IBM Storwize 7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager: An overview of disaster recovery preparation and workload migration for multisite VMware vSphere clouds using IBM NAS and vSphere host-based replication solutions

IBM Storwize 7000 Unified, SONAS, and
VMware Site Recovery Manager

An overview of disaster recovery preparation and workload migration for
multisite VMware vSphere clouds using IBM NAS and vSphere host-based
replication solutions

Benton Gallun
IBM Systems and Technology Group ISV Enablement
June 2012

© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2012

Table of contents
Abstract........................................................................................................................................1
Introduction .................................................................................................................................1
Intended audience.......................................................................................................................1
Overview of a disaster recovery solution .................................................................................1
IBM Storwize V7000 Unified NAS...............................................................................................2
Storwize V7000 Unified overview ............................................................................................................ 3
Block hardware and concepts ........................................................................................... 3
Storwize V7000 Unified for SRM ............................................................................................................. 5
File hardware and concepts .............................................................................................. 5
IBM SONAS..................................................................................................................................6
Overview of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager with IBM SONAS............................................... 7
Common NAS features of Storwize V7000 Unified and SONAS ............................................................ 7
VMware overview ......................................................................................................................10
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 .................................................................................................................... 10
VMware vCenter Server......................................................................................................................... 11
VMware vSphere Client ......................................................................................................................... 12
vCenter Site Recovery Manager............................................................................................................ 12
Protected and recovery sites ................................................................................................................. 12
Host-based replication ........................................................................................................................... 13
Database................................................................................................................................................ 13
Installation of SRM and vSphere Replication components...................................................14
Database preparation ............................................................................................................................ 14
SRM Server installation on vCenter Server ........................................................................................... 14
Connect the sites ................................................................................................................................... 16
Resource mappings......................................................................................................... 21
Folder mappings.............................................................................................................. 22
Network mappings........................................................................................................... 23
Configuring vSphere Replication ............................................................................................23
Deploy the VRM Server ......................................................................................................................... 24
Configure the VMRS connection ........................................................................................................... 27
Deploy a VR server................................................................................................................................ 28
Registering a VR server with the VRM server ....................................................................................... 28
Configuring VM Replication .....................................................................................................28
Protecting workloads................................................................................................................30
Testing workloads.....................................................................................................................41
Migrating workloads .................................................................................................................43
Reprotecting workloads ...........................................................................................................45
Scaling / Improving replication times .....................................................................................45
Deploy multiple VRS appliances and multiple vCenters........................................................................ 45
Prepopulating virtual disks..................................................................................................................... 46

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager

Best practices............................................................................................................................47
Summary....................................................................................................................................48
Appendix A: Glossary...............................................................................................................49
Appendix B: Resources............................................................................................................50
About the author .......................................................................................................................51
Trademarks and special notices..............................................................................................52

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager

Abstract
This paper offers configuration information regarding the IBM Storwize V7000 Unified network-
attached storage (NAS) system and IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS)
solutions in an ESX environment with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager using VMware
vSphere host based replication. The purpose of this paper is to set appropriate expectations for
customers with regard to disaster recovery (DR) and workload migration options when using
IBM NAS solutions with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) host-based replication.

Introduction
Until recently VMware SRM required the use of site recovery adapter (SRA) specific to the storage
solution being used. SRAs from multiple vendors / solutions could not be used together. VMware host-
based replication, released with VMware vSphere 5.0 for SRM 5.0 support now enables customers to
protect vSphere workloads on any VMware certified vSphere datastore opening new flexibility in the
deployment of new data centers for disaster recovery preparation.

Intended audience
This paper is intended for anyone interested in using VMware SRM with IBM® Storwize® V7000 Unified
and IBM SONAS for business continuity. This paper assumes that the user has some background in both
IBM scale out NAS and VMware products, specifically Storwize V7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware
vCenter server. In addition, the reader must have sufficient knowledge about DR solutions and the work
flow required in a DR scenario.

Overview of a disaster recovery solution
As IT systems have become increasingly critical to the smooth operation of enterprises, the importance of
ensuring their continued operation, including rapid recovery when subsystems fail, has increased. Before
selecting a disaster recovery strategy, a disaster recovery planner must refer to their organization's
business continuity plan, which indicates the key metrics of recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery
time objective (RTO) for various business processes. The metrics specified for the business processes
must then be mapped to the underlying IT systems and infrastructure that supports those processes.
After mapping the RTO and RPO metrics to IT infrastructure, the DR planner can determine the most
suitable recovery strategy for each system.

RPO – This refers to the point in time to which data must be recovered as defined by the organization.
This is generally a definition of what an organization determines as an acceptable loss in a disaster
situation.
RTO – This refers to the duration of time and a service level within which a business process must be
restored, following a disaster or disruption, in order to avoid unacceptable consequences associated with
a break in business continuity.

