VCS GCO cluster Of EV

[Rizwan_Ahmed_1]

We want to create EV cluster using VCS GCO with one node at each site.

Can we use SAN based replication to replicate the Vault store  and Indexes  data at the DR site in place of VVR or do we require VVR for this purpose. as directory and other databases already been clustered using MCS.

I will appriciate if some one can provide the details for SAN and VVR replication in  this scenario for EV.As we ant full automated Cluster .

Regards

Riz

[mikebounds]

Is this meant to be in the ApplicationHA Forum:

Symantec ApplicationHA provides monitoring capabilities for applications running inside virtual machines managed by a VMware vCenter Server.

Symantec ApplicationHA adds a layer of application awareness to the core HA functionality offered by VMware virtualization technology.

If you are clustering EV with Storage Foundation for Windows HA (SFWHA), then you can use any replication for which there is an agent for (got to https://sort.symantec.com/agents and select agent type of "Replication Agent".)

Mike

[Kimberley]

Moved to VCS forum. Thanks Mike for pointing that out.

Best,

Kimberley

[Wally_Heim · Accepted solution]

Hi Riz,

SFW-HA supports the following hardware based replication in a GCO configuration:

EMC - SRDF, SRDF/Star, and MirrorView

Hitachi - TrueCopy and HP XP Continous Access

IBM - Metro Mirror

The VCS for Windows product also supports NetApp SnapMirror technology in a GCO configuration.

Thanks,

Wally

[Rizwan_Ahmed_1]

Thanks Wally,

One more thing  can we configure GCO with single node at each site ??

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi Rizwan,

Yes you can configure a single node cluster in each site and link it with GCO. A 2to1 is obvioulsy a better solution but not required. If you experience hardware/application failure on the one node in your production site you would obviously like to continue running in that site and not failover to DR.

Also take into account that if you failover to DR, your exchange might still be running in the production site. Archving across sites might negatively impact the archive performance and over utilize the WAN link.

Are your SQL database clustered with MSCS also replicated to DR? The vaultstore databases are utilized a lot more than the directory database and they're updated regularly whilst archiving. When you failover EV to DR and the vaultstore databases remain online in production there will be additional traffic across the WAN links.

Just some points to consider before migrating EV to the DR site without Exchange and SQL migrating at the same time.

[mikebounds]

See post https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/global-cluster-option-two-single-node-cluster for GCO with single node at each site - may also want to look at https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/cluster-configuration-rdc-or-gco

As in my first reply - you can look at  https://sort.symantec.com/agents and select agent type of "Replication Agent (and platform Windows) to see replication agents (you can see here, that HP EVA CA  is also supported), however this is agents you can download and some agents you cannot download as they are included in the main SFW product, so you need to look at both this site and the VCS Products guide to get a full list of agents. Note if you are using IBM, then Metro Mirror is only supported on certain arrays (DS6K, DS8K & SVC I believe) as Metro Mirror is a generic IBM term for Async replication used on many different types of IBM hardware.  Where VCS IBM agents support Metro mirror, they mostly also support Global Mirror as for example for SVC, the commands to control replication for Metro and Global mirror are the same (this is essential the mode of replication - async or sync).

Mike

[Rizwan_Ahmed_1]

We want to use HP XP Continous Access

but on windows the supported replication agents shows it is supported for VCS one for windows 2008. from the supported agents link.

[mikebounds]

This is where SORT is very misleading.  I guess the VCS One agent for HTC is not including in product so can be downloaded from SORT, but HTC agent is included with VCS 5.1 (SFWHA) product so agent cannot be download here.  If you look at agent documentation for HTC for SFW HA 5.1 it says:

The agent supports Sun StorEdge 9900 and Hewlett-Packard XP arrays with

TrueCopy rebranded as Continuous Access. The agent supports all fence levels

on 9900 arrays and supports synchronous replication on the 9500 series.

The agent does not support other Hewlett-Packard replication solutions under

the Continuous Access umbrella such as Continuous Access Storage Appliance

(CASA); it only supports Continuous Access XP.

SORT is also misleading for Application agents too as you will see the MS SQL agent is not listed to be downloaded as it is bundled with product.

Mike