FCP while the DR site is implemented on iSCSI.
FC Storage
FC Storage
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

35. SRM on NetApp Flexibility & Scalability
Data ONTAP® through whole storage product line
Dissimilar hardware between sites
FCP
iSCSI
FCP
FAS6000
True unified storage allows mix of FCP/iSCSI protocols
FAS3000
FAS3000
Virtualized storage allows mixing of FC or SATA or SAS storage between sites.
FC Storage
FC Storage
SATA Storage
True virtualized storage allows mix of FC/SATA/SAS storage
SnapMirror®
Protected Site
(Primary Site)
Recovery Site
(DR Site)

36. Troubleshooting – Common Problems
Any issue with the Configure Array Manager
Verify the IP, username and password provided for the NetApp array is correct
If Array Manager does not recognize replicated LUNs
Verify SnapMirror relationship exists between the Protection and Recovery Filer and that the volume replicated contains LUN
During DR test no replicated datastore found
Verify Recovery storage has igroup type of vmware that contains ESX initiators
Verify replicated LUNs are not already mapped to igroup, SRM must map them

37. Common Problems, contd. General NetApp issues
Verify SnapMirror, FCP, iSCSI and FlexClone products are licensed
Verify igroup types are created with ostype vmware
Verify igroups contain ESX initiators
Verify FCP, iSCSI, and SnapMirror service is running at Recovery site
Any issue with SRM Test Failover
Check if flexclone is licensed on the Recovery filer or not
Verify that no non-replicated datastores exist on the recovery filer with the same names as the recovery datastore
Remember, only FlexVol Volumes support this feature

38. NetApp Replication Management
NetApp Protection Manager Software
Monitors and manages SnapMirror®
Simple console eliminates status ambiguity
Gives holistic view of the environment
Reports unprotected data at risk
The NetApp unified storage model allows us to build software solutions for monitoring and managing the storage replication environment from end to end.
NetApp Protection manager software manages all forms of NetApp replication in the enterprise. It provides a simple, at-a-glance, console that give a holistic view of the state of protected data in the whole environment. It also reports any data which is un-protected and at risk.

39. SnapManager® for Virtual Infrastructure
VMware®
Admin
VM1
VM2
VM3
VM4
Automation
Backup
Recovery
Replication DR
Goal of this slide: More detail on the new product SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure.
Points:
The storage admin sets the policies for others, and is now freed from having to perform many of the functions usually requested by the server/virtual server admin organization.
Better yet, the virtual server admins can now perform their own backups, recovery, replication, and DR at will, as long as it is within the context of the set policy.
Policies
Storage Pool
Policies
Storage
Admin 39

40. Support from VMware & NetApp VET
Joint Virtualization Escalation Team (VET)
A 24×7 direct contact path between VMware and NetApp
Direct communication between support personnel
Cooperative process resolves issues efficiently
To provide customer support for VMware SRM on NetApp issues VMware and NetApp have formed a Joint Virtualization Escalation Team.
This allows for a direct 24X7 contact path where support personnel can communicate directly with each other.
This cooperative process eliminates finger pointing and allows issues to be resolved quickly and efficiently.

41. SRM on NetApp Technical Report
TR-3671: VMware Site Recovery Manager in a NetApp Environment
A detailed discussion of SRM on NetApp® implementation
Available at:
NetApp has authored a detailed technical report documenting a SRM on NetApp environment. The document contains configuration and best practices information a well as provides advice on separating transient data in a storage replication environment.
The TR is currently available at the link shown.

42. Thank You
© 2008 NetApp. All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice. NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, FlexClone, SnapMirror, and Snapshot are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.