IBM Storwize 7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager

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The ideal solution will have both: a low RPO (in minutes) and RTO (ranges from minutes to hours). It is
important to test a DR solution to find whether it is suitable and efficient for business continuity.

IBM Storwize V7000 Unified NAS
The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified builds upon the proven IBM Storwize V7000 storage to offer both block
and file storage services in a single unified storage array. It has been certified for virtualization using
VMware vSphere 5.0 for comprehensive server and storage virtualization. The highly scalable storage
capacity of Storwize V7000 Unified can be used to start with smaller capacities and then grow to
consolidate data from multiple servers and storage systems for more efficient infrastructure utilization
(particularly storage efficiency) and ease of management and administration.
You can find certification information about Storwize V7000 (block) and Storwize V7000 Unified (NFS) on
the VMware Storage HCL at the following links:
Block (SAN):
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/detail.php?deviceCategory=san&productid=18864&vcl=true

NFS (NAS):
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/detail.php?deviceCategory=san&productid=20569&vcl=true

The Storwize V7000 is a modular storage system built from the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume
Controller technology base and utilizing Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) technology from
the IBM System Storage DS8000® family to deliver a virtualized, enterprise-ready, mid-range storage
solution. The IBM Storwize V7000 storage system enables customers to improve application flexibility,
responsiveness, and availability, while reducing storage usage and complexity through storage
virtualization and the following features:
 Metro Mirror and Global Mirror perform synchronous and asynchronous data replication between
IBM Storwize V7000 systems at varying distances to protect data and keep services online in
downtime situations.

 IBM Tivoli® Storage FlashCopy® Manager functionality enables for the creation of instant volume
copies for data protection and flexibility
 Virtualization enables volume migration and mirroring to any storage managed by the IBM
Storwize V7000 system.
 IBM System Storage Easy Tier® automatically manages the efficient usage of solid-state drives
(SSDs) and increases application performance by promoting frequently-accessed data to SSDs.

The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified storage system builds upon the proven IBM Storwize V7000 storage
system by including two file modules, which adds the following features and functions:
 File replication and file-level snapshots for business continuity and disaster recovery.

 Support for Network File System (NFS), Common Internet File System (CIFS), File Transfer
Protocol (FTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) file
protocols in addition to the existing Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI block functions provided by the
Storwize V7000 system.


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 Intuitive, easy-to-use GUI which tightly integrates management for block and file capabilities.
 IBM Active Cloud Engine™ technology delivers automated storage efficiency capabilities
including user-definable policy-based file management.
 Integrated IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client for simplified backup to Tivoli Storage Manager
servers and support for other third-party NDMP backup clients.
The subsequent sections describe the IBM Storwize V7000 Unified hardware and concepts.

Storwize V7000 Unified overview
The IBM Storwize V7000 Unified system is the first IBM-developed midrange unified storage offering that
presents both file and block interfaces from the same storage system. It is built on the proven Storwize
V7000 storage system and therefore all block storage features and functions are available.

Block hardware and concepts
A Storwize V7000 system is made up of 2U drive enclosures. One control enclosure with the option to
add up to nine expansion controllers is required for additional capacity. All enclosures have the option
of 12-drive slots (as shown in Figure 1) or 24-drive slots (as shown in Figure 2).

Figure 1: Storwize V7000 12-disk enclosure

Figure 2: Storwize V7000 24-disk enclosure

Within the control enclosure are two node canisters, also known as an I/O group (which form an
active-active processing unit), act as the management point for the storage system and service all I/O
to host systems.
Storwize V7000 can have between one to nine expansion enclosures, which are connected to the
control enclosure through redundant serial-attached SCSI (SAS) connections and form the system’s
internal storage capacity. The control and expansion controllers support a wide range of drives:
2.5-inch drive support
 146 GB, 300 GB 15,000 rpm SAS disk
 300 GB, 450 GB, 600 GB 10,000 rpm SAS disk
 200 GB, 300 GB, 400 GB enterprise-grade multilevel cell (E-MLC) SSD
 1 TB 7,200 rpm nearline SAS disk


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3.5-inch drive support
 2 TB, 3 TB 7,200 rpm nearline SAS disk

Drive types can be intermixed between enclosures. The maximum number of internal drives
supported by the Storwize V7000 system is 240. Figure 3 shows a Storwize V7000 system with
mixed enclosure and drive types.

Figure 3: Storwize V7000 system with 10 enclosures

In addition to managing internal storage, one major feature of the Storwize V7000 system is the ability
to manage storage provided by the external storage systems. The Storwize V7000 system acts as the
virtualization layer between the host and external storage system. Up to 32 PB of external storage
can be managed by a single Storwize V7000 system, and as the storage is virtualized, volumes can
be non-disruptively moved between external and internal storage capacity. Figure 4 shows a
representation of this technology.


