HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adaptor for Stretched storage support with VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager Technical White Paper
Contents Introduction... 3 Scope of the document... 3 Document purpose... 3 Target audience... 3 Acronyms... 4 Key features and benefits... 4 SRM/SRA with HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage for Stretched Storage Support... 5 Configurations... 6 A) HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems Configurations... 6 B) VMWare ESXi Configurations... 8 C) VMWare vcenter Configurations... 10 D) VMWare SRM Configurations... 14 E) HPE 3PAR SRA Installation and Configurations... 17 Planned migration using vmotion... 18 Test Recovery... 20 Disaster Recovery... 21 Conclusion... 23 For more information and references... 23 Technical White Paper 2
Introduction VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager is an industry-leading disaster recovery management software solution. SRM helps to build, manage, test and execute disaster recovery plans for a VMware vsphere virtual infrastructure. It can integrate natively with VMware vsphere Replication and also supports a wide range of array-based replication products available by all major VMware storage partners. Site Recovery Manager integrates with HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adapter to support VMware SRM s array-based replication. HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adaptor for Stretched storage with VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager, is a Hewlett Packard Enterprise and VMWare certified solution that combines replication with array-based clustering. This solution is typically deployed in environment where the distance between data centers is limited, often metropolitan or campus environment. Prior to SRM 6.1, customers had to make a choice between using SRM or vsphere Metro Storage Clusters/Stretched Storage to provide a multisite solution that was optimized for either site mobility or disaster recovery without being able to attain the benefits of both solutions simultaneously. SRM 6.1 now supports using cross-vcenter vmotion in combination with stretched storage, thereby combining the benefits of SRM with the advantages of stretched storage. The primary benefit of a stretched cluster model is that it enables fully active data center solution that helps customer with Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery in a VMware vsphere infrastructure. The virtual machines (VMs) can be live migrated across the datacenters without any (minimal) downtime using VMware s vmotion built-in technology. The workload between the data centers can be achieved to its full potential using stretched cluster/storage solution. Cross-site automated load balancing can also be achieved using this solution. The entire orchestration can be managed through the VMware vsphere Web-Client. Scope of the document This document provides the information on installation, configuration and implementation details for deploying HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adaptor for Stretched storage with VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager. Document purpose This document is intended for those seeking guidance in the implementation of array based replication solution for deploying HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adaptor for Stretched storage with VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager. Target audience The target audience for this white paper are the users and storage administrators who consider the use of deploying HPE 3PAR Storage Replication Adaptor for Stretched storage with VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager. The consumer of this document should have the knowledge of the following software features. HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage HPE Remote Copy and Peer Persistence software VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager VMware vcenter Server and Web Client ESXi host and Virtual Machines Technical White Paper 3
Acronyms SRM - Site Recovery Manager SRA - Storage Replication Adaptor VM - Virtual Machine DC - Data Center Key features and benefits VMware Site Recovery Manager utilizes the unique features of the Stretched storage when executing disaster recovery workflows such as planned/unplanned failover and test failover. The main purpose is to: o Utilize the vmotion technology to migrate running VMs to the recovery site during a planned failover to minimize the overall service down time o Reduce the recovery time during an unplanned failover when the protected site is not available Stretched storage feature is supported in SRM 6.1 / SRA 6.1 onwards in 2DC configuration. Stretched Storage functionality in SRA will be enabled through 3PAR Remote Copy and Peer Persistence. Stretched Storage configuration should be done with synchronous replication mode of the Remote Copy feature. Using the vmotion capability in VMware vsphere, live migration of VMs can occur while minimizing service downtime. Technical White Paper 4
SRM/SRA with HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage for Stretched Storage Support FIG 1 Note: The above Fig 1 shows the synchronous replication mode with fibre channel remote copy links. This is done only for diagram representation purpose. However, along with RCFC links, synchronous replication mode is supported with other remote copy links as well like RCIP, FCIP which is supported even by SRM/SRA. For more information, refer the respective support matrix in HPE SPOCK. Technical White Paper 5
Configurations A) HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems Configurations Prerequisite: InForm OS version on both HPE 3PAR StoreServ System arrays should be 3.2.2 or later. Below licenses should be enabled on HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems. HPE 3PAR Remote Copy Software HPE 3PAR Virtual Copy Software HPE 3PAR Peer Persistence Software HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems will be managed through 3PAR CLI. User, Domain and CPG should be created on Primary Storage system and Recovery Storage System. In our lab, we have created hosts -HOST228 and HOST229 and configured with VMware (ESXi) operating system on primary storage system and recovery storage system as indicated in fig 1. For more information about Remote Copy and Peer Persistence configurations and supportability matrix, refer to the HP 3PAR Remote Copy Software User's Guide and HPE 3PAR Peer Persistence Software User's Guide. Steps to Configure: 1. Create virtual volume in both the primary and secondary arrays and assign WWNs for the virtual volumes on primary array and secondary arrays. Note that WWN of the primary and secondary virtual volumes in a remote copy group should be same. createvv -cnt 1 -snp_cpg PRIMARY_CPG1 PRIMARY_CPG1 VVPrimary 60G showvv -d VVPrimary createvv -cnt 1 -snp_cpg RECOVERY_CPG1 RECOVERY_CPG1 VVSecondary 60G setvv -wwn 60002AC0000000000200418F0007E1B6 VVSecondary Technical White Paper 6
