implementing hpe 3par remote copy with vmware vcenter site ... · vmware vcenter srm provides...

Implementing HPE 3PAR Remote Copy with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Multisite disaster avoidance for VMware vSphere environments

Technical white paper


Contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3

Overview .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Evolution of business continuity for VMware environments ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy for disaster recovery..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Using VMware SRM for complex disaster recovery planning and management .................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Multisite planning considerations for VMware SRM deployments ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8

Network topology .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8

Storage networking topologies ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 9

Storage capacity planning ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10

VMware deployment planning for multisite .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy configuration ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13

Implementing VMware SRM with HPE 3PAR Storage ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 19

VMware SRM installation ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 19

HPE 3PAR SRA Software for VMware vCenter SRM installation ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 22

VMware SRM configuration ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 23

Testing SRM recovery ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 29

SRM Recovery Plans ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 29

HPE 3PAR SRA operation during SRM operations........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 31

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 33

For more information ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 34

VMware resources ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 34


Executive summary Protecting application data from disasters is critical to keeping businesses up and running. Yet traditional disaster recovery solutions were never intended to address the needs of today’s virtualized data center. As a result, the cost and complexity of using traditional disaster recovery products to address data replication needs in highly virtualized environments forces many organizations to forego disaster recovery altogether.

The combination of HPE 3PAR Storage with HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software, HPE 3PAR Virtual Copy Software, and VMware® vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) gives organizations the ability to:

• Build resilient virtual and cloud computing infrastructures

• Protect applications at a lower cost

• Recover data more quickly and efficiently than with traditional disaster recovery solutions

Integrating HPE 3PAR Storage systems with VMware vSphere 6 also enables its users to:

• Double virtual machine (VM) density

• Aid in increasing storage and server consolidation efforts by up to 50 percent

• Monitor and manage HPE 3PAR Storage from within the vSphere console

• Preserve and reclaim free space by leveraging the HPE 3PAR ASIC and HPE 3PAR Thin Persistence

• Boosts VMware vSphere’s return on investment (ROI) by 50 percent

• Enable the reduction of storage provisioning and management time by up to 90 percent

This white paper outlines best practices on how to set up HPE 3PAR Storage with VMware SRM as well as how to take advantage of the unique features of HPE 3PAR to create a world-class virtualized IT and application infrastructure. The information contained in this document should be used along with the documentation set provided by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for the HPE 3PAR Storage system, HPE 3PAR OS, and the documentation provided by VMware for vCenter, SRM, and other related products.

Figure 1. HPE 3PAR Storage for VMware vSphere environments

With VMware software, HPE 3PAR Storage provides simple, reliable, end-to-end disaster recovery for virtual and cloud computing environments. The combination of HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software and HPE 3PAR Virtual Copy Software with VMware vCenter SRM for automated disaster recovery management provides customers with a disaster recovery solution for their virtualized and cloud environment. HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software is remote data replication software and HPE 3PAR Virtual Copy Software is a reservationless, non-duplicative, copy-on-write snapshot application.

Double VM density Simplified provisioning Lower storage cost

• Wide striping

• Mixed workload support

• VAAI APIs and plug-ins

• ASIC integration with VMwarehadrware-assisted locking

• Autonomic groups

• Management plug-in

• Recovery manager

• Site recovery adapter

• Thin provisioning

• Thin conversion and thin persistence

• Fast RAID technologies

• Zero-detect integration with VMwarefull copy, write zero

Buy 50 percent fewerphysical servers

Spend 90 percent less timemanaging storage

Cut storage capacity requirementsby 50 percent

Increase consolidation Simplify administration Maximize savings


HPE 3PAR Storage offers the simplest administration of any storage platform available, allowing you to reduce provisioning and management time by up to 90 percent. In addition, several HPE 3PAR Storage features uniquely simplify administration of VMware vSphere environments by enhancing visibility into storage resources and offering superior granularity and control over snapshots and rapid online recovery.

Integrating HPE 3PAR Storage systems with VMware vSphere 6 also enables its users to:

• Maximize VM density on physical servers

• Monitor and manage HPE 3PAR Storage volumes to create point-in-time, VM and application aware, and disk-based snapshots from within the vSphere console

• Preserve and reclaim free space by leveraging the HPE 3PAR ASIC and HPE 3PAR Thin Persistence to detect the writing of zeroes and unallocated storage in a thin provisioned VM

• With these unique features, HPE 3PAR Storage boosts VMware vSphere’s ROI enabling you to optimize your data center infrastructure, simplify storage administration, and maximize virtualization savings (Refer figure 1).

HPE 3PAR arrays continue to capture the SPC Benchmark 1 (SPC-1) due to its architecture with multiple storage controller nodes and wide striping over available disk drives. These are crucial to VMware’s demand for low latency I/O response and HPE 3PAR’s ability to double VM density compared to other arrays on the market today with fewer servers.

Target audience: IT administrators who plan to leverage HPE 3PAR Storage within a VMware vSphere 6 environment using VMware vCenter SRM for disaster recovery.

This white paper describes testing performed in September 2015.

Overview Evolution of business continuity for VMware environments A key advantage of server virtualization is that it consolidates many dedicated physical servers to virtual machines that share a smaller pool of physical servers. However, these consolidated virtual environments increase the complexity of disaster recovery by adding an extra layer of virtualization, which increases the variables required to plan, test, and manage a disaster recovery scenario. No longer is a simple mapping of application to hosts, volume, and replication sufficient to manage and protect the data center. As a result, customers require specific and easy-to-use business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for the VM infrastructure.

With the right solutions for business continuity in place, VMs can actually ease disaster recovery challenges. By encapsulating applications and operating systems in a generic VM wrapper, IT departments can leverage the homogeneity of the VM environment to reduce costs, ease administration, and increase agility. Physical server technology evolves over time, requiring administrators to implement new server builds and drivers to support newer hardware. However, VMs offer distinct advantages since they remain predictable and unchanging, even while the physical hardware beneath them is upgraded.

VMs sever the ties between the virtual environment and the unpredictable physical environment, making them very portable. The portability of VMs allows administrators to develop disaster recovery plans that are more flexible in terms of the hardware deployed at both the primary and the recovery site. In addition, the capital expenditure outlay for equipment and the recurring management costs associated with that hardware both decrease with a consolidated environment. As a result, more and more enterprises are starting to see VMs as an ideal way to address disaster recovery challenges and are accelerating the move toward VM adoption to meet business continuity requirements. This shift has increased the need for business continuity solutions specifically designed for virtualized environments to ease implementation and management of disaster recovery.

HPE 3PAR Storage and VMware vSphere bring unique capabilities that positively change how disaster recovery is planned, tested, implemented, and managed. Understanding these unique qualities is key to appreciating why HPE 3PAR and VMware work together to deliver an ideal, combined disaster recovery solution.


HPE 3PAR Remote Copy for disaster recovery HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software provides enterprise and cloud data centers with autonomic replication and disaster recovery technology that allows the protection and sharing of data from any application simply, efficiently, and affordably. Remote Copy Software dramatically reduces the cost of remote data replication and disaster recovery by leveraging thin copy technology, enabling multisite and multimode replication with both midrange and high-end arrays, and reducing the need for professional services. Its supported native IP implementation eliminates the need for protocol extenders or converters for long distance replication.

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software offers fast, autonomic disaster recovery configuration that can be set up and tested in minutes, from a single window. With support for synchronous long distance replication, customers now have an affordable, multisite alternative for achieving low recovery time objectives (RTOs) and zero-data–loss recovery point objectives (RPOs) with complete distance flexibility.

The combination of the HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software, HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) Software for VMware vCenter SRM, and VMware vCenter SRM enable simple, efficient, and affordable disaster recovery management across data centers that utilize VMware vSphere consolidation solutions.

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager VMware vCenter SRM provides business continuity and disaster recovery protection for VMware virtual environments. Protection can range from individual VMs residing on a single, replicated datastore to all the VMs in a data center. VMware SRM helps IT administrators plan, test, and execute the recovery of VMs between the protected site and the recovery site.

VMware SRM coordinates the recovery process with HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software to ensure that the VMs at the protected site are shutdown cleanly (in the event that the protected site VMs are still available when recovery is invoked) so that the replicated VMs can be recovered and powered up at the recovery site.