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Figure 4: IBM Storwize V7000 virtualizing external and internal storage

Storwize V7000 Unified for SRM
Storwize V7000 Unified offers a fully array of VMware integration options including an SRA for vSphere
VM protection between two Storwize V7000 block sites.

Testing for this paper was focused on Storwize V7000 Unified and SONAS file-based vSphere
deployment for use with vSphere replication. As vSphere snaps into vSphere at the datastore level, it can
also be used with existing Storwize V7000 block deployments or other VMware certified storage for
protection by SONAS or Storwize V7000 files.

File hardware and concepts
A Storwize V7000 Unified system is made up of a Storwize V7000 storage system and two Storwize
V7000 file modules. The Storwize V7000 storage system provides block storage volumes to hosts
and is also used by the Storwize V7000 file modules, which in turn provides file storage to hosts.
Because of this architecture, the Storwize V7000 Unified provides the proven block storage
capabilities of the Storwize V7000 system, including all features and functions mentioned in the
“Block hardware and concepts” section, but also adds file storage capabilities.
The Storwize V7000 Unified file modules are built upon the IBM System x®3650 M3 server running
the IBM NAS stack developed originally for SONAS, and include the following specifications:
 Processor – Single six core Intel® Xeon® X5650, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB L2 cache, 80W
 Memory – 72 GB DDR3 RAM


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 Storage – Two 500 GB 10K SAS disk drives
 Network interfaces:
− Four 1 GbE ports, two for host access and two for management
− Two 10 GbE ports for host access
 Host bus adapter (HBA) – Two 8 Gbps FC ports for disk access only
The minimum footprint of a Storwize V7000 Unified system is 6U. Figure 5 shows the minimum
Storwize 7000 Unified configuration consisting of the two file modules and the Storwize V7000 control
enclosure.

V7000 Unified

asdf V7000 Unified

Figure 5: Minimum footprint of a Storwize V7000 Unified system

The Storwize V7000 Unified file modules run a common IBM network-attached storage (NAS)
software stack which originates from the IBM SONAS product.

IBM SONAS
The IBM SONAS provides extreme scale out capability, a globally clustered NAS file system build upon
IBM General Parallel File System (IBMGPFS™). The global namespace is maintained across the cluster
of multiple storage pods and multiple interface nodes. All interface nodes and all storage nodes share
equally in the cluster to balance workloads dynamically and provide parallel performance to all users and
storage, while also assuring high availability (HA) and automated failover.

The IBM SONAS is a scalable virtual file storage platform that grows as data grows. It meets demanding
performance requirements as new processors can be added independently or as storage capacity is
added, eliminating a choke point found in traditional scale-up systems. SONAS is designed for high-
availability 24x7 environments with a clustered architecture that is inherently available and, when
combined with the global namespace, allows for much higher utilization rates than found in scale-up
environments.
The IBM SONAS storage system offers the following features:
 Provides extreme scalability to accommodate capacity growth for up to 21 petabytes


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 Manages multiple petabytes of storage and billions of files in a single file system
 Provides excellent performance for a single file system
 Enables ubiquitous access to files from across the globe quickly and cost effectively with IBM
Active Cloud Engine
 Achieves operational efficiency with automated, policy-driven tiered storage
 Lowers TCO by up to 40 percent with automated lifecycle management and migration to tape
 Satisfies bandwidth hungry applications with scale-out performance
 Supports both random access and streaming workloads
 Enables disaster recovery and business continuity with asynchronous replication
 Allows file set snapshots and file cloning for increased availability
 Offers ease of use and manageability

Overview of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager with IBM SONAS
The SONAS advanced architecture virtualizes and consolidates hundreds to thousands of spinning disks
into an enterprise-wide file system, and can scale I/O and capacity dynamically as storage nodes are
added. SONAS scales up to 21 petabytes of storage managed in a single pane of glass. SONAS storage
can be provisioned as a single datastore or hundreds as needed. No consideration needs to be given to
SCSI reservation issues when choosing SONAS NFS datastore sizes resulting in larger datastores for
improved manageability. SONAS GPFS performance improves as disks are added to GPFS pools and
storage and infrastructure nodes scale out the deployment. IBM SONAS translates into reduced total cost
of administration, reduced capital expenditure, and enhanced operational efficiency, making it an
excellent choice for DR sties protecting multiple data centers with VMware Site Recovery Manager and
vSphere Replication.

Common NAS features of Storwize V7000 Unified and SONAS
Data can be accessed using a variety of protocols, including: CIFS, NFS, FTP, HTTPS, and SCP.
Internally, the NAS uses the IBM GPFS to store data.
GPFS is an IBM developed file system that has been in development since 1995 and is highly scalable
while providing the simplicity of a single flat file system. The GPFS spans multiple physical disks, also
known as Network Shared Disks (NSDs).

