07-26-2015 07:00 AM
Dear Experts,
Need some expert opinion on design recommendations.
Planning to have Enterprise Vault in clustering configuration with VCS locally with two nodes, one physical node and one virtual node on a Hyper-v guest AND global failover with GCO to a physical server without local failover at remote site.
The OS is Windows 2008 R2 or 2012 R2.
Storage is HDS HUSVM.
Kindlty let me know if this is working solution.
Solved! Go to Solution.
07-27-2015 02:05 AM
Hello
07-26-2015 07:45 AM
07-26-2015 08:30 AM
personally, i dont care for hyper-v but pretty sure it's supported. what are your concerns?
07-26-2015 10:29 AM
I was expecting a mixed response on this. My concern was your expert opinion if this should be a workable solution, Also failing over to a virtual machine from a standalone machine, if there are any caveats , if I should be concerned about anthing after the failback has occured.
Also after we fail back to remote site with GCO, I was wondering if turning off the archiving and only allowing the retrival would be a better approach so that a reverse resync wouldn't be neccessary.
07-26-2015 12:25 PM
Hi Rob,
Thanks for reply. Why do you think we shouldn't do it?
07-26-2015 02:45 PM
Changed the topic to SFHA Windows forums
07-26-2015 09:25 PM
Hi,
This shouldn't be a problem but you have to configure VFC on HyperV 2012 (Parent) for mapping the storage from the SAN. Both physical and virtual should be running DMP.
Regarding your other questions about turning or archiving when you're in remote site... If you've performed a swtich to the remote site, that is not a DR test, you would have experienced a site failure or something else that was quite significant. So your exchange should have failed over with the rest of your apps. Also, if something bad really happened you probably wont even be able to replicate back to the primary because it would have been lost.
So you really would not want to or need to disable archiving. Depends on what happened.
07-26-2015 11:46 PM
Excellent points Riaan..
Is there any feature like VFC in 2008 R2? The Hyperv servers are all 2008 R2
About DR test, you nailed it... We would be perofmring the DR drills every 6 months and I want to make sure that the fail back is smooth... what would you suggest for DR drill?
Also two more questions -
1. Shall we consider SQL replication(native) or VVR for the SQL server hosting the EV DBs. We would always want the stores/indexes and DBs to be in sync.
2. We are also planing to perform the initial seeding by backup restore ... after the restore is done, how can I sync the pairs? will it sync?
07-27-2015 02:05 AM
Hello
07-27-2015 03:36 AM
Thanks a lot Riaan,
Understood all the points but the resync using backup/restore is still confusing.
""""When using checkpoints, you take backup of the data on the Primary and physically ship the backup media to the Secondary location, and restore the backup on the Secondary. When you start the backup, mark the starting point, by using the checkstart operation on the Primary. When you end the backup, mark the ending point by using the checkend operation on the Primary. While the backup and restore are going on, updates are written to the Replicator Log volume. To bring the Secondary data up-to-date, restore the block-level backup. After the restore is complete, start replication to the Secondary with checkpoint using the same checkpoint name that you had specified for the checkstart operation on the Primary.
The Secondary can be brought up-to-date only if the updates are still present in the Replicator Log volume. Using checkpoints is a multi-step process and therefore, needs to be done very carefully.""""""
When will the replicator log will be played?
Also once the logs have been committed will the pair notify us about those logs being played?
07-27-2015 05:53 AM
Example—Synchronizing the Secondary using block-level backup
This example explains how to synchronize the Secondary RVG hr_rvg
on the Secondary host london
with the Primary RVG on host seattle
using block-level backup and checkpoint.
seattle
:
Once you start the replication using the last command it will only replicate what was written since the start of the backup. It will then only have a small amount ot catch up on. Once it catches up its in sync.
07-27-2015 06:20 AM
Hi SymGuy-IT,
Phyical to Virtual GCO clusters are fully supported. We don't limit the use of Physical and Virtual servers with the Window's SFW/SFW-HA products.
Thank you,
Wally
07-27-2015 06:40 AM
Thanks Wally for the confirmation.
Thanks Riaan for the time.
07-27-2015 07:07 AM
An update which I got from support ...
Kindly note: Such a configuration, may be possible, however it is not supported if any problems arise. Symantec recommends that the Operating System, architecture are exactly the same on both nodes, for the application to run seamlessly. If this is configured, it may work. However, we will not be able to troubleshoot and support any problems which may arise due to such a configuration.
The query will remain same in case of Microsoft clusters.
Recommended : To use either both physical nodes OR both virtual nodes.
They are saying they dont support it .... :) ???
Guys any ideas on this?
07-27-2015 08:22 AM
One of the major selling points for VCS is that it can do P/V configurations..... Product Management should comment on this as this is in direct conflict to what the sales presentations state.
07-27-2015 10:06 AM
The engineer called back and reconfirmed that it is supported :) Looks like h heard you ....
Still he is emphasizing on the fact that the failover can go wrong if the resources are not available on virtual node.
""""I confirmed with Backline escalation and the physical + virtual node is possible. The failover will work.
The only implication we may have is with performance, which would lie outside the scope of cluster. Performance issues may arise because of host machine resource allocations.
However this is a supported scenario.""""
07-27-2015 11:28 AM
Haha, glad support can hear me all the way from the desert.
Resource allocation must just be locked down from the hypervisor. Just ensure there is no sharing/pooling of resources. And get VFC up and running :)
07-27-2015 11:43 AM
Cool. Thanks Riaan again .