Recovery of protected VMs to the recovery site is guided by a recovery plan that specifies the order in which VMs are started up. The recovery plan also specifies network parameters, such as IP addresses, ensures the replicated storage holding the protected VMs is brought online and presented to the recovery hosts properly, and can contain user-specified scripts that can be executed to perform custom recovery actions.

After a recovery has been performed, the running VM are no longer protected. To address this reduced protection, SRM supports a re-protect operation for VMs protected on array-based storage. The re-protect operation reverses the roles of the two sites after the backup of original protected site. The site that was formerly the recovery site becomes the protected site and the site that was formerly the protected site becomes the recovery site. At this point, a planned migration back to the original site can be scheduled, if desired.


Figure 2. VMware vCenter SRM deployment, two-site model

Using VMware SRM for complex disaster recovery planning and management Management of a multi-layered, highly virtualized disaster recovery environment is challenging if the system administrator must coordinate actions through multiple management applications across the various components of the solution. For example, mapping the applications and VMs down through storage fabric zoning to the physical array volumes and VMware Virtual Machine File Systems can be difficult because it is often a many-to-many relationship. To accomplish this, the administrator must map the array volumes between sites, and again those volumes must be associated with physical servers and their specific VMs.

If a VMware vSphere administrator migrates VMs between datastores, this can easily disrupt the carefully crafted mapping for array-based replication. Failure to monitor and maintain the end-to-end mappings results in loss of availability of the application at the remote site.

To alleviate these challenges associated with manual disaster recovery planning, VMware introduced VMware vCenter SRM to provide end-to-end management of array-based replication and VM failover for VMware vSphere environments. VMware SRM enables system administrators to discover which array volumes are protected via replication, to manage the testing and production failover of these volumes, and to restart the VMs at the remote site. As part of the storage discovery, VMware enumerates the volumes on each site and ensures that, for any given VM requiring remote replication, all the necessary VM components, datastores, and disk assets are properly mapped and accessible at both sites.

HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter for VMware SRM HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) Software for VMware vCenter SRM integrates VMware SRM with HPE 3PAR Storage and replication software to provide a complete and integrated business continuity solution. The solution offers centralized management of recovery plans, non-disruptive testing, automated site recovery, and failback and migration processes. The HPE 3PAR SRA Software combines HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software and HPE 3PAR Virtual Copy Software with VMware SRM to achieve one of the highest performing and most reliable disaster protection for all virtualized applications.

Protected site Recovery site

Protected VMs Protected VMs

Servers running vSphere 6 Servers running vSphere 6

Replication via HPE 3PARremote replication

HPE 3PAR Storage

Site Recovery ManagervSphere Client with SRM plugin vSphere Client with SRM plugin

VMwarevCenter Server

and SRM Server

VMwarevCenter Serverand SRM Server

vSphere Client SRM SRM vSphere Client

HPE 3PAR Storage


HPE 3PAR SRA-supported configurations The HPE 3PAR SRA supports several different configurations for replication between HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems: bidirectional 1-to-1, 1-to-N (multiple remote copy pairs), N-to-1 (single shared backup storage system, supported by VMware SRM as a shared recovery site), and synchronous long distance.

• In a bidirectional 1-to-1 remote copy configuration, each storage system in the pair functions as both the primary and backup system, and each system contains both primary and secondary volume groups. Each system provides backup for the other, according to the direction of replication specified for each volume group.

• A 1-to-N remote copy configuration is composed of multiple remote copy pairs. A single primary storage system can use a maximum of four backup storage systems. One primary system participates in four remote copy pairs, one for each backup system.

• An N-to-1 remote copy configuration is composed of multiple remote copy pairs. A maximum of four primary storage systems use the same backup storage system.

• A synchronous long distance (SLD) remote copy configuration is composed of two targets: one synchronous group and one asynchronous periodic group. In SLD remote copy, one primary system uses two backup systems and participates in two remote copy pairs, one for each backup system.

HPE 3PAR Synchronous Long-Distance Replication HPE 3PAR Storage replication is available over long distances with the SLD feature. A SLD Remote Copy configuration is composed of two targets: one synchronous group and one asynchronous periodic group.

In SLD Remote Copy, one primary system uses two backup systems and participates in two Remote Copy pairs, one for each backup system. In an SLD configuration, Remote Copy volume groups from the primary system are replicated to the two separate target arrays simultaneously. Data is replicated to one target in synchronous mode and to the second in asynchronous periodic mode. The target systems must each have appropriate network connections to the source systems to support the replication mode being used. There is no requirement that the closer of the two secondary systems be replicated to synchronously.

Remote Copy is set up in asynchronous periodic mode between the primary system and backup system that are physically farthest apart (and therefore share a lesser connection).

Figure 3. The link configuration of Remote Copy on HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems for SLD replication


Primary storage

Secondary storage Secondary storage

Primaryvolumegroup A

Asynchronousperiod mode

Remote Copyvolume group

HPE 3PAR StoreServ HPE 3PAR StoreServ

HPE 3PAR StoreServ


Synchronousmode

Standby Link


How HPE 3PAR Remote Copy benefits VMware SRM deployments Combining HPE 3PAR Remote Copy and VMware SRM to protect VMware vSphere assets creates a best-of-breed solution that provides users with simplified disaster recovery and flexible replication options. In conjunction with VMware SRM, the HPE 3PAR SRA enables users to replace independent storage and server disaster recovery processes with a single automated process and centralized interface, ensuring rapid and reliable recovery. Together, HPE 3PAR and VMware ensure that recovery time and recovery point objectives can be met simply and predictably.

This combined solution also provides a new level of replication flexibility not possible with traditional disaster recovery solutions. With HPE 3PAR and VMware, organizations can easily recover VMs on different server hardware. HPE 3PAR Remote Copy enables customers to flexibly replicate between HPE 3PAR Storage systems of any model and between different service levels (for example, RAID level or drive type) for greater infrastructure agility.

The combination of HPE 3PAR Remote Copy and VMware SRM blends the unique capabilities of each company for compelling disaster recovery for VMware deployments. Even customers with stringent disaster recovery requirements can implement the automated, easy-to-use solution.

Figure 4. The mechanics of Remote Copy on HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems for array-based replication

Multisite planning considerations for VMware SRM deployments In addition to the shared recovery site configuration, SRM also allows and supports shared protected site (1:N) and many-to-many (N:N) configurations. SRM supports point-to-point replication and does not support replication to multiple targets, even in a multisite configuration.

Network topology Networking is a critical component of the overall solution. Bandwidth and latency are significant considerations in the deployment of the solution described in this white paper. Both VMware SRM and HPE 3PAR Multisite SAN solutions have minimum latency requirements.

The inter-site link (ISL) is a crucial component of any HPE 3PAR StoreServ multisite solution. The minimum bandwidth required will depend on the amount of data to be transferred between sites. Latency should not exceed 5 milliseconds (ms) round-trip time (RTT) for optimal performance for synchronous replication. Larger configurations may require additional bandwidth for the ISL. For details on recommended sizing for ISLs in multisite configurations, see the HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software User’s Guide.

In the test environment, HPE FlexFabric 5900AF Ethernet switches were implemented. For more information on HPE FlexFabric data center switches, visit the HPE FlexFabric data center solutions website.

2. Datawrittento cache oncontrollernodes

HPE 3PAR StoreServ 7400(Site 1: Primary)

HPE 3PAR StoreServ 7200(Site 2: Secondary)

4. Datawritten tocache oncontrollernodes

vSphere host

1. Write request

Mechanics of HPE 3PAR Remote Copy

3. Write request forworded

5. Secondary HPE 3PAR acknowledges primary HPE 3PAR6. Primary HPE 3PAR acknowledges vSphere host

http://h20566.www2.hpe.com/portal/site/hpsc/public/psi/home/?sp4ts.oid=5044771

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/networking-switches/product-detail.html?oid=5221896%23!tab=features


Latency between sites Latency between the primary data center and the recovery site are to be considered. For synchronous replication solutions as link latencies increase, so does the latency between a host write and array acknowledgement. In most cases, this puts a practical limitation on the link latency that can be used for synchronous replication. The maximum latency supported by Remote Copy when configured for synchronous replication mode is 5 ms of round-trip latency. When paired with the Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Alcatel-Lucent optical network replicating over DWDM replication, distances of up to 500 km are now possible. Periodic asynchronous mode is supported on IP networks with up to 150 ms round-trip latency.