Inherited in GPFS is the ability to perform policy-based snapshots of the file system. There can be a
maximum of 256 snapshots per file system. Thirty-two snapshots are reserved for services such as
Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP), which leaves 224 snapshots for customer use. Snapshots
can be named and scheduled, and policies can be defined, which control retention of snapshots. Figure 6
shows a screen capture of the snapshot rules from the GUI.


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Figure 6: Examples of snapshot rules from the NAS GUI

IBM NAS also includes the IBM Active Cloud Engine, which is a policy-driven engine that helps improve
storage efficiency by automatically:
 Placing files when they are created on the appropriate storage.
 Moving files during their life to the right tier of storage, including tapes in an IBM Tivoli
Storage Manager hierarchy.
 Deleting expired or unwanted files.
 Identifying files for backup or replication to a DR location.
IBM Active Cloud Engine is designed for high performance and can scan a large number of files very
rapidly. Figure 7 shows an example of the IBM Active Cloud Engine, migrating a file between different
tiers of storage based on time policies.


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Figure 7: Example of IBM Active Cloud Engine file migration

The system also has the ability to asynchronous replicate one or more file systems through file-based
replication to a secondary site. Replication is performed by the rsync tool which efficiently replicates only
the changed portions of files to the destination, and uses Secure Shell (SSH) to provide an encryption
mechanism to replicated data.
The well-received management GUI was updated to include the management of file objects, which
means customers use a unified management GUI to administer both block and file storage, as shown in
Figure 8.

Figure 8: IBM Storwize V7000 Unified user interface


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VMware overview
VMware is one of the largest providers of virtualization and cloud solutions with solutions ranging from
application and desktop PC virtualization to enterprise clouds with up to 10,000 servers linked per
vSphere environment.

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 5.0 is installed directly on the hardware and does not require any operating system. It is a
virtualization platform used to create the virtual machines (VMs) as a set of configuration and disk files
that together perform all the functions of a physical machine. Through ESX, you can run virtual machines,
install operating systems, run applications, and configure virtual machines. Configuration includes
identifying virtual machine resources, such as storage devices.
Each ESX host has a vSphere Client available for management use. If the ESX host is registered with the
vCenter Server, a vSphere Client that accommodates the vCenter Server features is available. An ESX
system has the following key components:
 Virtualization layer - This layer provides the idealized hardware environment and
virtualization of underlying physical resources to the virtual machines. This layer includes
the virtual machine monitor (VMM), which is responsible for virtualization, and the
VMkernel. The VMkernel manages most of the physical resources on the hardware,
including memory, physical processors, storage, and networking controllers. The
virtualization layer schedules the virtual machine operating systems and, if you are
running an ESX host, the service console. The virtualization layer manages the access to
physical resources by operating systems. The VMkernel must have its own drivers to
provide access to the physical devices.
 Hardware interface components - The virtual machine communicates with hardware,
such as processors or disk by using the hardware interface components. These
components include device drivers, which enable hardware-specific service delivery while
hiding hardware differences from other parts of the system.
 User interface - Administrators can view and manage ESX hosts and virtual machines in
several ways. A VMware vSphere Client can connect directly to the ESX host. This setup
is appropriate if your environment has only one host. A vSphere Client can also connect
to the vCenter Server and interact with all ESX hosts that the vCenter Server manages.

Figure 9 shows how the components interact. The ESX host has four virtual machines configured. Each
virtual machine runs its own guest operating system and applications. Administrators monitor the host
and the virtual machines in the following ways:
 Using a vSphere Client to connect to an ESX host directly.
 Using a vSphere Client to connect to a vCenter Server. The vCenter Server can manage
a number of ESX hosts.


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Figure 9: VMware components interacting

VMware vCenter Server
VMware vCenter Server is a service that acts as a central administration point for ESX hosts connected to
a network, their virtual machines, and connected resources. Multiple vCenter Server systems can be
joined to a Linked Mode group allowing logon to any single instance of vCenter Server to view and
manage the inventories of all linked vCenter servers. vCenter Linked Mode supports up to 10,000 live
virtual machines.

With vCenter, an administrator can manage components of a virtual infrastructure: ESX servers, VMs,
and extended functions such as Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), VMware vMotion, datastores,
virtual switches, and virtual machines.

vCenter requires a database to store its information. You can find a list of supported databases in the
“Database” section.
To connect to the vCenter service, the VMware vSphere Client is used.


