Tag Archives: SRM 5.1

Example Architectural Decision – Virtual Machine Swap file location for SRM protected VMs

Posted on by
2

Problem Statement

In an environment where multiple vSphere clusters are protected by VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) with array based replication. What is the best way to ensure the RTO/RPO is met/exceeded and to minimize the storage replication overhead?

Assumptions

1. Additional storage will not be obtained

2. Eight (8) Paths per LUN are Masked/Zoned

Motivation

1. Optimize underlying storage usage

2. Ensure transient files are not unnesasarily replicated

Architectural Decision

Configure vSphere cluster swapfile policy to Store the swapfile in the datastore specified by the host.

Create and configure a dedicated swap file datastores provided by Tier 1 storage with greater than the capacity of the total vRAM for the cluster itself, along with any/all clusters using the cluster/s as recovery sites.

Justification

1.Decreased storage replication between protected and recovery sites

2. Reduced impact to the underlying storage due to reduced replication

3. Reduces the used space at the recovery site

4. No impact to the ability to recovery to, or failback from the recovery site

5. vMotion performance will not be impacted as all hosts within a cluster share the same swap file datastore which is provided from the existing shared storage

6. There is minimal complexity in setting a dedicated swap file datastore as such, the benefits outweigh the additional complexity

7. In the event of swapping, performance will not be impacted as the swap file is on Tier 1 storage

8. There is no additional Tier 1 storage utilization as the vswap file would alternatively be set to “Store in the same director as the virtual machine”

9. Ensures memory (RAM) over commitment can still be achieved where as setting memory reservations would reduce/eliminate this benefit of vSphere

Implications

1. vMotion performance between clusters will be degraded as the swap file will be moved as part of the vMotion to the destination cluster swap file datastore

2. One (1) datastore out of a maximum of 256 per host are used for the swap file datastore

3. Eight (8) paths out of a maximum of 1024 per host are used for the swap file datastore

Alternatives

1. Store the swapfile in the same directory as the virtual machine

2. Set Virtual machine memory reservations of 100% to eliminate the vswap file

Relates Articles

1. Site Recovery Manager Deployment Location

2. VMware Site Recovery Manager, Physical or Virtual machine?

 

Example Architectural Decision – Site Recovery Manager Server – Physical or Virtual?

Posted on by
Reply

Problem Statement

To ensure Production vSphere environment/s can meet/exceed the required RTOs in the event of a declared site failure, What is the most suitable way to deploy VMware Site Recovery Manager, on a Physical or Virtual machine?

Requirements

1. Meet/Exceed RTO requirements

2. Ensure solution is fully supported

3. SRM be highly available, or be able to be recovered rapidly to ensure Management / Recovery of the Virtual infrastructure

4. Where possible, reduce the CAPEX and OPEX for the solution

5. Ensure the environment can be easily maintained in BAU

Assumptions

1. Sufficient compute capacity in the Management cluster for an additional VM

2. SRM database is hosted on an SQL server

3. vSphere Cluster (ideally Management cluster)  has N+1 availability

Constraints

1. None

Motivation

1. Reduce CAPEX and OPEX

2. Reduce the complexity of BAU maintenance / upgrades

3. Reduce power / cooling / rackspace usage in datacenter

Architectural Decision

Install Site Recovery Manager on a Virtual machine

Justification

1. Ongoing datacenter costs relating to Power / Cooling and Rackspace are avoided

2. Placing Site Recovery Management on a Virtual machine ensures the application benefits from the availability, load balancing, and fault resilience capabilities provided by vSphere

3. The CAPEX of a virtual machine is lower than a physical system especially when taking into consideration network/storage connectivity for the additional hardware where a physical server was used

4. The OPEX of a virtual machine is lower than a physical system due to no hardware maintenance, minimal/no additional power usage , and no cooling costs

3. Improved scale-ability and the ability to dynamically add additional resources (where required) assuming increased resource consumption by the VM. Note: The guest operating system must support Hot Add / Hot Plug and be enabled while the VM is shutdown. Where these features are not supported, virtual hardware can be added with a short outage.

4. Improved manageability as the VMware abstraction layer makes day to day tasks such as backup/recovery easier

5. Ability to non-disruptively migrate to new hardware where EVC is configured in compatible mode and enabled between hosts within a vSphere data center

Alternatives

1. Place SRM on a physical server

Implications

1. For some storage arrays, the SRM server needs to have access to admin LUNs and using a virtual machine may increase complexity by the requirement for RDMs

I would like to Thank James Wirth VCDX#83 (@jimmywally81) for his contribution to this example architectural decision.

Related Articles

1. Site Recovery Manager Deployment Location

2. Swap file location for SRM protected VMs

CloudXClogo

 

 

Example Architectural Decision – Site Recovery Manager Deployment Location

Posted on by
2

Problem Statement

To ensure Production vSphere environment/s can meet/exceed the required RTOs in the event of a declared site failure and easily perform scheduled DR testing, VMware Site Recovery Manager will be used to automated the failover to the secondary site.

What is the most suitable way to deploy Site Recovery Manager to ensure the environment can be maintained with minimal risk/complexity?

Requirements

1. Meet/Exceed RTO requirements
2. Ensure solution is fully supported

Assumptions

1. vCenter is considered a Tier 1 application
2. vSphere 5.1
3. SRM 5.1
4. A single Windows instance hosts vCenter, SSO and Inventory services and is protected by vCenter Heartbeat

Constraints

1. SRM is not protected by vCenter Heartbeat

Motivation

1. Reduce the complexity for BAU maintenance

Architectural Decision

Install Site Recovery Manager on a dedicated Windows 2008 instance

Justification

1. When installing / upgrading /  patching  SRM including Storage Replication Adapters (SRAs) this may require a reboot or troubleshooting which may impact the production vCenter, including SSO and inventory services.

2. Having SRM separate to vCenter ensures the fail over is not unnecessarily delayed in the event of a disaster due to contention with vCenter on the same VM

3. SRM and vCenter work together in the event of an outage, as such they are less complimentary workloads

4. If hosted on vCenter, SRM will then be subject to the same change windows and be impacted during any maintenance performed for applications running on the same OS instance

5. The SRM application has different availability requirements than vCenter, as such if SRM was combined with vCenter, SRM (having a lower availability requirement than vCenter) would have to be treated with the same change management / care as vCenter which would complicate BAU maintenance

6. The SRM service (business) has different maintenance requirements to vCenter, as such they are not suited to be placed on the same VM

7. Having SRM on a dedicated VM aligns with the scaling out recommendation for virtual workloads

8. Having additional components on the same OS increases complexity and may reduce the availability of vCenter

Alternatives

1. Place SRM on the vCenter server

Implications

1. One (1) additional Windows 2008 R2 licenses will be required

2. One (1) additional Windows instance will need to be maintained in BAU

I would like to Thank James Wirth VCDX#83 (@jimmywally81) for his contribution to this example architectural decision.

Related Articles

1. VMware Site Recovery Manager, Physical or Virtual machine?

2. Swap file location for SRM protected VMs

CloudXClogo