Storage networking topologies The core storage network between datacenter sites can be implemented using either the native IP network interface on the HPE 3PAR arrays or native Fibre Channel SAN fabric (or by using Fibre Channel extended over IP via FC-IP routers). Users may flexibly choose from three different data replication modes to design a solution that meets their requirements for RPO, RTO, and cost. HPE 3PAR Remote Copy supports replication of data between any two models of HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems, utilizing TCP/IP or Fibre Channel protocols.

Remote Copy over Fibre Channel HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage offers Remote Copy over Fibre Channel (RCFC) connectivity. RCFC is most often used for shorter distance solutions such as a campus or a metropolitan. It is a solution that can support distances of up to 500 km if desired (5 ms maximum of round-trip network latency over the SAN fabric). RCFC uses Fibre Channel connections (at least two) between arrays for availability as well as for increasing total available bandwidth for replication.

Connections across any approved Fibre Channel fabric can be created for multiple hops between arrays. These hops can include any Hewlett Packard Enterprise fabric vendor-approved connectivity such as Fibre Channel ISLs between buildings, fabric extension by long haul ISLs, and more. The ISLs can be provided through long-wavelength GBICs between switches and wave division multiplexing solutions such as DWDM that provide extended ISLs.

Remote Copy over IP Remote Copy over IP (RCIP) is a native IP implementation of Remote Copy over Ethernet. Every HPE 3PAR StoreServ array comes with a standard Gigabit or 10GbE port on every node that is dedicated for RCIP, which is only supported for synchronous and periodic asynchronous replication solutions. It is ideal for short, medium, and long-haul replication. RCIP uses multiple links between arrays (minimum of two and up to eight) to maximize bandwidth and ensure availability.

By offering native IP connectivity, along with the site’s existing IP infrastructure, RCIP is quicker to implement than solutions that don’t offer native IP replication.

HPE 3PAR RCIP supports the following:

• Round-robin load balancing across all available RCIP links between a pair of HPE 3PAR StoreServ arrays

• GiGe and 10–GiGe connection between HPE 3PAR StoreServ systems through LAN or MAN or WAN switches

• Synchronous and periodic asynchronous modes

• One RCIP connection per node (up to eight RCIP connections on an 8-node array)

• All Remote Copy topologies

• Maximum network latencies of 5 ms round trip for synchronous replication and 150 ms round trip for periodic asynchronous modes

When using RCIP, it is recommended that the network allocated to Remote Copy is a dedicated network (or dedicated VLAN carved out of a site network) and that it does not share network bandwidth with other applications. If the Remote Copy solution is deployed on a shared network, there is no way to ensure the solution can meet the defined RPO when using asynchronous replication.


Storage capacity planning Sizing your HPE 3PAR storage appropriately with SRM can be challenging. You’ll want a 1:1 storage footprint—it’s not something you can scale down. When sizing HPE 3PAR arrays that will be used to replicate data using Remote Copy, care must be taken to account for the additional IOPS and workload that Remote Copy will impose on the arrays. This means that in addition to being sized to service the native workload generated by servers connected to it, the secondary array in a Remote Copy relationship must be sized to also service the additional write IOPS for the replicated data coming from the primary array.

This is true for all replication modes—synchronous, asynchronous streaming, and periodic asynchronous. Additionally, both arrays must be sized to account for the IOPS resulting from snapshots created by Remote Copy. In periodic asynchronous mode, snapshots are created on both the primary and the secondary arrays during every “period” interval. This means if a 10-minute “period” is specified for a Periodic Asynchronous Remote Copy group, the primary and secondary arrays will both create snapshots for all the VVs in that Remote Copy group every 10 minutes. This takes place before sending delta changes from the primary array to the secondary array. The snapshots on the primary array will result in copy on write IOPS (COW IOPS) for all new host writes to the VVs in the Remote Copy group on the primary array. This array must be sized to account for the additional back-end write IOPS generated by these snapshots.

On the secondary array, a snapshot of all the base VVs in the Remote Copy group is taken prior to the delta changes being sent from the primary array. As the delta changes coming from the primary array are applied to the base VVs on the secondary array, COW IOPS will occur on the snapshots for these volumes. The secondary array must be sized to account for the additional back-end write IOPS generated by the snapshots.

VMware deployment planning for multisite The way in which you deploy Platform Services Controller, vCenter Server, and vCenter Single Sign-On on a site affects how you deploy SRM. For information about how the vCenter Server deployment model affects SRM, refer to the topic “vCenter Server Deployment models” in the VMware Site Recovery Manager Documentation Center for installing vCenter Server best practices.

The most common deployment for SRM is to have two sites with one vCenter server instance per Platform Services Controller per site. In this configuration, the Platform Services Controller instances can be either external to vCenter Server or embedded in the vCenter Server instances.

VMware Platform Services Controller deployment VMware vCenter Server and the Platform Services Controller are deployed on separate VM or physical server. The Platform Services Controller can be shared across several vCenter Server instances. You can install a Platform Services Controller and then install several vCenter Server instances and register them with the Platform Services Controller. You can then install another Platform Services Controller, configure it to replicate data with the first Platform Services Controller, and then install vCenter Server instances and register them with the second Platform Services Controller. Having many Platform Services Controllers that replicate their infrastructure data, allows you to ensure high availability of your system.

https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/srm_pubs.html


Figure 5. Deployment topologies for VMware Platform Services Controller in a multisite environment with Site Recovery Manager

Multiple site vCenter Server and basic architecture of Platform Services Controller In the configuration as shown in Figure 5, each site is independent with Platform Services Controller replication between sites. The vCenter Server is aware of the site topologies and use the local Platform Services Controller under normal circumstances. The vCenter Servers can be moved between Platform Services Controllers when necessary. This topology allows for enhanced linked mode (ELM), which is facilitated by the Platform Services Controller. VMware’s ELM provides for a single point of management for all vCenter Servers in the same vSphere domain. In vSphere 6, the Windows®-based and virtual appliance-based vCenter Servers have the same operational maximums and can belong to the same linked mode configuration. This configuration replicates all license, global permissions, tags, and roles across all of the sites.

VMware vCenter Server deployment for multisite You can deploy SRM in a topology in which multiple vCenter Server instances share a Platform Services Controller on each site. In this configuration, the Platform Services Controller instances are external to the vCenter Server instances. The Platform Services Controller instances can belong to federated or to unfederated vCenter Single Sign-On domains.

VMware vCenter is required at the SRM recovery site location or recovery data center. It is recommended to deploy a Platform Services Controller at the recovery site, to enable failover of critical services such as VMware Single Sign-On authentication. The minimum configuration requirements for an SRM recovery site are the following: vCenter Server, Platform Services Controller, and a SRM Server instance. For scalability, it is recommended to deploy each element on a separate system or VM. When using ELM between vCenter Servers at different data center sites, the recommended configuration is the deployment of an external Platform Services Controller at each site.

For more information regarding best practices and deployment models for vCenter Server 6.0 and VMware Platform Services Controllers, see VMware Knowledgebase article KB2107948.


SRM site pair

Connection from SRM to Platform Services Controller

Connection from Platform Services Controller to vCenter Server

Platform ServicesController 1

Platform ServicesController 2

vCenter Server 1 vCenter Server 2 vCenter Server 3 vCenter Server 4

SRM Server 1A SRM Server 2A SRM Server 1B SRM Server 2B

Protected site 2Protected site 1 Recovery site 1 Recovery site 2

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=2107948


Figure 6. Deployment of the VMware Platform Services Controller

The way in which you deploy Platform Services Controller, vCenter Server, and vCenter Single Sign-On on a site affects how you deploy SRM.

It is a requirement to synchronize the clock settings of the systems on which Platform Services Controller, vCenter Server, and Site Recovery Manager Server run. To avoid conflicts in the time management across these systems, use a persistent synchronization agent such as network time protocol daemon (NTPD), W32Time, or VMware Tools Time Synchronization. In the test environment presented in this paper, we used an NTP server to synchronize clocks on all critical systems such as vCenter Server, the VMware Platform Services Controller, SRM, and the Microsoft® Active Directory.

Note For information about how the vCenter Server deployment model affects SRM, refer to the topic “vCenter Server Deployment Models” in the VMware Site Recovery Manager Documentation.