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VMware vSphere Client
The vSphere Client software can be installed on a Microsoft® Windows® host and is the primary method
of interacting with VMware vSphere. The vSphere Client acts as a console to operate virtual machines
and as an administration interface to the vCenter Server systems and ESX hosts. You can download the
vSphere Client from the vCenter Server system and ESX hosts.
When using SRM, a SRM plug-in for the vSphere Client is required. It can be installed with the SRM
service itself.

vCenter Site Recovery Manager
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager is a business continuity and disaster recovery solution that
helps you plan, test, and run a scheduled migration or emergency failover of data center services from
one site to another.
SRM is an extension to VMware vCenter that enables integration with vSphere host-based replication for
management of virtual machine replication, testing disaster recovery preparedness, and migrating
workloads from one vCenter to another. SRM servers coordinate the replication operations with vCenter
servers at multiple sites so that when virtual machines at a protected site become unavailable, virtual
machines at the recovery site can be started using the data replicated from the protected site. Transfer of
services from one site to the other is controlled by a recovery plan that specifies allocation of vSphere
resources and the order in which virtual machines are shut down and started up. SRM recovery plan
testing dynamically mounts storage for non-persistent disk writes and starts VMs with no virtual network
connectivity so that testing can occur without disruption of live operations or replication integrity.
Figure 10 shows the Site Recovery Manager host-based architecture.

Protected and recovery sites
In a typical SRM installation, the protected site provides business-critical data center services, and the
recovery site provides an alternative facility to which these services can be migrated. The protected site
can be any site where virtual infrastructure supports a critical business need. The recovery site can be
located thousands of miles away, or the same campus. In the typical case, the recovery site is located in
a facility that is unlikely to be affected by any environmental, infrastructural, or other disturbances that
affect the protected site. SRM has several requirements for the vSphere configurations at each site:
 Each site must include at least one vSphere data center.
 The recovery site must have hardware and network resources that can support the same
virtual machines and workloads to be recovered or migrated.
 The protected and recovery sites must be connected by a reliable IP network with
sufficient bandwidth for the scheduled replication.
 The recovery site must have access to the same public and private networks as the
protected site, though not necessarily the same range of network addresses.


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Figure 10: Site Recovery Manager host-based architecture

Host-based replication
vSphere Replication (VR) is conducted by vSphere Replication Management Server (VRMS) virtual
machines at both protected and recovery sites. The VRMS relies on a vSphere Replication Agent (VRA),
which is dynamically deployed in virtual machines and a vSphere Replication Server (VRS), which is
deployed at the recovery site.

Database
Both vCenter and SRM require a database for storing information. Numerous popular versions of IBM
DB2®, Microsoft SQL, and Oracle are supported. Consult the VMware product interoperability matrix (at
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php?) to confirm that your preferred
database is supported.
VMware vCenter Server requires its own database to store data. SRM server stores recovery plans,
inventory information, and other associated data in another database, and VRMS also requires its own
database.
Before installing the vCenter and SRM server, vCenter and the SRM database must be configured.
The SRM database at each site holds information about virtual machine configurations, protection groups,
and recovery plans. SRM is unable to share the vCenter database as it uses an alternative database
schema, though you may use the vCenter database server to create and support the SRM database and
VRMS database instances.
For testing purposes, SQL Server 2008 was used to host each site’s required databases.


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Installation of SRM and vSphere Replication components
Two full vSpehre vCenter deployments are required for starting an SRM deployment. For more
information refer to the following IBM and VMware documentation on setup:
 IBM Storwize V7000 Unified: A feature-rich environment for VMware vSphere 5.0
ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/5cb5ed706d254a8186256c71006d2e0a/8f65843
79d62c9728525797d005efc6f/$FILE/IBM%20V7000%20Unified_vSphere5_v7.pdf

 IBM SONAS and VMware vSphere 5 scale-out cloud foundation
ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sto_wp_ibm_sonas_vmware
_vsphere_cloud

 vSphere Installation and Setup
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-
vcenter-server-50-installation-setup-guide.pdf

Database preparation
Before SRM installation can begin, an SRM database must be configured at each site. The VRS
database must also be configured at this time. SQL 2008 on Windows 2008 with SQL authentication was
used for testing.

For details, refer to the following guide :
 Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf
Refer to page 28 for the topic, Configuring the SRM Database.
Refer to page 29 for the topic, Configure the VRM Database.

SRM Server installation on vCenter Server
Before SRM installation begins, a DSN for the local SRM database is created on both the vCenter
servers.

The SRM installation executable is run on both the vCenter servers. A fully qualified domain name
(FQDN) for both the sites is required for installation. It is important that the DNS name for each site be
available at both the sites and that the corresponding IP reverse lookup record resolves to the FQDN.
After installation, the SRM plug-in is available in vCenter and this need to be downloaded and installed in
the vCenter Client, which will be used in managing the SRM operations.


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Figure 11: vCenter Plug-In Manager

After downloading and installing the SRM plug-in, navigate to the vCenter Client home page and click
Site Recovery. SRM then displays the Getting started page, as shown in Figure 10.


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Figure 12: SRM Getting Started page, displaying the next steps to deploy and test SRM.

