Veritas Resiliency Platform 1.1: Using virtual business services
Any business service is typically made up of multiple components, databases, applications, and web servers. For a business service to work properly, all of its tiers and components must be up and working together. Tiers represent the logical dependencies between the resiliency groups and determine the relative order in which the resiliency groups start and stop. To ensure business continuity, make sure that not just the individual tiers are up and running but also the entire business service. For example, a payroll business service might include a web server, a database, and a payroll application. The payroll application requires the web server, application, and the database to be up and running to provide payroll service. Even if one component were down, the payroll service would be down. From a business perspective, the payroll service is unavailable without the web server and the database also being available. The logical dependencies between the parts of the business service determine the relative order in which they must start and stop to continue to provide the service. A virtual business service (VBS) is a multi-tier business service. In Veritas Resiliency Platform, a VBS lets you group multiple services as a single unit for visualization, automation, recovery, and controlled start and stop in the desired order. A VBS is composed of resiliency groups, the unit of management and control in Resiliency Platform. You organize related assets into a resiliency group and manage and monitor them as a single entity. Within a VBS, resiliency groups are arranged in tiers. Tiers represent the logical dependencies between the resiliency groups and determine the relative order in which the resiliency groups start and stop. For example, you can group a web server resiliency group, a database resiliency group, and a payroll business logic resiliency group into a VBS called payroll. The database resiliency group must start first, so the database resiliency group must go in the lowest tier. The application server resiliency group must start after the database resiliency group, so it goes in the next tier. The web server resiliency group must start last, so it goes into the top tier. The Resiliency Platform console lets you create a VBS by dragging and dropping resiliency groups into tiers. The console also includes a graphic representation of the order in which they start and stop. Creating a virtual business service Resiliency Platform also lets you customize a VBS to speed up start and stop operations of the resiliency groups within it if some dependencies are not required. Customizing a virtual business service Veritas Resiliency Platform documentation can be found on the SORT website.
Veritas InfoScale 7.0: Configuring I/O fencing
I/O fencing protects the data on shared disks when nodes in a cluster detect a change in the cluster membership that indicates a split-brain condition. In a partitioned cluster, a split-brain condition occurs where one side of the partition thinks the other side is down and takes over its resources. When you install Veritas InfoScale Enterprise, the installer installs the I/O fencing driver, which is part of the VRTSvxfen package. After you install and configure the product, you must configure I/O fencing so that it can protect your data on shared disks. You can configure disk-based I/O fencing, server-based I/O fencing, or majority-based I/O fencing. Before you configure I/O fencing, make sure that you meet the I/O fencing requirements. After you meet the requirements, you can refer to About planning to configure I/O fencing to perform the preparatory tasks and then configure I/O fencing. For more details about I/O fencing configuration, see: Cluster Server Configuration and Upgrade Guide Veritas InfoScale documentation for other releases and platforms can be found on the SORT website.
