Enterprise Vault DR design

[vjose79]

We are working on a DR design for Enterprise Vault 10.

In the main site we have 2 node Active/passive EV 10 cluster (Windows 2008 R2).

My question is that is it possible to have a single EV server (not part of the cluster) in DR site and use this server for the building blocks failover?

Thanks!

[Jeff_Shotton]

Yes you can do this. There was originally an advisory to say that you should not use clustering and building blocks together, but AFAIK that was because it wasnt tested.

In fact, a common way to do a hardware move used to be a building blocks failover such as this. I've done physical cluster to virtual machine in this way a few times.

A question though - if you are using clustering then are you not already protected? (i.e isn't the passive node in the DR site). For building blocks to work effectively the storage needs to be available to all servers that may access it, which generally means UNC paths for all locations...not shared disks (although this is possible)

Regards,

Jeff

[ia01]

If you have a VMWare virtual Data Center it is much more easier to host EV in a ESXi Host HA Cluster. Saves you from configuring all EV stuffs on Windows Cluster. Works like a treat!

[MichelZ]

You could also replicate your EV storage to the DR site using our EVNearSync product, to be able to be "online" even when your primary archiving storage fails.

[vjose79]

Thanks Jeff.

The customer does not have option to do a geocluster. Both the nodes of the cluster are in the main site therefore the DR site need to have a separate EV server. This is the reason I wanted to know if the EV Server at the DR site can be a server which is part of the same EV Site but not member of cluster.

All data will be replicated to the DR site using either SAN replication or thirdparty software replication.

[AndrewB]

vjose79, remember that you'll need your vault stores, sql databases (dont forget sql server), and indexes for the building blocks to work. sounds like you already have a couple options for replication but let me share this with you since this is something we recently did.

we designed a solution with similar requirements and are using Storage Foundation and Veritas Clustering for the HA and DR pieces. a very solid option if you haven't considered it.

[Jeff_Shotton · Accepted solution]

Yes you will be fine. When you re-point the DNS alias to the stand-alone machine and run update service locations, Enterprise vault doesn't care if the new box is clustered or not - it doesn't track this in the database - just that the name resolves to an EV server. Services are then created on the new host if necessary and the entries re-linked in the database to the new host.

As others have pointed out, you will need to make sure that the data (primarily vault store partitions and index locations) is available and up-to-date.  If it isn't you will get a LOT of error messages. Storage failing to start etc etc. I've seen both solutions mentioned working and both are good choices.

You can read more about building blocks here : http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO37984

and here : http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO57728

Additionally, If you are using SSL, you might need wildcard certificates in the event you are going to co-host servers.

Regards,

Jeff