Connect the sites
With SRM installed at both the sites, click Configure Connection, and populate the resulting dialogs with
FQDNs and authentication information for SRM partner site. After completing this step, log on to the
recovery site vCenter and repeat the steps for creating the reverse connection.
Note: It is useful to think of SRM protected and recovery sites. However, it is common for all sites to be
protected or primary and recovery or secondary in different operations. In this testing, vctr100 is
considered as the primary (protected) site and vctr200 as the recovery site unless otherwise noted.


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Figure 13: Connecting SRM connection


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Figure 14: FQDN for SRM remote vCenter


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Figure 15: Authenticating remote SRM vCenter


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Figure 16: SRM vCenter Server authentication


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Figure 17: Connection completed

After the connection has been completed at both the sites, inventory mappings must be set up for
Resource, Folder, and Network.

Resource mappings
Resource mappings will generally be made on a cluster to cluster level.


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Figure 18: Resource mappings

Folder mappings

Figure 19: Folder mappings

Folder mappings are administratively useful for keeping track of the preferred protected site and
recovery site vSphere folders. It is recommended that you use folder names that clearly indicate the
purpose of the VMs they contain when using SRM. The preferred protected and recovery site
mappings will be dynamically populated by default in the GUI when creating jobs. It is easy to change
these settings globally or on a job-by-job basis.


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Network mappings

Figure 20: Network mappings

Default network mappings are similar to folder mappings and are used to define the default network in
the recovery data center to use based on the vSphere network used in the source data center. These
names may map perfectly by name or may have very different names depending on the way vSphere
is administered in the two data centers.

Configuring vSphere Replication
After setting up SRM, a replication mechanism is required for SRM to be useful. In order to facilitate
cross-storage replication, the test team used the vSphere host-based replication.
In the left pane of the Site-Recovery module, navigate to vSphere Replication. The Getting started page
(as shown in Figure 21) is displayed, identifying the steps to configure vSphere Replication. Once again
the steps must be completed at both the sites.


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Figure 21: Getting started with configuring vSphere Replication

Deploy the VRM Server
Perform the following steps to deploy the VRM Server.
1. Click Deploy the VRM server on the Getting started page and then click Next. Then enter the
appropriate data for the name, cluster, host, disk target, network, IP configuration fields that
would be relevant to your environment.
2. Validate the appropriateness of data on the Ready to Complete page and click Finish.


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Figure 22: The Ready to Complete page displaying the deployment settings

3. After receiving the Deployment Completed Successfully message, click Configure the VRM
Server on the Getting Started page.
4. Log in with the root credentials provided during template deployment, and click Configuration
page on the Getting Started with vSphere Replication Management page.


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Figure 23: Getting started with vSphere Replication Management (VRM)

5. Populate the configuration tab with IP and authentication data for the VRMS database for the site
being configured.
6. Click Save and Restart Service.

The message stating that VRM service is stopped should change to started after DB attachment is
complete.


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Figure 24: Configuration tab

Figure 25: VRM service running

Configure the VMRS connection
After the VRMS is deployed and configured at both the sites, connection
between them is established.

Figure 26: VRMS connection succeeded


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Deploy a VR server
A VR server is required at every recovery site. As protected sites become recovery sites when re-
protecting workloads, it is recommended that a VR virtual machine be deployed at both the sites to
support two-way SRM.
Click Deploy a VR Server and fill in the necessary information in the resulting dialogs to deploy the VM.

Registering a VR server with the VRM server
To register a VR server with the VRM server, click Register a VR Server and then click the VR server to
register, and confirm.

Figure 27: Confirming the registration

Configuring VM Replication
After the vCenter, SRM, VR, and VRM servers are properly set up at both the sites, virtual machine
replication can be configured for a virtual machine by right-clicking its display name and clicking
Replicate.


28

Figure 28: Configuring replication


29

Figure 29: Configuration of replication succeeded

Protecting workloads
After scheduling replication, replication progress can be verified by opening the SRM plug-in and clicking
vSphere Replication in the left pane. Workloads being replicated for the first time, displays the status as
Initial Full Sync along with progress indicator (in percentage) during first replication. When the replication
is completed, the status changes to Success.


30

Figure 30: vSphere replication shows VMs nat1 and Veeam have replicated successfully, srm100_2k8-1and 2 are still
undergoing initial full disk synchronization.

Before testing can begin for a group of VMs, they must be placed in a protection group. A protection
group is generally used to protect all the required VMs for a particular application or solution.

By separating VMs into multiple protection groups, VM migration or failover can be done on an
application-by-application basis, allowing an SRM administrator to start the most critical business
applications first during a disaster scenario.

Click Protection Groups in the left pane and then click Create a Protection Group in the All protection
Groups pane.


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Select vSphere Replication (VR) and then click Next.

