I’ve said it before, and will say it again… Simple is a good thing in general when it comes to disaster recovery, and is why my “going in” view for most customers (not all) is that if you’re running vSphere, start with SRM.
That said, I see enormous interest in active-active stretched clusters (vSphere Metro Stretched Clusters), and amongst our largest customers – sophisticated multi-site topologies (ususally “2 close, 1 far”). This second one is interesting – as customers start to virtualize stuff that is crazy mission critical, they EXPECT their protection strategy and SLAs to continue to work. It can be a real barrier. Is it everyone – no – but when it’s you, you know how important it can be.
The first (doc number: h7113) is focused on EMC VPLEX Metro with vSphere stretched clusters, including the “extra resilient” options around cross-connect and using the Witness. It also includes the latest 5.0 u1 elements on PDL as well (right at the end). Click on the picture below to get the doc….
The second (doc number: h8183) focuses on the second group of scenarioes – stretched clusters with 3rd site connectivity. There are solutions today (outlined in the doc), but they have a relatively high complexity threshold. When Lee Dilworth and I presented at VMworld 2011 (BC02479), we noted that there was more coming around these use cases. Based on what I know is coming in the relative near term, I expect these use cases to become a lot more popular (so useful to read up now). Download the doc below!
As always – feedback welcome!
the second doc is bit light on SRM deployment options! 1 page!!! :)
Also it doesn't really paint the full picture when it comes to SRM 5.0 and SRDF. As an example there are SRDF/STAR 3-site configurations that VMware/EMC support TODAY!!!
There is an excellent techbook EMC published on this recently so for any EMC DMX/VMAX customers looking to use SRM this is a MUST read:
http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/technical-documentation/h10553-sra-vmware-5-0-tb.pdf
you know me Chad i always like to bang both drums :)
Posted by: Lee Dilworth | April 13, 2012 at 09:41 AM
That second doc, "Guide to Multisite DR for VMware ..." is the direct result of a hugely successful EMC customer POC. The doc captures what the customer wanted, why they wanted it and how it was then validated. The customer requirements drove the entire solution.
Posted by: Steve | April 13, 2012 at 10:04 AM
@Lee - thanks, and no worries, as you can tell from my opening to the post (SRM = answer for most customers), I always like to bang both drums too...
I can tell you (as I know YOU know, but worth stating for everyone else) - we're working hard to expand and simplify the 3 site cascading SRM solutions (without coupling 1-1 relationships). A center of that work is about some upcoming VPLEX goodness that will make 3rd site async work easily (and will require some heavy SRA work on EMC's end).
@Steve - I'm very glad that we're sharing our learning openly - it only helps the community as a whole! Keep up your good work in Cork!
Posted by: Chad Sakac | April 16, 2012 at 08:50 AM
@Lee. Bear in mind the second doc is now over a year old. At the time SRM wasn't a runner for a 3 site configuration. We were somewhat ahead of our time :-). To Chad's point, it was possible though complex - hence the ongoing work behind the scenes that he teases us with.
Posted by: Ken | April 17, 2012 at 04:53 PM