Veritas Resiliency Platform 1.1 disaster recovery
You can use Resiliency Platform for automated disaster recovery of replicated virtual machines and applications. Replication in a Resiliency Platform deployment You use the browser-based console to create resiliency groups of assets (virtual machines or applications) to manage together. You apply DR configuration to resiliency groups to prepare for disaster recovery operations. Once DR is configured, you can use automated one-click DR operations, such as Migrate or Takeover, on the resiliency groups. Resiliency Platform also provides DR testing, called Rehearsal, to ensure that the remote site is functioning properly. For more information on DR in Resiliency Platform, see the following topics: VMware virtual machines VMware virtual machines disaster recovery - an overview of key steps Hyper-V virtual machines Hyper-V virtual machines disaster recovery - an overview of key steps Applications An overview of key steps required for disaster recovery of applications For details on supported replication platforms, virtualization platforms, and applications, refer to: Veritas Resiliency Platform 1.1 Hardware and Software Compatibility List You can find other versions of Veritas Resiliency Platform on the SORT documentation page.Veritas Resiliency Platform 1.1 key components
Veritas Resiliency Platform brings separate data centers together in a resiliency domain for managing and monitoring workload automation and disaster recovery (DR). Resiliency Platform provides two types of servers, which are deployed as virtual appliances on the data centers. Resiliency Manager The main interface for managing the resiliency domain. A Resiliency Manager is deployed at each data center. After you complete a simple configuration on the virtual appliance, you do all further configuration and operations from an easy-to-use browser-based console. Since the built-in replication between Resiliency Managers keeps the data at each Resiliency Manager synchronized, it does not matter which Resiliency Manager you connect to in the resiliency domain – you see the same information on the browser. Resiliency Manager Infrastructure Management Server (IMS) The server that collects data from the customer assets at the data center. The IMS orchestrates with the APIs of the various platforms that Resiliency Platform integrates with, for example virtualization platforms, such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, as well as array-based replication and replication appliances. Once you have added the assets that you want to monitor and protect to the IMS, the IMS continues to automatically discover their status. Infrastructure Management Server (IMS) Resiliency Platform release 1.1 adds support for using the Veritas InfoScale Operations Manager server for discovery and management of Veritas InfoScale applications. Veritas Resiliency Platform support for InfoScale applications You can find other versions of Veritas Resiliency Platform on the SORT documentation page.
Veritas InfoScale 7.0: Creating and refreshing a test environment
The most persistent and transient requirement of test engineers is to have a testing environment that contains the production data. The testing environment needs to be conducive for both testing and development. Thus, it is essential that the environment is isolated from the production environment so that it does not interfere with any mission critical application or information. To address this requirement, Veritas InfoScale enables you to create a test setup from a copy of production data without affecting the performance of the production application. For more information, see: Creating a test environment. After creating a test environment, another challenge is to periodically resynchronize the production data on the test environment with the current production data available on the production server. To cater to this requirement, Veritas InfoScale enables you to refresh the data using the FlashSnap feature. For more information, see: Refreshing a test environment. For more information on test environments, see the Veritas InfoScale™ 7.0 Solutions Guide. For creating multiple test or development environments using the same snapshot, see the following: Mirror breakoff snapshot See Preparing a full-sized instant snapshot for a backup. Space-optimized snapshot See Preparing a space-optimized snapshot for a database backup. Veritas File System Storage Checkpoint See Creating Storage Checkpoints. For more detailed information, see Storage Foundation Administrator's Guide. Veritas InfoScale documentation can be found on the SORT website.Veritas InfoScale 7.0: Introduction to the vxdbd daemon
The Storage Foundation for Databases (SFDB) commands use the vxdbd daemon to run privileged commands. For example, a database administrator is allowed to run commands for creating snapshots using the SFDB scripts. In addition, SFDB uses the daemon to establish communication between the host and the SFDB repository that is deployed on a different host. To run the vxdbd daemon in the authenticated mode, log in as a superuser (root) and authenticate the daemon. After the authentication process is successful, the SFDB tools communicate with the daemon through the authenticated user. For more information see: Configuring vxdbd for SFDB tools authentication Adding nodes to a cluster that is using authentication for SFDB tools Authorizing users to run SFDB commands Generally, the vxdbd daemon is configured to automatically start when the system does. However, if the daemon fails to start or is unresponsive, you can manually start and stop vxdbd using the /opt/VRTS/bin/sfae_config script. This script can also determine the status of the daemon. For more information on using the script, see: Starting and stopping vxdbd The vxdbd daemon uses an insignificant amount of your resources to perform its routine operations. However, you can restrict the resource usage by setting the MAX_CONNECTIONS and MAX_REQUEST_SIZE parameters. Before you set these parameter values, refer to the documentation. Lower values for these parameters may cause the SFDB commands to fail. For more information, see: Limiting vxdbd resource usage. For more information on the vxdbd daemon, see: Configuring listening port for the vxdbd daemon Configuring encryption ciphers for vxdbd If the vxdbd daemon fails to run, perform the troubleshooting instructions available at: Troubleshooting vxdbd For detailed information, see the Veritas InfoScale™ 7.0 Storage and Availability Management for Oracle Databases. Veritas InfoScale documentation can be found on the SORT website.