Figure 31: Selecting virtual machines for protection group

Note: A protection group can be created with synchronization pending, but VMs cannot be migrated or
recovered until the first synchronization is completed.


32

Figure 32: Naming the protection group


33

Figure 33: Ready to complete the protection group

As soon as the protection group is in place, a recovery plan can be created for testing, migration, or
disaster response.
To create your recovery plan, perform the following steps.
1. Click Recovery Plans in the left pane and then click Create Recovery Plan in the All Recovery
Plans pane.


34

Figure 34: All Recovery Plans pane, with the Create Recovery Plane option


35

Figure 35: Selecting the recovery site

2. Select the appropriate site for recovery and click Next.


36

Figure 36: Selecting the recovery groups for recovery

3. Select the recovery groups to be included in the plan and click Next.


37

Figure 37: Selecting the network to use at the recovery site

4. Select the appropriate recovery network and click Next.


38

Figure 38: Naming the recovery plan

5. Enter an appropriate name for the recovery plan, clearly identifying its purpose. Use the optional
description field to include further description, if needed, and then click Next.


39

Figure 39: Completing recovery plan creation

6. Review the recovery plan details and click Back if corrections are necessary or click Finish to
complete.


40

Figure 40: Configure restore customization

Testing workloads
As soon as the recovery plan is in place and VM replication is complete, right-click the recovery plan in
the Recovery Plans pane and click Test. Then click Next and wait until you see the Test Complete
message.


41

Figure 41: Test execution on a recovery plan

Figure 42: Recovery plan test successful

The VMs should be running at the recovery site with non persistent writes and no network connectivity. It
might be necessary to click Refresh to update the recovery status to Success after the message Test
Complete is reported. After validating the integrity of the VMs at the recovery site, click Cleanup, then
Next, and then Start. SRM will shut down the VMs and resume protection of the VMs.


42

Migrating workloads
After a successful test, you can confidently proceed with migrating a workload to the protected data
center by right-clicking the recovery plan.

Figure 43: Selecting the Recovery option


43

Figure 44: Recovery confirmation page

It is necessary to select the check box in the Recovery Confirmation section clicking Next. In the event of
a disaster failover, select Disaster Recovery to fail over to the last complete replication. Retain the
Planned Migration option selected for failover to take place gracefully after completing one more data
replication.


44

Figure 45: Recovery review page

Reprotecting workloads
After workloads have been migrated, their recovery plan and protection groups must be re-created
in-reverse. As earlier, a properly configured virtual replication server is required at the former protected
site which will become the recovery site for the operation. Create a protection group and a recovery plan
containing the virtual machines to reprotect, test the plan, and migrate as before.

Scaling / Improving replication times
While testing for this paper, two vSphere 5.0 vCenter environments were deployed. A protected SRM
environment was build hosting virtual machines on a Storwize V7000 Unified NFS share, and a vCenter
and SRM environment for recovery was built hosting virtual machines on a SONAS NFS share. Both sites
had a single VRS to enable replication in either direction.

Deploy multiple VRS appliances and multiple vCenters
Assuming sufficient bandwidth exists between sites, deploying multiple virtual replication servers is the
easiest way to improve throughput. The Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide (at:


45

https://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf) lists a limit of one VRMS and five VRS appliances per
vCenter Server instance (refer to page 25, Table 1-8 in the guide). Use of multiple vCenter servers, each
with multiple VRS might be required to reach the replication capacity required for protecting large
workloads.

Prepopulating virtual disks
VMware recommends prepopulating the recovery site virtual disks for a VM before configuring the VMs
replication to reduce the time required to protect a VM for the first time.
Popular strategies for prepopulation include:
 Couriering backup media to recovery DC for restore
 Mounting datastore across high bandwidth WAN, cloning VM in vCenter, and
unregistering clone before configuring SRM replication
 Using deduplicated backup tool across high bandwidth WAN to restore virtual disks at
recovery site before first SRM configured replication
 Using SONAS / Storwize V7000 Unified asynchronous replication of snapshot across
high bandwidth WAN

For more information about backup and asynchronous replication with IBM NAS, refer to the following
websites:
 IBM SONAS and VMware vSphere 5 scale-out cloud foundation, pg. 28 Backup and restore
of VM images stored in SONAS
ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sto_wp_ibm_sonas_vmware_vsp
here_cloud

 IBM Storwize V7000 Unified: A feature-rich environment for VMware vSphere 5.0, pg. 37
VMware vSphere / View backup
ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sto_wp_sonas_storwize_v7000_
unified_vmware_vsphere

 DR solution for IBM SONAS hosted VMware virtual environment using Veeam
ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102052

 IBM SONAS business continuity solution with SONAS asynchronous replication and VMware
vSphere 4.1
ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/ContentHandler/stg_ast_sys_wp_sonas_asynchronous_re
plication_vmware_vsphere

