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October 27th, 2014 18:00
Replicate VMWare/ESX 5.0 Datastore With SRDF
I need to fail over a dozen guests from our primary site to our secondary. Our only option is to use SRDF to replicate an entire LUN (datastore) . I need to know if the below procedure will work. I may have left out some VM steps this us close.
1. Create vmax R1/R2 devices and create replicated device group
2. Add R1 (source site) and R2 (destination site) to masking views
3. Storage vMotion guests to new R1
4. Change IPs on all guests then power them off
5. Wait for R1 to sync R2
6. Change roles of R1 and R2, R2 now R/W, R1 now R/O
7. Import R2 into ESX farm and power on guests
Thanks.
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dynamox
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October 28th, 2014 06:00
i don't see anything exotic or dangerous in what you are trying to do.
dynamox
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October 27th, 2014 18:00
why do you need to attach it ahead of time ? Shutdown VM on R1, split RDF, present R2 to DR VMware, swap, restart replication. I must be missing something what you are trying to do ?
DanPJ
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October 27th, 2014 18:00
That's fine for the R2 side. When I swap, the R1 will become R/O. Just want to make sure the source side doesn't choke on the R/O device. Then, when we reverse back, R1 becomes R/W again and R2 becomes R/O, now we have a R/O on the destination side. The question is, is it safer to leave the devices attached to both sides or detach the device before it become R/O. In other words, only have a R/W device attached to the cluster.
DanPJ
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October 27th, 2014 18:00
Correct. I'm a little nervous about having a R/O R2 attached to the ESX cluster. Is it better to only attach the LUN to the farm when it is R/W? But, then we have to umount and detach a few times which could also cause problems.
I heard that this way of replication is not supported by VMWare but we are in a bind right now. Have you, or do you know anybody who as done this before?
dynamox
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October 27th, 2014 18:00
i see, so you are going to swap where old R1 becomes and R2 and then later on doing it again.
dynamox
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October 27th, 2014 18:00
are you migrating them to DR site for good ? If yes are you going to sVmotion them to other LUNs in the cluster ?
DanPJ
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October 27th, 2014 18:00
No, we will need to reverse the procedure in a few weeks. Once we are done with our project, we will reverse the R1/R2 roles again and Storage vMotion guests back to their original home at the source site (original R1).
dynamox
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October 27th, 2014 19:00
unmount datastore before it becomes r/o
DanPJ
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October 27th, 2014 19:00
Ok, wiill do. Is this a normal procedure? If we run into trouble, will tech support help us?
dynamox
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October 27th, 2014 20:00
nothing special or dangerous about unmounting datastores. Make sure to remove all VMs from inventory (right click on VM and select remove from inventory, this simply un-registers the VM in vCenter, it does not delete it) and then you can unmount datastore.
DanPJ
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October 28th, 2014 03:00
Sorry, what I meant by normal procedure was this entire process, replicating a datastore with SRDF.
DanPJ
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October 28th, 2014 06:00
Thanks, very helpful as always.