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy VMware SRM can utilize array-based replication between storage systems at multiple sites. Setting up a basic HPE 3PAR Remote Copy configuration can be accomplished by first selecting and configuring the ports to be used for Remote Copy functions; the ports can be either Fibre Channel or Ethernet. Once the port type is selected, change the “Connection Mode” to RCFC or RCIP and then proceed with configuring the interface. It is recommended and a best practice to configure two ports (of the same type) on each HPE 3PAR array from the same node pair. For more information on this topic, see the HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software User’s Guide.

Once the ports are configured for Remote Copy, establish an array relationship by configuring the logical links. For VMware SRM, a 1-to-1 Remote Copy relationship is recommended. While other relationships other than 1-to-1 are possible, a 1-to-1 is a best practice and shown in this paper. A 1-to-1 Remote Copy relationship involves two HPE 3PAR Storage systems. Depending on how the 1-to-1 Remote Copy relationship is configured, one server can serve as the primary (source) server and the other as the backup server (unidirectional) or both servers can serve as both the primary and backup servers (bidirectional). In order to enable SRM to be able to failover to either site, a bidirectional relationship is required.


DNS NTP PSC DNSPSC

SRM Server vCenter Server

ESXi ESXi ESXi ESXi ESXi ESXi

SRM ServervCenter Server


http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/portal/site/hpsc/public/psi/home/?sp4ts.oid=5044771&ac.admitted=1441128297775.125225703.1851288163%23manuals


Figure 7. A typical deployment of VMware SRM with HPE 3PAR Remote Copy in a multisite configuration

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy configuration HPE 3PAR Remote Copy configurations and operations are based on a linked pair of storage systems, which are called a remote copy pair. In a remote copy pair, one system is the primary system and one is the backup system. The primary system holds the primary virtual volumes, and the backup system holds the secondary virtual volumes. Secondary virtual volumes contain copies of the primary virtual volumes. Because the primary and backup roles can change, HPE 3PAR Remote Copy uses the term Remote Copy target system to refer to the other storage system in a remote copy pair.

To create a Remote Copy configuration between the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems, use the SSMC interface or the HPE 3PAR CLI commands. The first requirement for HPE 3PAR Remote Copy configuration is the selection of the ports to be used. The ports can be either Fibre Channel or Ethernet. In the example environment shown in this paper, RCIP is used. Once the port type is selected, change the “Connection Mode” to Remote Copy over Ethernet. A requirement for RCIP is that the RCIP ports on all HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems must be configured on an IP subnet separate from the rest of the environment.

To configure a 1-to-1 Remote Copy configuration with the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Management Console (SSMC), follow these steps:

1. In the Manager Pane, click Remote Copy.

2. In the Common Actions panel, click New Configuration; the New Remote Copy Configuration wizard appears.

3. Under Select a Topology, click 1-1.

4. Under Assign Systems, click a storage server icon.

a. In the menu that appears, select a storage server to assign.

b. Repeat for the other storage server icon.

5. Optionally, define the System’s Location and the Target Names.

6. Click Next. A graphical representation of each system's Remote Copy ports appears under Create Links.

a. Click and drag from one port on one system to a port on the other system.

b. Repeat for the second port.


SRM Server vCenter Server SRM ServervCenter Server

ESXi ESXi ESXi ESXi ESXi ESXi


HPE 3PAR StoreServ HPE 3PAR StoreServ


SRA SRA

SRM plug-in SRM plug-in

Remote Copy

Array replication


7. Configure interconnect links

a. For IP links, in the IP settings groups for each system or port, all fields are populated automatically based on the link relationship established under Create Links.

I. (Optional) Enter the gateway address for each system or port.

II. (Optional) Click Apply to test the link configuration, or Ping to test the communication between the links.

b. For Fibre Channel links, in the Settings group for each system or port:

I. Connection Type—Select Point for point-to-point mode or Loop for arbitrated loop mode.

II. Configured Rate—Select 1, 2, 4 Gbps, or Auto (default).

III. Click Apply to test the link configuration, or Ping to test the communication between the links.

8. Click Next.

9. In the Source group section:

a. System: Select the system on which the Remote Copy group will reside.

b. Domain: Select the domain in which the Remote Copy group will reside. If not using a Virtual Domain configuration, this step can be skipped.

c. Group: Enter a name for the Remote Copy group.

d. Enable Start group after completion (default).

10. In the Backup group section:

a. Name: The system not selected as the source system, automatically appears.

b. Mode: Select Synchronous (default).

c. Click Add.

11. Repeat the steps above for the other array using it as the source array and the array just configured above as the backup array.

Figure 8. Configuring the RCIP ports with an IP address, and usage of the HPE 3PAR CLI showport -rcip command

The CLI showport –rcip command is used in Figure 8 to show the status of the RCIP ports as configured on the HPE 3PAR StoreServ primary storage system.

For more information on the setup of Remote Copy and Remote Copy ports, see the HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software User Guide.

Primary storage RemoteCopy ports

Target storage RemoteCopy ports



Figure 9. Configuration of the RCIP ports as seen from the HPE 3PAR SSMC interface

To confirm communications between the RCIP ports on the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems, use the HPE 3PAR CLI controlport rcip ping command as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Configuration and test of the RCIP ports as seen from the HPE 3PAR CLI

To confirm bidirectional RCIP communications, you must execute the commands from each HPE 3PAR StoreServ using a CLI session. To check the status of Remote Copy pairs or links, use the showrcopy links command from the HPE 3PAR CLI, as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. CLI showrcopy links command displays the current state of the Remote Copy as seen from the HPE 3PAR CLI

Complete configuration of RCport links between HPE 3PARStoreServ systems

Use CLI commandcontrolport rcip ping

RCIP ports on recovery/targetHPE 3PAR StoreServ


Bidirectional Remote Copy can be configured between two HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems. In an SLD Remote Copy configuration (normally between one primary storage system and two backup storage systems), you can create a bidirectional Remote Copy pair between the source storage and the synchronous target storage.

Figure 12. The current state of the Remote Copy configuration as shown in the HPE 3PAR SSMC

Tip As the physical distance increases between the systems in the Remote Copy pair, latency can increase and throughput can decrease. To optimize the speed and size of data transfers between a Remote Copy pair connected by RCIP, issue the following command:

#setrcopytarget tunelinks <bandwidth> <latency> <rcopy_target_name>

• <bandwidth>—Bandwidth of the connection to the target system in KB/s

• <latency>—Round-trip latency of the connection to the target system in ms

• <target_name>—Name of the target system

To determine throughput and latency of the RCIP links, use the checkrclink command. If you encounter problems during the creation of the Remote Copy links, use the HPE 3PAR CLI dismissrcopylink command to remove the links. For more information on the configuration and setup of Remote Copy and Remote Copy Groups, see the HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software User Guide.



HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Groups Once the RCIP port links have been established, Remote Copy Groups can be created and volumes can be placed within the groups for replication. The Remote Copy Group can be created independently without volumes and the source and target volumes added later. The Fully Provisioned virtual Volumes (FPVV) for Remote Copy should be provisioned for the same size or capacity; there is no requirement for identical storage tiers or RAID groups.

To create a Remote Copy Group from the HPE 3PAR CLI, run the following command:

creatercopygroup <group_name> <target_storage_name>:mode

• group_name is the name of the Remote Copy Volume Group

• target_storage_name is the name of the target storage system (HPE 3PAR StoreServ) to be the replication target

• mode specified is either synch or periodic

In Figures 13 and 14, periodic is selected for asynchronous period mode for an SLD configuration.

Figure 13. CLI creatercopygroup command is used to create a Remote Copy Group from the HPE 3PAR CLI. The replication mode selected is periodic for an SLD configuration.

Figure 14. Creation of a Remote Copy Group from the HPE 3PAR SSMC; the replication mode selected is periodic for an SLD configuration.

To verify the creation of virtual volumes for Remote Copy, follow these steps:

1. Before you create volume groups, ensure that virtual volumes exist on both storage systems and that the virtual volumes are FPVV.

2. If volumes do not yet exist, create them using either the SSMC console or the standard HPE 3PAR CLI volume-creation commands. For more information on these commands, see the HPE 3PAR Command Line Interface Administrator’s Manual.

