This document discusses business continuity and disaster recovery strategies in virtual and cloud environments. It outlines different types of availability designs including stretched clusters across sites, multiple vSphere clusters, and site-to-site replication with disaster recovery. It explains when to use stretched vSphere clusters versus site recovery manager, and discusses features of vSphere replication. The document aims to help customers understand different options and select the right solution based on their requirements for disaster avoidance, recovery, and planned migration.

1. © 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved
Confidential
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery in
Virtual & Cloud Environments
Liam Ferrel

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Basic Outline for this session….
CAMPUS
METRO / SYNC
DISTANCE SYNC / ASYNC

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Availability Design Myths
 One solution fits all
 One solution is cheaper
 One is easier to implement
 One is easier to manage its just “Next > Next > Finish”
 So you and this powerpoint will tell me which solution I need?
• No
• All solutions have pros / cons
• All implementations are different
• All customer profiles are different
• Use this information to define what will work for you, you have to live it and
breath it

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Keep it Simple
(Don’t take offence at the next 4 slides)

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“Disaster” Avoidance – Host Level
“Hey… That host WILL need to go down
for maintenance. Let’s vMotion to avoid
a disaster and outage.”
X
This is vMotion.
Most important
characteristics:
• By definition, avoidance,
not recovery.
• “non-disruptive” is
massively different than
“almost non-
disruptive”

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“Disaster” Recovery – Host Level
Hey… That host WENT down due to unplanned
failure causing a unplanned outage due to that
disaster. Let’s automate the RESTART of the
affected VMs on another host.
X
This is VMware HA.
Most important
characteristics:
• By definition recovery
(restart), not avoidance
• Simplicity, automation,
sequencing

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Disaster Avoidance – Site Level
Hey… That site WILL need to go down
for maintenance. Let’s vMotion to avoid
a disaster and outage.
This is Long Distance
vMotion.
Most important
characteristics:
• By definition, avoidance,
not recovery.
• “non-disruptive” is
massively different than
“almost non-
disruptive”
X

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Disaster Recovery – Site Level
Hey… That site WENT down due to unplanned
failure causing a unplanned outage due to that
disaster. Let’s automate the RESTART of the
affected VMs on another host.
This is Disaster Recovery.
Most important characteristics:
• By definition recovery (restart),
not avoidance
• Simplicity, testing, split brain
behavior, automation,
sequencing, IP address
changesX

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Types

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Site A Datastore
Type 1: “Stretched Single vSphere Cluster”
vMotion
vCenter Server
vSphere Cluster
Site A hosts
ESXiESXiESXiESXi
Site B Datastore
Site B hosts
ESXiESXiESXiESXi
Active / Active Storage

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One little note re: “Intra-Cluster” vMotion
 Intra-cluster vMotions can be highly parallelized
• With vSphere 4.1 and vSphere 5 it’s up to 4 per host/128 per datastore if using
1GbE
• 8 per host/128 per datastore if using 10GbE
 Need to meet the vMotion network requirements
• 622Mbps or more,
• 5ms RTT (upped to 10ms RTT if using Metro vMotion - vSphere 5 Enterprise
Plus)
• Layer 2 equivalence for vmkernel (support requirement)
• Layer 2 equivalence for VM network traffic (required)

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vSphere Cluster
Site A Datastore
Type 2: “Multiple vSphere Clusters”
vMotion
vCenter Server
vSphere Cluster
Site A hosts
ESXiESXiESXiESXi
Site B Datastore
Site B hosts
ESXiESXiESXiESXi
Active / Active Storage

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One little note re: “Inter-Cluster” vMotion
 Inter-Cluster vMotions are serialized
• Involves additional calls into vCenter, so hard limit
• Lose VM cluster properties (HA restart priority, DRS settings, etc.)
 Need to meet the vMotion network requirements
• 622Mbps or more
• 5ms RTT (upped to 10ms RTT if using Metro vMotion w vSphere 5 Enterprise
Plus)
• Layer 2 equivalence for vmkernel (support requirement)
• Layer 2 equivalence for VM network traffic (required)

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Stretched Cluster Considerations
Most networks lacks site awareness, so stretched clusters
introduce new networking challenges.
 With all storage configurations:
• The movement of VMs from one site to another doesn’t update
the network
• VM movement causes “horseshoe routing” (LISP and other
technologies, help address this)
• You’ll need to use multiple isolation addresses in your VMware
HA configuration

