VSI PiT SRM Selection

Hi Keith,

VSI 6.0 and onwards support the Web Client, including SRM 5.8 and later, see the VSI support matrix available on support.emc.com for more info.

Regards,

Idan

Thanks Idan,

I don't know how I missed that in the product guide - that was my fault. I'll have to test with this...do you know if the issue where you are using the plugin to choose the PiT image and your Production vcenter is lost and thus are unable to view and choose a PiT to apply to the SRM Protection group before the failover is corrected? I'll have to deploy this and test....but this gives me a start. thanks for catching my inability to find it in the manual!

-Keith

Hi Keith,

Is this the case after setting the 'Allow testing while clusters are disconnected’ flag in VSI?

Regards,

Rich Forshaw

Consultant Corporate Systems Engineer - RecoverPoint & VPLEX (EMEA)

Data Protection and Availability Solutions

EMC Europe Limited

Mobile: 44 (0) 7730 781169 44%20(0)%207730%20781169>

E-mail: richard.forshaw@emc.com

Twitter: @rw4shaw

Looks like I found my answer after testing it out just now - still has the issue when trying to apply a PiT on the DR side. So any time the production site is offline, you will have to do the workaround here - this is what I was curious as to whether or not it was on a roadmap in the future:

Article Number:000185187

Thanks!

-Keith

Hi Rich,

Yup - that was the first setting I changed and when you go to the DR site to query the CG's in virtual center - it says it can't find/display any CG information. But when you do a SRM Test and actually enable and bring those devices online to the DR virtual center, then the query finds them and then I can select a PiT to apply, then SRM cleanup, then SRM Recover...so this is the same as what we hit a while back and what the workaround states. I just wasn't sure if it might be on a future roadmap.

thanks!

-Keith

We have protected EMC Recover Point LUNs and we are using VMware SRM. When we failover for testing to our DR site, we would like to failback without the changes that were made at the DR site.

Correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like there is no option to restore back to production, without the changes that were made in DR.

I do see a VSI PiT SRM option, will this work for us to failback to PiT?

Do you have a step by step guide on this?

I'm afraid not. The premise of using SRM with RP is twofold. Firstly, you can run a recovery plan in test mode which uses Logged Image Access only and not actual failover, therefore Prod is unaffected. Secondly, you can run the recovery plan for real and invoke failover which automatically reverses the replication direction.

The option of VSI is irrelevant as the underlying behaviour is the same. What the RP-VSI plugin facilitates is the option of selecting the PiT snapshot from the journal as opposed to SRM creating it's own bookmarked snapshot.

Regards,

Rich

One last thing before I follow this up. Can you run the clear_externally_managed_parameters CLI command and ensure that clear_allow_testing_while_clusters_disconnected parameter is set to 'no.

Thx.

Hi Rich....np...I just ran it and chose the default (no) so it should be cleared on that group:

Clear allow testing while clusters disconnected? (Default: no)

1) yes

2) no

Select, or press 'ENTER' 2

Advanced external mgmt params cleared successfully.

After a logout/login to the web client and refresh of the VSI setup, it still shows no data when you have selected the target SRM target VM in teh target vcenter - which is like what we saw a while back. I only get this to populate if I run an actual test and the target LUNs come online (like the communication is related to the LUN access versus talking to the target RP cluster) - but that is what will double the RTO in a recovery if I want a specific PiT:

If I do an SRM test and come back to this screen, then I see the info on the SRM target VM:

This is what is explained in the KB article so it seems like expected behavior, but I wasn't sure if/when it was on the roadmap to get updated to be fixed.

thanks! Hit me up offline if you want any details or see a quick webex, etc. I can also cut a case if this helps with any traction internally.

thank again guys.

-Keith