3. Ensure that the virtual volumes meant for Remote Copy adhere to the rules for Remote Copy virtual volumes.

For more information on the setup of Remote Copy and Remote Copy Groups, see the HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software User Guide.

http://h20564.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04204251



Figure 15. The state of the Remote Copy Groups created, from both the HPE 3PAR CLI and the HPE 3PAR SSMC; note the primary RC Group named “SRMvols_mainsite”

In Figure 15, the Remote Copy Group created for the test environment “SRMvols_mainsite” is shown from the HPE 3PAR CLI and from the HPE 3PAR SSMC. From the HPE 3PAR CLI, the showrcopy command lists the source volume in the “LocalVV” column and the corresponding replication target volume is listed in the “Target” column. The same information is displayed from the SSMC when the option “Volume Pairs” is selected in the right pane.

The following example is an HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Group with Volume Pairs (source and backup). In the test environment, source volume “SRMvol1” is a FPVV provisioned as FC RAID 6 on the primary HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage system, note all 3PAR VV types are supported with SRM. The backup or target volume “SRMvol1_Recover” was created manually as an FPVV, FC RAID 6 volume on the secondary HPE 3PAR StoreServ at the recovery site. Figures 16 and 17 show the Remote Copy Groups from both the HPE 3PAR SSMC and the HPE 3PAR CLI interfaces.

Figure 16. The state of the Remote Copy Groups created, from the HPE 3PAR SSMC; note the primary RC group named “SRMvols_mainsite”

Target/backup volume

Remote Copy Group


Figure 17. The state of the Remote Copy Groups created, from the HPE 3PAR CLI; note the primary RC group named “SRMvols_mainsite”

For more information on the setup of Remote Copy and Remote Copy Groups, see the HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software User Guide.

Implementing VMware SRM with HPE 3PAR Storage With a basic knowledge of VMware and HPE 3PAR Remote Copy, it is simple and feasible to configure the replication piece of the disaster recovery solution without the need or expense of hiring professional services.

Once the HPE 3PAR arrays are installed, you can easily configure replication between the two sites. Configuring, managing, and testing Remote Copy can be performed in a matter of minutes. With HPE 3PAR Remote Copy, you can avoid the need for costly and prolonged professional services engagements common with other replication technologies. Special extenders or converters to permit long-distance replication are also not needed.

VMware SRM installation VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager integrates tightly into the VMware vSphere Client. When installed, a new management view is available in the VMware vSphere Client where administrators can create, manage, and execute disaster recovery plans. The protection setup and recovery setup options will guide you through the wizard-based process of configuring VMware SRM. This paper is not intended to cover the VMware SRM installation process in detail. For more detailed information on the VMware SRM installation, refer to VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.0 Documentation Center. For more information on step-by-step installation of VMware SRM, see the VMware SRM 6.0 Installation and Configuration Guide.

The new version of SRM, version 6.1, uses solution user authentication to establish secure communication to remote services, such as the Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server. A solution user is a security principal that the SRM installer generates. The installer assigns a private key and a certificate to the solution user and registers it with the vCenter Single Sign-On service. The solution user is tied to a specific SRM instance. You cannot access the solution user private key or certificate. You cannot replace the solution user certificate with a custom certificate.

After installation, you can see the SRM solution user in the administration view of the vSphere Web Client. Do not attempt to manipulate the SRM solution user. The user is for internal use by Site Recovery Manager, vCenter Server, and vCenter Single Sign-On.

During operation, SRM establishes authenticated communication channels to remote services by using certificate-based authentication to acquire a holder-of-key SAML token from vCenter Single Sign-On. SRM sends this token in a cryptographically signed request to the remote service. The remote service validates the token and establishes the identity of the solution user.

Solution users and SRM site pairing When you pair SRM instances across vCenter Single Sign-On sites that are not federated, it creates an additional solution user for the remote site at each site. This solution user for the remote site allows the SRM Server at the remote site to authenticate to services on the local site.

When you pair SRM instances in a federated vCenter Single Sign-On environment, the SRM at the remote site uses the same solution user to authenticate to services on the local site.

Remote CopyGroup—Source

storage

Target/backupvolume

Remote CopyGroup—Backup

storage


https://pubs.vmware.com/srm-60/index.jsp


http://pubs.vmware.com/srm-60/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/srm-install-config-6-0.pdf



Site Recovery Manager SSL and TLS server endpoint certificates SRM requires an SSL and TLS certificate for use as the endpoint certificate for all TLS connections established to SRM. The SRM Server endpoint certificate is separate and distinct from the certificate that is generated during the creation and registration of a SRM solution user.

For more information, refer to the VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.0 Documentation Center.

The following steps outline the installation process for VMware SRM.

1. Run the VMware vCenter SRM installer and go through the Windows and the agreement until you reach the Destination Folder window.

2. In the Destination Folder window, select the location to install SRM. By default, it is installed into C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager\.

3. Click Next.

4. On the vSphere Replication window, select Install vSphere Replication.

5. Click Next.

6. Complete the vCenter Server credentials for the local site this registers SRM with vCenter.

7. Click Next.

8. If prompted to accept the vCenter Server certificate or thumb print, click YES to proceed.

The next several screens assist in creating or importing a certificate. The certificate is used by SRM for authentication. You can either Automatically generate a certificate or Use a PKCS#12 certificate file depending on how you want to configure this step.

9. In the VMware vCenter SRM extension window, enter the information for the local site as shown in Figure 18.

a. Local Site Name: User-defined string for the site name. This name will show up in SRM.

b. Administrator E-mail: Email address of the site administrator. This is needed to receive notification of events that happen on the site.

c. Additional E-mail: This field is optional. Enter another email address if a second person is needed to receive notifications.

d. Local Host: Select the IP of the local instance of vCenter.

e. Listener and API Listener Ports: Leave the defaults unless there is a specific reason not to use the defaults.

10. Click Next.

11. In the database configuration window select the Database Client and the Data Source Name (DSN) of the local or remote database server. If a DSN is not DSN available or created for this instance, you must create one. A system DSN is required; and in most cases, it should refer to the localhost connection of the vSphere database.

a. If creating a new DSN, the newly added DSN does not show up in the DSN drop-down list and you will need to enter it manually.

b. Enter the Username and Password.

c. Change the Connection Count and Max. Connections as needed.

12. Click Next. Installation of SRM starts after you click Install.

13. Once the installation has finished successfully, click Finish.

14. Repeat at the other site.

VMware SRM is now installed at both sites and imported into VMware vCenter.



Figure 18. The state of the Remote Copy Groups created, named “vPSC” at the primary site’s data center.

During the installation, the SRM instance being installed will also require a certificate issued from the vCenter Server instance. For each SRM instance being installed at each site, you must accept the certificate for that site’s vCenter. See Figure 19.

Figure 19. The state of the Remote Copy Groups created, for “vcenter01”

With the acceptance of the Platform Services Controller and vCenter certificates, communications between the new SRM instances being installed is established. Once SRM has been installed at both the protected site and the recovery site, you can begin initial configuration of site pairing and array-based replication.


To pair the SRM sites,

1. Open the vSphere Web Client and log on to the primary site’s vCenter Server instance.

2. Browse to SRM on the primary site and then open Sites.

3. Select the primary site (vCenter name) and create a pairing with the recovery site. This requires the FQDN of the primary site’s Platform Services Controller and the administrator password for Single Sign-On. See Figure 20.

Figure 20. The pairing of the VMware SRM sites “vcenter01” and “vcenter02”

The next step in the setup of VMware SRM is the array-based replication, the installation of the HPE 3PAR SRA on each VMware SRM Server instance, and the creation of the array managers for each SRM site.

HPE 3PAR SRA Software for VMware vCenter SRM installation Before completing the configuration of VMware SRM, you must install the HPE 3PAR SRA Software for VMware vCenter SRM. The latest HPE 3PAR StoreServ SRA Software is available here. This adapter integrates VMware SRM with HPE 3PAR Storage and replication software to provide a complete and integrated business continuity solution. The VMware vCenter SRM communicates with HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software for storage replication through the HPE 3PAR SRA. It also provides information about Remote Copy volume groups that exist in HPE 3PAR Storage systems to SRM. The latter identifies datastores and raw device mappings (RDMs) in the Remote Copy volume group (also referred to as consistency groups). These datastores and RDMs have corresponding virtual volumes in the Remote Copy volume group and replicates between the protected site and the recovery site.