Veritas InfoScale 7.0: Introducing the Veritas InfoScale product suite
Veritas InfoScale products address enterprise IT service continuity needs. They provide resiliency and software defined storage for critical services across your datacenter infrastructure. The Veritas InfoScale product suite offers the following products: Veritas InfoScale Foundation Veritas InfoScale Availability Veritas InfoScale Storage Veritas InfoScale Enterprise The following products from Symantec Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions are rebranded and repackaged under the Veritas InfoScale family: Storage Foundation (SF) Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) Cluster Server (VCS) Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) Storage Foundation Cluster File System (SFCFS) Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability (SFCFSHA) Storage Foundation for Oracle RAC (SF Oracle RAC) Storage Foundation for Sybase ASE CE (SFSYBASECE) Dynamic Multi-Pathing for VMware These changes are intended to simplify the customer buying experience and improve customer life time value. Veritas InfoScale Foundation Veritas InfoScale Foundation simplifies the management of storage across the data center with an efficient application-aware storage management solution. This product works across heterogeneous storage and server environments. It includes features like: Dynamic Multi-pathing Advanced support for virtual storage Veritas InfoScale Storage Veritas InfoScale Storage provides a high-performance storage management solution that maximizes storage efficiency, data availability, operating system agility, and performance. This product works across heterogeneous server and storage environments. It includes the features like: Replication Caching Advanced storage management features like compression, deduplication, thin reclamation, SmartMove, and FileSnap Clustering features Database features like Veritas Extension for ODM, Portable Data Containers, Storage Checkpoints and SmartTier for Oracle Veritas InfoScale Availability Veritas InfoScale Availability is a comprehensive high availability and disaster recovery solution that protects critical business services from planned and unplanned downtime. The critical business services include individual databases, custom applications, and complex multi-tiered applications, which may span across physical and virtual environments and over any distance. It includes the features like: Clustering features high availability (HA) Disaster recovery features (HA/DR) Veritas InfoScale Enterprise Veritas InfoScale Enterprise provides a powerful combination of comprehensive storage management and application availability. With built-in application acceleration, Veritas InfoScale Enterprise lets you optimize data efficiently across heterogeneous storage or server environments and recover applications instantly from downtime. It includes features like: Clustering features including high availability and disaster recovery (HA/DR) Replication Caching Advanced storage management features like compression, deduplication, thin reclamation, SmartMove, and FileSnap Database features like Veritas Extension for ODM, Portable Data Containers, Storage Checkpoints and SmartTier for Oracle For more information on Veritas InfoScale products, see: About the release About the Veritas InfoScale product suite Mapping of Storage Foundation High Availability (SFHA) offerings to the new InfoScale Family Entitlement mapping for upgrades from Storage Foundation High Availability (SFHA) offerings to InfoScale Veritas InfoScale documentation can be found on the SORT website.InfoScale 7.0 for Windows: About the product correlation between Symantec Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions and Veritas InfoScale Family
In the 7.0 release, the following products from Symantec Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions are rebranded and repackaged under the Veritas InfoScale family. Storage Foundation (SFW) Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions (SFW HA) Cluster Server (VCS) Dynamic Multi-Pathing for Windows (DMPW) The Veritas InfoScale family consists of the following products: Veritas InfoScale Foundation Veritas InfoScale Availability Veritas InfoScale Storage Veritas InfoScale Enterprise The following table depicts the existing-to-new product correlation: Existing product New product SFW Basic Veritas InfoScale Foundation VCS Veritas InfoScale Availability SFW Veritas InfoScale Storage SFW HA Veritas InfoScale Enterprise As a result of repackaging the following changes apply: DMPW and VBS are not available as separate products. The following product options are not available as user-selectable options during the product installation. All these features are now available by default with the concerned InfoScale product. FlashSnap Replace Disk Management Snap-in with SFW VEA GUI Volume Replicator (VVR) Fast failover Global Cluster Option For information about the simplified product packaging, changes to the user-selectable product installation options, and the components that are offered in each InfoScale product, see: Veritas InfoScale™ What's New Guide InfoScale documentation for other platforms can be found on the SORT website.SFHA Solutions 6.2: Interfaces for administering DMP on ESXi
