Testing disaster Recovery for EV 9.0.1

[Cdee]

Hi,

I am have an existing Archiving Environment with Symantec Enterprise Vault 9.0.1.
Which archives around 1000+ mailboxes hosted on Exchange 2003 and 2010.

We have a remote site which is our DR site and we have Server installed with Win 2K3 Ent and EV binaries installed.

Now we want to perform a DR test from Site A to Site B so that Users can Still Access the Archived E-mails from The DR site.

We are using Centra for Data replication from Site A to DR site B so the Data is already in place.

Now i am looking for the exact steps on how to go ahead on this and how can i achieve a perfect DR

Any inputs will be highly appreciated.

[MarkBarefoot]

Steps are in the Admin Guide

http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC2843

[Cdee]

I had checked the admin guide but it is not so helpful if you are referring me to look at "Failover in a building blocks Configuration" Part of the Admin Guide.

I am looking for a bit in depth steps on how to start from scratch, If anyone can provide me the same i would make my life more easy.

[MarkBarefoot]

Chapter 24 is where you want to look...

[Cdee]

Very much Thanks for pointing me to the correct Chapter.

But this chapter points me in a real disaster recovery scenario. Which makes me to perfrom a restore of EV data and SQL data.
Where in my case i have this all in the remote location.

For E.G.

SQL server : I have replication enabled for SQL so the SQl data is already present in the remote site.
EV data: I have Centera which takes care of data replication to remote site.

And once the testing of DR is done we would be pointing it back to local site, so i am looking for something which can guide bit more on step by step as i am not so comforatble in doing this as this is the first time we would be trying this out. I know i am asking for more but any help would be of great help.

[Cdee]

Will this make sense in what i am trying to acheive.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH55377

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

Well in the DR site have you got USL properly set up?

Normally what you would have is

EVSite (Alias) -> EVServer1 (Alias)
EVServer1 (Alias) -> myEVServer1.myDomain.com
EVServer2 (Alias) -> myEVServer2.myDomain.com
myEVServer3.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)
myEVServer4.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)

Then for the infrastructure you would have
1. SQL Log Shipping to another SQL Server in a remote site
2. Storage replicates to the same remote site (in this case a centera writing to a replica)
3. Index storage replicates to the remote site
4. The drive letters for where storage are should be mounted as a drive letter the same on both live and stand by EV Servers (so if its I:\Index\Index Location 1\ , it should be the same path on the other

In the event of a disaster what you would do is change the DNS to the following

EVSite (Alias) -> EVServer1 (Alias)
EVServer1 (Alias) -> myEVServer3.myDomain.com
EVServer2 (Alias) -> myEVServer4.myDomain.com

After this runs and you force through the DNS Sync straight away, you'd run the Update Service Locations procedure, EV Would then connect to each of the Alias names listed in the ComputerEntry table (which are the Aliases) and then make sure that the services and tasks exist on all of them.

Best practice would dictate in a DR scenario to keep your Vault Stores and Index locations in a read only mode, so that no data inconsistency occurs (otherwise you will have to find a way to replicate your sql, indexes and vault store data back to the original live site)

Then when the DR is over, you then change EVServer1 and EVServer2 DNS Aliases to go back to myEVserver1 and myEVServer2 and then run USL again.

[Cdee]

Man you rock this is exactly what i was looking for now this will surely make my life more easy. :) thanks once again.

[Cdee]

Just also wanted to know about CA and journaling.

We are planning for the same, if you can provide some inputs on that i would be great.

[JesusWept3]

ok so in all honesty with CA, i really have no idea, i don't think ive even seen the CA interface, and can barely spell CA :)

For journaling though it will work in this kind of environment, but the Centera and the SQL Servers need to have bi-directional replication, otherwise you are going to end up with the mismatch of data.

So for instance if you have your SQL mirrored, but your Centera bi-directional, when you switch back to your primary site, your centera will have data that your Vault Store databases do not have.

Also depending on how the Centera is set up, i've seen in most scenarios that when the primary node of the centera goes offline and it defaults to the replica, that it is treated as a read only store, meaning you can search and retrieve archived items from the centera, but you can't archive to it.

And this could be a big problem for you depending on how much you journal.
So for instance lets say you journal 100,000 items a day and facilities are down power tests or something destroys the power or communication to that datacenter, well if thats 4 days, you will then end up with a 400,000 message baclog.

So you would need to ensure that the replica centeras or what not have this bi-directional replication, so that you can write to the secondary centera, and when the primary comes back online, it then starts to write back to the primary centera.

Also you would need to do similar with the indexes, to be able to write back all the information that was written over that period back to its primary location as well (i'm sure there are plenty of sophisticated tools that can do this, but i'm lame and would use robocopy)

The same also needs to be for your SQL Servers, so i guess you need to plan for the odd day of the primary site being down, but an absolutely true disaster (i.e where the data center burns down) and then this becomes your primary site etc

 

[MarkBarefoot]

USL is the key element here, but in the OPS original posting he stated he wasn't looking for this. I personally think it's the easiest way to go, as long as you have the replication/data segments in place as you've summarised above.

[Cdee]

Thats truely a awsome answer and a good explanation and i agree 100% on it,

If you can provide me technote which will help me to explain people around me that would be like Cherry on the cake :D :D

[Cdee]

Now my DR servers are in remote location which are only installed with EV binaries i.e. only Enterprise Vault Admin service is shown up in the services. And it doesnt show up in the Enterprise Vault Admin Console as well.

So in that case how can i create the USL and point it to the configuration which is been replicated in the DR site (SQL, EV data, index)

Do i need to run the Enterprise Vault getting Started Configuration Wizard on the DR server.

As per your Example,
myEVServer3.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)
myEVServer4.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)

Both this machine only have EV binaries and are not listed in the EV admin console.

[Cdee]

Now my DR servers are in remote location which are only installed with EV binaries i.e. only Enterprise Vault Admin service is shown up in the services. And it doesnt show up in the Enterprise Vault Admin Console as well.

So in that case how can i create the USL and point it to the configuration which is been replicated in the DR site (SQL, EV data, index)

Do i need to run the Enterprise Vault getting Started Configuration Wizard on the DR server.

As per your Example,
myEVServer3.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)
myEVServer4.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)

Both this machine only have EV binaries and are not listed in the EV admin console.

[rmohite]

Did you get any resolution on this???

Regards,

Rohan.

[Cdee]

No Not yet waiting for the same.

[Cdee]

Now my DR servers are in remote location which are only installed with EV binaries i.e. only Enterprise Vault Admin service is shown up in the services. And it doesnt show up in the Enterprise Vault Admin Console as well.

So in that case how can i create the USL and point it to the configuration which is been replicated in the DR site (SQL, EV data, index)

Do i need to run the Enterprise Vault getting Started Configuration Wizard on the DR server.

As per your Example,
myEVServer3.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)
myEVServer4.myDomain.com (Stand by USL Machine)

Both this machine only have EV binaries and are not listed in the EV admin console.