1. HPE 3PAR SRA requires the following companion packages to be installed on the host before installation:

a. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.0

b. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 or above

c. Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86)

2. Double-click the SRA installation, which is executable to launch the wizard. Click Next to continue.

a. The HPE 3PAR SRA and VMware vCenter SRM must be installed on the same Windows host

3. To acknowledge the User License Agreement, click I Agree. Click Next to continue.

4. To start the installation, click Next.

5. After the installation is complete, restart the VMware vCenter SRM Site service to ensure that HPE 3PAR SRA is recognized by SRM. You will configure SRM to use the HPE 3PAR SRA in the Configure the HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter section below.

Configure the HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter After connectivity is established between the two sites, the HPE 3PAR Storage systems need be configured as array managers in vCenter so that SRM can discover the replicated devices, compute datastore groups, and initiate storage operations.

http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=5218145&docId=emr_na-c04796866&docLocale=en_US


Before configuring the array managers, verify that the HPE 3PAR SRAs that were installed earlier are loaded into vCenter.

1. On the left side of the Site Recover plugin in vCenter, select Array Managers.

2. Select the SRAs tab.

3. Verify the HPE 3PAR SRA Software version 6.0 that was installed earlier is displayed. If it is not, click Rescan SRAs.

4. Repeat for the second site.

Note For more information on the configuration and setup of HPE 3PAR SRA, see the HPE 3PAR SRA User Guide. For a complete listing of supported hardware and firmware versions, see the VMware vCenter SRM Storage Partner Hardware Compatibility List.

VMware SRM configuration VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager integrates tightly into VMware vSphere Web Client. When installed, a new management view is available in VMware vSphere Client where administrators can create, manage, and execute disaster recovery plans. The Protection Setup and Recovery Setup options will guide you through the wizard-based process of configuring VMware SRM. The first step in the Protection Setup process is to establish a connection between the protected and the recovery site.

SSL certificates for HPE 3PAR StoreServ storage systems After successful installation of VMware SRM 6.0, you must install the HPE 3PAR SRA on the newly configured SRM server for each site. The SRA is a critical piece for integration between VMware SRM and the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage array systems.

Once the HPE 3PAR SRA has been deployed on each SRM server at each site, validate the HPE 3PAR array SSL certificates for each HPE 3PAR StoreServ. The following is the procedure for HPE 3PAR array certificate validation.

HPE 3PAR CLI and HPE 3PAR OS versions 2.3.1 MU5 P35, 3.1.1 MU3 P27, 3.1.2 MU3 P16, or later, supports a self-signed 2048-bit RSA SSL certificate for HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage system. After an upgrade, SRA requires that you accept and validate the HPE 3PAR StoreServ server SSL certificate to perform any operations related to HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Before you configure arrays from SRM, you must validate the HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate using the SRA command line interface (TPDSrm.exe).

Important If you do not accept the specific HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate, the connection is not established with HPE 3PAR StoreServ and SRA returns an error message to SRM.

Certificate validation is supported using the SRA command line options, which are available upon installation of the HPE 3PAR SRA on the VMware SRM server instance. SRA supports the following commands to view, validate, and remove the HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate:

• TPDSrm.exe viewcert—to view the currently accepted StoreServ certificate.

• TPDSrm.exe validatecert—to accept and save the StoreServ certificate.

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HP_3PAR_SRM

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_storage_partners.pdf


Figure 21. The TPDSrm command being executed to validate the HPE 3PAR StoreServ SSL certificate on the VMware SRM server

This command for HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate validation must be run on each installation of VMware SRM at each site.

If you have configured an SLD Remote Copy environment with three HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems (A, B, and C), where A—B is configured in synchronous mode, A—C in asynchronous periodic mode, and B—C is the standby link in asynchronous periodic mode. SRM and SRA are configured between HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems A and C, then HPE 3PAR SRA requires that you accept and validate the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage SSL certificate for the primary and secondary HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems on both the protected and recovery sites.

For example, HPE 3PAR StoreServ A and SRM Server 1 are part of the protected site. HPE 3PAR StoreServ B and SRM Server 2 are part of the recovery site. In SRM Server 1, you must accept and validate the HPE 3PAR StoreServ A and HPE 3PAR StoreServ B certificates. Perform a similar procedure for SRM Server 2.

VMware SRM array manager configuration for HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems After the SRM servers have been built at each site, the SRA installed on each SRM Server, and the HPE 3PAR SSL certificates validated at each site, you can now configure the array manager for each HPE 3PAR StoreServ within VMware SRM.

1. From the vSphere Web Client, navigate to Site Recovery, then open Array Based Replication.

2. Under Array Based Replication, select Objects tab and then add an Array Manager. You can also select the Getting Started tab and click Add an Array Manager. The wizard presented prompts for an SRA type and then prompts to create or configure the array mangers for each site.

3. In the Array Manager Information window, enter the following:

a. Display Name: Use any descriptive name that makes it easy to identify the storage associated with this array manager

b. SRA Type: Select HPE 3PAR SRA Software version 6 (default)

c. Click Next

4. In the HPE 3PAR Storage System Setup window, enter the following:

a. Display name for the HPE 3PAR Storage system at that site

b. Host name or IP Address of HPE 3PAR Storage system

c. User name of HPE 3PAR Storage system

d. Password of HPE 3PAR Storage system

e. Click Next


Figure 22. The VMware SRM Add Array Manager wizard dialog with the HPE 3PAR SRA type selected

In the next step, you will configure the array manager for each site (the HPE 3PAR StoreServ). The management IP address of that site’s HPE 3PAR StoreServ is required. Best practice is to name the primary or protected site storage to indicate its role, as shown in our example named “Primary HPE 3PAR” for our storage at our primary site data center.

Figure 23. The VMware SRM Add Array Manager wizard with the HPE 3PAR arrays at each site being added and paired

After the array managers have been configured and paired within SRM, you should see this result. A pair of HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems is now paired for array-based replication as recognized by VMware SRM.


Figure 24. The VMware SRM Array Managers for both sites (protected site and recovery site) with the HPE 3PAR SRA

The protected site HPE 3PAR array and the recovery site HPE 3PAR array are both displayed under Array Based Replication. Once this stage is complete, the next steps are to configure the parameters in VMware SRM for protection.

Datastore groups When you use array-based replication, each storage array supports a set of replicated datastores. On storage area network (SAN) arrays that use connection protocols such as Fibre Channel and iSCSI, these datastores are called logical storage units (LUN) and are composed of one or more physical datastores. On network file system (NFS) arrays, the replicated datastores are typically referred to as volumes. In every pair of replicated storage devices, one datastore is the replication source and the other is the replication target. Data written to the source datastore is replicated to the target datastore on a schedule controlled by the replication software of the array. When you configure SRM to work with a SRA, the replication source is at the protected site and the replication target is at the recovery site.

A datastore provides storage for VM files. By hiding the details of physical storage devices, datastores simplify the allocation of storage capacity and provide a uniform model for meeting the storage needs of VMs. Because any datastore can span multiple devices, SRM must ensure that all devices backing the datastore are replicated before it can protect the VMs that use that datastore. SRM must ensure that all datastores containing protected VM files are replicated. During a recovery or test, SRM must handle all such datastores together.

To achieve this goal, SRM aggregates datastores into datastore groups to accommodate VMs that span multiple datastores. SRM regularly checks and ensures that datastore groups contain all necessary datastores to provide protection for the appropriate VMs. When necessary, SRM recalculates datastore groups. For example, this can occur when you add new devices to a VM, and you store those devices on a datastore that was not previously a part of the datastore group.

A datastore group consists of the smallest set of datastores required to ensure that if any of a VM's files is stored on a datastore in the group, all of the VMs’ files are stored on datastores that are part of the same group.

Inventory mappings in VMware SRM Once the sites are connected, the inventory mappings should be defined. Mappings provide default locations and networks for use when placeholder VMs are initially created on the recovery site.

Unless you intend to configure these mappings individually for each member of the group, configure inventory mappings before creating protection groups. Inventory mappings provide a convenient way to specify how resources at the protected site are mapped to resources at the recovery site. These mappings are applied to all members of a protection group when the group is created and they can be reapplied as needed, such as when new members are added. If a protection group is created and no mappings exist, the administrator must configure each protected VM individually. While SRM does not enforce an inventory mapping requirement, a VM cannot be protected unless it has some form of valid inventory mappings for networks, folders, and compute resources. Inventory mappings can be created at both the protection and recovery site.