 Replicate Virtual Machine Using Physical Couriering pg 64 SRM Administrators Guide
https://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf


46

Best practices
Always test your recovery plan before considering the plan to be in production.
Most recovery plans intended for production use must be customized to suit specific needs. For example,
a recovery plan for an emergency at the protected site is likely to be different from a planned migration of
services from one site to another.
A recovery plan can be customized to run commands, display messages that require a response, and
change the recovery priority of protected virtual machines. In the protection group, it is important to set
critical infrastructure virtual machines at high priority and make sure that they are recovered first. Also,
consider inserting a message step into the recovery plan, after the step that recovers the high-priority
virtual machines. This causes the execution of the recovery plan to be paused at this point. During a DR
test or true DR scenario, verify that the infrastructure services are available before the other servers with
dependencies are recovered.
Always perform a realistic test. Do not depend on any infrastructure or services that will not be
available during a real DR scenario.
Some recovery plan steps are run during all recoveries, some are run only during test recoveries, and
some are always skipped during test recoveries. Understanding these steps, their order, and the context
in which they run is important when customizing a recovery plan.


47

Summary
This paper provides and overview of the steps required to implement a disaster recovery solution
between IBM Storwize V7000 Unified and IBM SONAS using VMware SRM host-based replications and
demonstrates that SRM helps to manage disaster recovery preparation and workload migration in
VMware vSphere clouds. The methodologies presented can be used to protect any VMware datastore
with a Storwize V7000 Unified or SONAS based SRM deployment utilizing vSphere replication.


48

Appendix A: Glossary
 IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) - Build on IBM high-performance
computing experience and based upon IBM GPFS, scale out network-attached storage (NAS)
solution
provides the performance, clustered scalability, high availability, and functionality that are
essential to meet strategic Petabyte Age and cloud-storage requirements.

 VMware vSphere – Formerly developed as VMware Virtual Infrastructure, it is VMware’s first
cloud operating system that can manage large pools of virtualized computing infrastructure,
including software and hardware.

 VMware ESXi - VMware ESXi is bare-metal embedded hypervisor, which runs directly on server
hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.


49

Appendix B: Resources
The following websites provide useful references to supplement the information contained in this paper:
 IBM Systems on IBM PartnerWorld®
ibm.com/partnerworld/systems

 IBM Redbooks®
ibm.com/redbooks

 IBM Publications Center
www.elink.ibmlink.ibm.com/public/applications/publications/cgibin/pbi.cgi?CTY=US

 IBM SONAS on PartnerWorld
ibm.com/partnerworld/systems/sonas

IBM SONAS documentation
 IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Concepts
ibm.com/redbooks/redpieces/abstracts/sg247874.html?Open

 IBM SONAS Introduction and Planning Guide (GA32-0716):
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_ipg.pdf

 IBM SONAS administration and user documentation:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/index.jsp

 IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Administrator's Guide (GA32-0713):
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_admin
_guide.pdf

 IBM SONAS User's Guide (GA32-0714):
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_user_
guide.pdf

 IBM SONAS Configuration Guide (GA32-0718):
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/configuration
_guide.pdf

 IBM SONAS Troubleshooting Guide (GA32-0717):
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sonasic/sonas1ic/topic/com.ibm.sonas.doc/sonas_pd_gui
de.pdf

VMware documentation

 vSphere FAQ
http://www.vmware.com/products/site-recovery-manager/faqs.html

 VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Documentation
http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/srm_pubs.html

 Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide
https://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_5_0.pdf


50

 vSphere PowerCLI Administration Guide
http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/PowerCLI/PowerCLI41U1/doc/viwin_admg.pdf

 VMware Virtual Networking Concepts
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf

About the author
Benton Gallun is a Systems Architect in ISV Enablement Group for IBM NAS. He has 15 years of
experience working with thin client, virtualization, and storage technologies. His focus is on server
virtualization, Virtual Dekstop Infrastructure (VDI), and cloud solutions from ISVs which use the power of
scale out NAS.
You can contact Benton at bgallun@us.ibm.com.


51

Trademarks and special notices
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IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business
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Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the
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SET and the SET Logo are trademarks owned by SET Secure Electronic Transaction LLC.
Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
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All customer examples described are presented as illustrations of how those customers have used IBM
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Information concerning non-IBM products was obtained from a supplier of these products, published
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All statements regarding IBM future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without
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52

information is presented here to communicate IBM's current investment and development activities as a
good faith effort to help with our customers' future planning.

Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled
environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending
upon considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the user's job stream, the I/O
configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be
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IBM Storwize 7000 Unified, SONAS, and VMware Site Recovery Manager: An overview of disaster recovery preparation and workload migration for multisite VMware vSphere clouds using IBM NAS and vSphere host-based replication solutions

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