In the VMware environment, you can administer the Symantec Dynamic Multi-Pathing (DMP) solution through the Command Line Interface (CLI), the Web Client, and the vSphere Client interfaces. Each interface provides a unique experience in managing storage arrays, host bus adapters (HBAs), logical unit numbers (LUNs), array ports, and paths. You can use the interfaces based on your requirements: CLI: The VxDMP remote CLI uses the vxdmpadm, vxddladm, and vxpooladm commands. You can use the vxdmpadm command to perform the administrative tasks. Use the vxddladm command to perform the disk discovery tasks and the vxpooladm command to configure and manage the SmartPool. You can invoke these commands from a command-line prompt on a Linux or a Windows system that has the VxDMP remote CLI package installed. Web Client: The VMware vSphere's Web Client is a browser-based interface that lets you manage DMP from a graphical interface. The Web Client provides an graphical representation of the array ports, storage arrays, virtual machines, host, LUN, and local devices that are connected in the vSphere environment. The Web Client also enables you to manage the SmartPool capacity. You can access the vSphere Web Client using your vCenter credentials. vSphere Client: The vCenter plug-in lets you manage DMP in the vSphere environment, using the VMware vSphere Client as the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The GUI appears as the DMP solution's home view, and also as the VxDMP tab for the host and datacenter components of the inventory. You can access the DMP for VMware home view from the vCenter Home in the vSphere Client. For more information on administering DMP, see: Administering VxDMP using the CLI Administering VxDMP using Web Client Administering VxDMP using vSphere Client For more information on the SmartPool feature, see: About configuring storage for caching with SmartPool You can also learn more about the interfaces by taking up the course at LearnCentral- DMP 6.2 for VMware. Symantec Dynamic Multi-Pathing for ESXi documentation for other releases can be found on the SORT website.
SFHA Solutions 6.2 (AIX and Solaris): SmartIO: support for caching on SSD
Introduced in Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions (SFHA) 6.1 on Linux, the SmartIO feature is now available on AIX and Solaris in the SFHA 6.2 release. SmartIO enables the effective use of your solid-state drives through data caching. SmartIO improves application performance by caching frequently accessed data, which maximizes the number of application Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) that can be performed. SmartIO reduces the number of I/Os that must be sent to the back-end storage, which frees up back-end storage resources and improves overall throughput. SmartIO supports read and writeback caching for Veritas File System (VxFS) file systems mounted on Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) volumes, in several caching modes and configurations. SmartIO also supports block-level read caching for applications running on VxVM volumes. For more information on the SmartIO caching modes and configurations, see: Read caching for applications running on VxVM volumes Read caching for applications running on VxFS file systems Writeback caching for applications running on VxFS file systems Caching for databases running on VxFS file systems Caching for databases running on VxVM volumes To use SmartIO, you set up a cache area on the target device. You can do this task simply with one command, while the application is online. SmartIO leverages SFHA Solutions' knowledge of the workload characteristics to determine what data is cached and how that data gets removed from the cache. You can also add advisory information, to customize which data is cached. For information about administering SmartIO, see the Symantec™ Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions SmartIO for Solid State Drives Solutions Guide. The following describe key administrative tasks for the SmartIO feature: Creating a cache area Displaying information about a cache area Enabling or disabling caching for a data object Pausing caching from a volume to a cache area Setting or changing the caching mode Flushing dirty data from a writeback cache area Viewing the SmartIO cache statistics For more information on SmartIO, see the following Symantec Connect articles: SmartIO Read caching demo sfcache demo - VxVM caching The SmartAssist tool is available for Solaris and Linux to assess the optimal size of the SmartIO cache for your environment. https://sort.symantec.com/data_collectors Symantec Storage Foundation and High Availability documentation for other releases and platforms can be found on the SORT website.