Placeholder datastores Once the resource folder and network mappings are completed, placeholder datastores need to be set up. A placeholder datastore contains information about a protected VM in a protection group at the recovery site. These placeholders are added to and managed as part of the recovery site’s inventory.

After determining which datastore will hold placeholders, SRM reserves a place for protected VMs in the recovery site's inventory. This is done by creating a subset of VM files on the specified datastore at the recovery site and then using that subset to register the placeholder VM with the recovery site vCenter. The presence of these placeholder VMs in the recovery site inventory provides a visual indication to SRM administrators that the virtual machines are protected. They also indicate to vCenter administrators that the VMs can be powered on and will start consuming local resources when SRM tests or runs a recovery plan.

Placeholder datastores must be established at both sites. Having placeholder datastores at both sites enables re-protection by providing a location to store the identity and inventory location of the old production machine in an empty shell of a VM. This placeholder VM is created during the recovery workflow when the production VM is deactivated. This placeholder VM can then be subsequently used and eventually removed as the recovery process is completed.

Placeholder VMs behave like any other member of the recovery site vCenter inventory except that they cannot be powered on. When a placeholder is created, its folder and compute resource assignments are derived from inventory mappings established at the protected site. Note that any changes made to the placeholder VMs in the recovery site inventory override settings established by inventory mapping. These settings are preserved during the recovery or test. When evaluating datastores in which to establish placeholder datastores, consider the following:

• For clusters, the placeholder datastores must be visible to all hosts in the cluster.

• Placeholder datastores cannot be replicated.

For more information on inventory mappings, placeholder datastores, and the configuration of VMware SRM, refer to the VMware SRM 6.0 Installation and Configuration Guide and the VMware SRM Documentation Center.

SRM protection groups Protection groups provide coverage for all VMs in the group. For array-based replication, SRM organizes datastore groups to collect all files associated with protected VMs. These datastore groups are then associated with protection groups. All VMs in a datastore group replicate their files together and failover together. It is possible to have a VM with files on different datastores. In such a case, SRM combines the datastores that contain files for a single VM to create a datastore group. Protection groups must be defined in VMware SRM to provide functional protection of VMs on the primary or protected data center. The following steps outline how to create a protection group:

1. From Sites in the left pane select the Getting Started tab and click Create a Protection Group.

2. In the Select Site and Protection Group Type window.

a. Select the Local site from the Protection Site group box.

b. Select Array based replication (SAN) from the Protection Group Type group box.

c. Select that appropriate array from the list for the local site.

d. Click Next.

3. In the Select One or More Datastore Groups, select the datastore(s) to be protected by SRM. All VMs under the selected datastore(s) will be protected. Click Next.

4. In the Name and Description window, enter an appropriate Protection Group Name and Description. Click Next.

5. In the Ready to Complete window, click Finish.

6. Repeat for the second site. Once finished, a screen similar to Figure 16 displays for each of the protection groups.





Figure 25. Creating a protection group in VMware SRM; the replication type to select is Array Based Replication.

Once the protection group has been created, you must configure protection on each VM listed within the new protection group. To enable SRM protection, right click on the VM. The column “Protection Status” indicates whether a VM is unprotected or protected by the SRM protection group.

Figure 26. Protection group defined in VMware SRM; our example “VC01 Protect Grp Cluster2” contains protected VMs hosted on vCenter01—Cluster 2 on our primary site.

For more information on SRM Protection Groups and the configuration of VMware SRM, refer to the VMware SRM 6.0 Installation and Configuration Guide and the VMware SRM Documentation Center.





Testing SRM recovery VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager integrates tightly into VMware vSphere Web Client. When installed, a new management view is available in VMware vSphere Client where administrators can create, manage, and execute disaster recovery plans. The Protection Setup and Recovery Setup options guide you through the wizard-based process of configuring VMware SRM. The first step in the Protection Setup process is to establish a connection between the protected and the recovery site (Figure 5).

For more information on step-by-step installation of VMware SRM, refer to the VMware SRM 6.0 Installation and Configuration Guide and the VMware SRM Documentation Center.

Figure 27. The flow of a site failover conducted by VMware SRM with VMs residing on replicated datastore volumes on HPE 3PAR StoreServ via HPE 3PAR Remote Copy

SRM Recovery Plans Once VMware SRM has been installed and configured on both the primary or protected data center site and the recovery site, the next step is to create a recovery plan in SRM. A recovery plan resembles an automated run book, controlling each step of the recovery process. A Recovery Plan will include protection groups. Only one recovery plan can recover a particular protection group at a time. If you simultaneously test or run multiple recovery plans that specify the same protection group, only one recovery plan can operate on the protection group.

Create the Recovery Plan in VMware SRM 1. In the vSphere Web Client, select Site Recovery > Recovery Plans.

2. On the Objects tab, click the icon to create a Recovery Plan.

3. Enter a name and description for the plan, select a folder, and then click Next.

4. Select the recovery site, and click Next.

5. Select one or more protection groups for the plan to recover, and click Next.

6. Click the Test Network value, select a network to use during test recovery, and click Next. The default option is to create an isolated network automatically.

7. Review the summary information, and click Finish to create the Recovery Plan.


SRM Server vCenter Server vCenter Server SRM Server

Remote Copysource volume

HPE 3PAR StoreServ

SRA SRA

Remote Copy replication

SRM recovery

PSC PSC

Remote Copybackup volume

HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Protected VMs Placeholder VMs




Testing SRM Recovery Plans Once VMware SRM configuration is complete, testing of the Recovery Plan can be initiated at any time without impacting the VMs at the protected site.

When a recovery plan is tested, a test network and a temporary snapshot of replicated data at the recovery site is used. No operations are disrupted at the protected site.

Testing a recovery plan means running all the steps with the exception of powering down VMs at the protected site and forcing devices at the recovery site to assume ownership of replicated data. If the plan requests suspension of local VMs at the recovery site, they are suspended during the test. A test makes no other changes to the production environment at either site.

Prerequisites for an SRM recovery rest with HPE 3PAR StoreServ Before proceeding with the testing, as well as performing any planned and unplanned failover events, you need to ensure that your HPE 3PAR arrays are running one of the following versions of the HPE 3PAR OS.

• 3.2.1 MU3 or greater

• 3.2.2 or greater

Failing to meet this requirement will cause testing and failover actions to fail with failure message “Invalid Metadata” when trying to create a writeable snapshot as part of a recovery action. If you are unsure of the version of your HPE 3PAR Storage system or need the HPE 3PAR OS upgraded, contact your Hewlett Packard Enterprise services representative or your Hewlett Packard Enterprise partner (hpe.com/us/en/services/consulting.html) for assistance.

The appropriate licensing for the HPE 3PAR arrays is also required. If you have any questions or are missing the required licenses listed on your HPE 3PAR arrays, contact your Hewlett Packard Enterprise sales representative. The exact licenses needed depend on the array and disk configurations. For more information, see the HPE 3PAR Software Products QuickSpecs.

• HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software

• HPE 3PAR Virtual Copy Software

• HPE 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for VMware vSphere

Initiating an SRM test recovery 1. In the vSphere Client, click Recovery Plans.

2. In the left pane, click a Recovery Plan and then click Test.

3. In the Testing Confirmation window, determine whether to enable the Replicate recent changes to recovery site option when the plan runs. Enabling this option ensures the recovery site has the latest information, but the synchronization may take additional time. Click Next.

4. On the confirmation window, click Start.

You can view the progress and completion of the recovery test by looking at the Recovery Steps tab.

5. Once the test has completed successfully, click Cleanup to remove the test environment and reset the plan to the Ready state.

Once finished, the Recovery Complete message is displayed The VM from Site B is now be running on Site A.

Now that the primary site has been migrated to the recovery site, it is no longer protected against failure. To re-establish the protection of the VMs at the new site, you must run the “Re-protect” action. Re-protection results in array-based SRM protection groups and recovery plans being reconfigured to work in the opposite direction. This provides the option of failing VMs back to the original site, if desired.

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/consulting.html

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c04199812.pdf


Note The re-protect workflows are designed for use when the physical infrastructure at both sites is intact. If the failover was unplanned and physical site and equipment loss has occurred (specifically the replicated storage layer) at one of the sites, then the re-protect workflows cannot be utilized.