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vSphere Cluster B
Site A Datastore
Type 3: “Site to Site Replication & Recovery”
vCenter
Server A
vSphere Cluster A
Site A hosts
ESXiESXiESXiESXi
Site B Datastore
Site B hosts
ESXiESXiESXiESXi
vCenter
Server B
Array-based (sync, async or
continuous) replication or vSphere
Replication (async)
SRM Server SRM Server

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Protection Groups
 Collection of VMs that are protected together
• Grouping enforced by storage layout (lun or consistency group) for array
based replication (ABR). Per VM for vSphere Replication
VMFS
LUN
VMFS
LUN
VMFS
LUN
Datastore Groups Protection Groups

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Recovery Plans & Protection Groups
Protection Group - A
Protection Group - B
Recovery Plan for Groups A&B
✔
✔
Protection Group - A
Protection Group - B

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Recovery Plans
 Essentially an automated “runbook”
for recovery
• Consists of one or more protection groups
• Controls every step of recovery process
• Storage (presentation)
• Network Customization (portgroup connection
and/or address changes)
• Power On Sequencing (dependencies
settable)
• Suspension of non essential workloads
• Invocation of customer defined pre/post
power on scripts (optional)
• Steps executed influenced by workflow
selected i.e Planned Migration / DR / Test
Failover
• Consists of one or more protection groups

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Group 5Group 4Group 3Group 2Group 1
Sequencing
Database
Apache
Desktop
Desktop
Desktop
Desktop
Apache
Apache
Mail SyncExchange
App Server
Master
Database
App Server
Database

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Test Failover – Non Disruptive
2
0
Protection Group
VMFS
LUN
Source Storage
(R/W)
VMFS
LUN
Replica Storage
(R/O)
VMFS
SNAP
Snapshot of Replica
Storage (R/W)
Test NetworkPlaceholder VMs
1 2 3

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Failover
2
1
Protection Group
VMFS
LUN
Source Storage
(R/W)
VMFS
LUN
Replica Storage
(R/O)
VMFS
LUN
Replica Storage
Promoted (R/W)
Live NetworkPlaceholder VMs
1 2 3

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 Automated Failback
• Available for ALL SAN Replication SRA’s
• Implemented via new “Reprotect” workflow
• Resets protected state for workloads migrated or recovered
• Single button invocation
• “Flips” Protection Group and Recovery Plan states A->B becomes B->A
• No requirement to manually recreate objects
Automated Failback (Reprotect)

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What if we don’t have SAN replication?

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Introducing vSphere Replication (VR)

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VR Basics
 Adding native replication to SRM
• Virtual machines can be replicated regardless of the underlying storage
• Enables replication between heterogeneous datastores
• Replication is managed as a property of a virtual machine
• Efficient replication minimizes impact on VM workloads
source target

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When To Use Stretched vSphere Clusters?
Campus / nearby sites
• Sites within Synchronous distance
• Two buildings on a common campus
• Two datacenters within a city
Planned migration important
• Long-distance vMotion for planned maintenance, disaster avoidance, or load
balancing
DR Features less critical
• No testing, orchestration, or automation
• VMware HA typically not sufficient for automation – requires scripting /
manual process due to VM placement with primary / secondary arrays
• RTOs typically longer

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When To Use Site Recovery Manager?
Longer-distance DR sites
• Any sites separated by >100km
• Any sites separated by <100km which could still be categorized as “DR”
where DR features are important
DR Features critical
• Non-disruptive testing
• Automated / Reliable / Repeatable / Auditable DR process
• Customizable recovery workflows
Planned migration with downtime ok
• Couple of hours downtime acceptable
• Planned migration not done routinely – mostly for disaster avoidance, and
infrequently for planned maintenance

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Software Defined Availability: vCloud Services
Software
Defined
Availability
Clustering
Disaster
Recovery
Replication
Data
Protection
Availability
DR RTO
RPO
Storage
Performance
99.99%
1 hour
10 Min
High I/O
HighSecurity
1 TB
Unified
Any Class of Protection
Flexible Service Level Options
Tier 1
ServiceLevel
Tier 2 Tier 3
Bronze
99 %,
Low
Performance
Silver
99.9%,
Medium
Performance
Gold
99.99%,
High
Performance
Any Application
Traditional / Next-Gen Applications
Apps
Anywhere
Application Mobility Over Any Distance
(Metro/Geo)
Public
Cloud
Component Failures to Large Scale Disasters
Any Failure Scenario

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Thank you