Figure 28. Successful test of an SRM Recovery Plan in the test environment

HPE 3PAR SRA operation during SRM operations A recovery operation is executed when an SRM Recovery Plan is configured with SRM protection groups that use replicated HPE 3PAR virtual volumes as a datastore. Perform a recovery operation by shutting down the VMs at the protected site and recover those VMs at the recovery site.

• Planned migration—SRM shuts down the VMs at the protected site and unmounts the datastores. SRA changes the status of the source datastores to read-only, and then creates the snapshots of the source device. SRA reverses the replication direction and swaps the read or write relation between the data centers. SRM then rescans the datastores at the recovery site and restarts the VMs.

• Disaster recovery—if the protected data center is unavailable due to any disasters or failures, you must run the SRM Recovery Plan to start the VMs at the recovery site. The SRA recovery process is similar to planned migration, except for the snapshot creation operations performed at the protected site.

Multiple Remote Copy Groups in one protected group is not recommended. HPE 3PAR SRA logs a warning to the user if multiple instances of such configurations are detected during the test or recovery operation since this might be an indication that VMs are using virtual volumes from different Remote Copy Groups.


Devices on the protected storage system must be read-only after you have prepared failover and optionally take snapshots of the source devices for restoration if needed. The way to make a device read-only to meet SRM's specification before failover is to remove VLUN exposure so that no one has access to it. Remote Copy will internally manage taking the snapshots if something goes wrong during the failover process. HPE 3PAR SRA also takes a snapshot of the devices on the protected site of SRM (Remote Copy role Primary or Primary-Rev) for restore purposes since the user might activate the Remote Copy sync after failback (setrcopygroup restore) that might destroy the data content.

After failover, the devices on the protected storage system must be read-only. Devices under the secondary Remote Copy Group will automatically have read-only access.

The re-protect operation requires at least one Remote Copy link to be running for the intended storage pair to be up.

HPE 3PAR SRA support for SLD HPE 3PAR SRA supports SLD Remote Copy Groups on HPE 3PAR OS 3.2.1 MU2 or later. HPE 3PAR SRA can coexist with a SLD Remote Copy Group on HPE 3PAR OS version 3.2.1 to HPE 3PAR OS 3.2.2.

• SRM supports only one-to-one replication. If one of the pairs in an SLD setup is selected for an SRM configuration, only the selected pair is started after re-protect in the failover workflow.

• Before failback, all the pairs in the SLD setup must be started as a requirement for setrcopygroup restore operation. You can run the showrcopy groups <groupname> command to see the status of the SLD groups. All virtual volume members in the SLD setup must be in Synced status for the failback operation to be successful.

Caution When the Remote Copy links are up and running between the HPE 3PAR arrays, do not execute the SRM forced recovery operation during the failback scenario. That is, when you want to move VM workloads from recovery site to the protected site. If you perform the forced recovery operation during failback scenario, then the subsequent recovery required operation fails. For more information on the configuration and setup of HPE 3PAR SRA, see the HPE 3PAR SRA User Guide.

Remote Copy link behavior during a failure Activity for Remote Copy operations between HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems can be viewed from the SSMC interface by selecting the Remote Copy Group, then selecting the Activity option. The HPE 3PAR CLI showrcopy command displays the status of the Remote Copy links.

When a failure occurs on systems with synchronous mode volume groups such that all links between the systems are broken, the following actions occur:

• After 10 seconds, the system marks the sending links as down.

• After another 10 seconds, the system marks the targets as failed.

When a failure occurs on systems with asynchronous periodic mode volume groups (as in an SLD configuration) such that all links between the systems are broken, the following actions occur:

• After 60 seconds, the system marks the sending links as down.

• After another 200 seconds, the system marks the targets as failed.

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HP_3PAR_SRM


The HPE 3PAR CLI statrcopy command displays the real-time throughput of the Remote Copy links and targets.

Figure 29. Throughput of a successful test of an SRM Recovery Plan in the test environment

SRM recovery and re-protect Re-protecting is only applicable in cases where array-based protection has been established, a failover has been completed, and there is a need to re-establish protection. If an unplanned failover has occurred, a planned failover must be completed before attempting re-protection. This action is needed to ensure the original protected site has been restored, and a planned failover is completed to ensure both sites are fully aware of the status. If errors occur during such an attempted planned failover, the errors must be resolved, and the failover should run again until the failover succeeds. Running a planned migration after a failover will not affect the running of the recovered VMs, but is needed to allow SRM to reset certain aspects of the configuration in readiness for re-protect.

To initiate a re-protect of a site, follow these steps:

1. Click Recovery Plans in the left pane, click the Recovery Plan that was executed previously, and then click Reprotect.

2. Select I understand that this operation cannot be undone and click Next.

3. On the confirmation window, click Start.

Once complete, the recovery site’s plan will be modified to work in the reverse direction and set back to normal. Now both VMs are on the same site and protected.

Conclusion HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software provides the data sharing and data protection solution that today’s IT departments require with ground-breaking simplicity and efficiency. By simplifying the deployment of remote replication, Remote Copy empowers the storage administrator to deploy new disaster recovery solutions quickly and to adapt to changing business needs.

Coupling the simplicity and efficiency of HPE 3PAR Remote Copy with HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, we enable HPE 3PAR customers to implement VMware vCenter SRM easily. It helps in end-to-end management of array-based replication and failover of VMs. The combination of HPE 3PAR Remote Copy and VMware vCenter SRM lets customers build resilient utility computing infrastructures, protect applications at a lower cost, and recover data more quickly and efficiently compared to traditional disaster recovery offerings.

Remote Copylinks—Source storage

Remote Copylinks—Backup storage


Not only does leveraging HPE 3PAR Storage enables seamless integration with VMware SRM for simplified disaster recovery, but is also enables organizations using VMware vSphere with HPE 3PAR to gain several other key benefits.

• Using HPE 3PAR Storage with VMware vSphere storage enables its users to double VM density on physical servers, placing twice as manyVMs on physical servers as with traditional storage platforms.

• Tight integration of VMware vCenter Server and the HPE 3PAR Management Software Plug-In for VMware vCenter allows administrators tomonitor and manage HPE 3PAR Storage volumes to create point-in-time, VM- and application-aware, disk-based snapshots from within thevSphere console.

• With HPE 3PAR Thin Persistence, as the vSphere host writes zeroes to the VMDK file, the zeroes are detected in-line by the ASIC, and nospace is allocated for the VMDK in the thin provisioned volume.

• With Thin Persistence, when a VM is deleted or moved to another datastore that unallocated storage is released back to the array rather thankeeping it assigned to the LUN.

For more information on the HPE 3PAR Management Software Plug-In for VMware vCenter or HPE 3PAR Recovery Manager Software for VMware vSphere, see hpe.com/us/en/storage/3par.html.

For more information To understand HPE 3PAR Storage and VMware SRM, visit:

h20392.www2.hpe.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HP_3PAR_SRM

HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.0 Implementation Guide:

h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=5218145&docId=emr_na-c04796866&docLocale=en_US

HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software User Guide:

h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c03618143&lang=en-us&cc=us

Support Matrix for HPE 3PAR SRA Versions:

spock.corp.hp.com/spock/utility/document.aspx?docurl=Shared%20Documents/an/solutions_vmware/sra600_3par_srm60_srm5x.2015_09_09.pdf

HPE Storage: hpe.com/go/storage

VMware resources VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager documentation:

vmware.com/products/site-recovery-manager/resource.html

VMware SRM 6.0 Installation and Configuration Guide

VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG) for SRAs:

vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=sra

Learn more at hpe.com/us/en/storage/3par.html

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/storage/3par.html

https://h20392.www2.hpe.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HP_3PAR_SRM

http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=5218145&docId=emr_na-c04796866&docLocale=en_US

http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c03618143&lang=en-us&cc=us

https://spock.corp.hp.com/spock/utility/document.aspx?docurl=Shared%20Documents/an/solutions_vmware/sra600_3par_srm60_srm5x.2015_09_09.pdf

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/data-storage/index.html?jumpid=va_r2880_ww/en/large/tsg/pl_po_ob_ds_pd/data-storage_cc/dt

http://www.vmware.com/products/site-recovery-manager/resource.html


http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=sra

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/storage/3par.html


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