showvv -d VVSecondary Create remote copy group with synchronous replication mode and enable path management policy for the Peer Persistence feature. Add the primary and secondary virtual volumes with the same WWNs just created in the above steps in this remote copy group. You should not deploy the quorum witness for the Peer Persistence when using SRM/SRA with stretched storage feature. creatercopygroup -domain SRAQAP RCG rsra:sync admitrcopyvv VVPrimary RCG rsra:vvsecondary startrcopygroup RCG setrcopygroup pol path_management RCG showrcopy groups RCG 2. Both the virtual volumes VVPrimary and VVSecondary are exported to both source ESX Host - HOST228 and target ESX host- HOST229. createvlun VVPrimary auto HOST228 createvlun VVPrimary auto HOST229 createvlun VVSecondary auto HOST228 createvlun VVSecondary auto HOST229 showvv -host HOST228 showvv -host HOST229 Technical White Paper 7
showvv -host HOST228 showvv -host HOST229 B) VMWare ESXi Configurations ESXi 6.0 should be installed on both primary and secondary hosts. Creating a VMkernel port and enabling vmotion on an ESXi/ESX host a) Configure a vmotion interface using vsphere Client: 1. Log into the vcenter Server using vsphere Client. 2. Click to select the host. 3. Click the Configuration tab. 4. Click Networking under Hardware. 5. Click Add Networking. 6. Select VMkernel and click Next. 7. Select the existing vswitch, or select Create a vsphere standard switch to create a new vswitch and click Next. 8. Enter a name in the Network Label to identify the network that vmotion uses. 9. Select a VLAN ID from the VLAN ID (Optional) dropdown if applicable. 10. Select Use this port group for vmotion and click Next. 11. Enter the IP address and Subnet Mask of the host's vmotion Interface. 12. Click Next, then click Finish. Note: For multiple hosts, repeat steps 2 to 12. Use a unique IP address for each host vmotion interface. Technical White Paper 8
b) Configure a vmotion interface using vsphere Web Client: 1. In the vsphere Web Client, navigate to the Host. 2. Under Manage, select Networking and then select VMkernel adapters. 3. Click Add host networking. 4. On the Select connection type page, select VMkernel Network Adapter and click Next. 5. On the Select target device page, select either an existing standard switch or a New vsphere standard switch. 6. On the Port properties, enable vmotion Traffic and select Next. 7. Configure network for the vmotion VMkernel interface and click Next. 8. Review the settings and click Finish ESX servers will be in Streched Cluster configuration after performing the above configuration steps on both the ESX hosts on primary and secondary sites. You can have more than 2 ESXi servers in the cluster. Perform rescan operation on primary and secondary ESXi hosts for discovering the exported volumes from the HPE 3PAR StoreServ systems. The exported volumes along with LUN IDs must be visible. Create a VMFS datastore on Primary site and make sure that the same datastore is reflecting at the recovery site as well. Create or deploy an active VM to be protected on the created datastore at protected site. Technical White Paper 9
Install VMTools on the VM created. VM Tools are required by SRM to perform power on and power off during failover/failback operations. C) VMWare vcenter Configurations VMware vcenter Server 6.0 and vsphere Web Client are installed on both Protected and Recovery sites. You must install vcenter in Enhanced Linked mode for Stretched storage. o For more details, refer the VMWare blog https://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/2015/03/vsphere-datacenter-design-vcenterarchitecture-changes-vsphere-6-0-part-1.html o For more information refer VMWare vcenter installation procedure documentation, https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/ 1. Create a Storage Profile in vcenter Server Create a storage profile before you can create and test storage profile protection groups. a) Create Tags 1. In the vcenter Server Home page, select Tags in the left panel and click New Category. 2. Type a name and description for this category. Technical White Paper 10
3. Click New Tag and link it to the category that you created in the previous step. b) Configure Datastore 1. In the left panel of the vcenter Server Home page, select Storage > Datastores, and rightclick on the replicated Stretched storage to tag. 2. Assign the tag to the stretched storage. Technical White Paper 11
c) Create VM Storage Policies 1. In the left panel of the vcenter Server Home page, select Polices and Profiles > VM Storage Polices, click Create a new VM Storage Policy then click Next. 2. On the 2a Rule-Set 1 page, click Add Tag-Based Rule, select the correct categories from the dropdown list, select the assigned tag and click OK then Next. 3. On the Storage compatibility page, ensure that the associated Stretched storage is listed and Click Next. Technical White Paper 12
4. Click Finish. d) Associate a VM with a Storage Policy 1. Select the VM in the inventory tree 2. Select Manage -> Policies, and click the Edit VM Storage Policies icon. 3. Select the VM storage policy 4. Click Apply to all and click OK. Technical White Paper 13
D) VMWare SRM Configurations VMware SRM 6.1 is installed and configured to pair both Protected and Recovery sites. Configure the Resource Mappings, Folder Mappings, Network Mappings and Placeholder Datastores from Protected site to Recovery site. Configure Storage Policy Mapping, Create Storage policy Protection group and Recovery Plan as described below. 1. Storage Policy Mapping Storage Policy mapping provides a convenient way to specify how Site Recovery Manager (SRM) maps virtual machine resources at the Protected site to resources at the Recovery site. Storage Policy mapping are one of the most important tasks to be carried out before migrating the Live VMs from the Protected to the Recovery site. 2. Create Storage policy Protection Group Follow below steps for Creating Storage Policy Protection Group. In "Protection group type" screen, Protection group type should be selected as "Storage policies (arraybased replication)" Click Next Select the Storage Policy, Click Next Technical White Paper 14
Click Finish Click Protection Groups and check object status 3. Create Recovery Plan Follow below steps for Creating Recovery Plan. Provide Recovery Plan name in Name and location screen, Click Next. Technical White Paper 15
In Recovery site screen, select the site to which the VMs in this plan will recover. Click Next. In Protection groups screen, Select Group type as "Storage policy protection groups". Select Name and Click Next Click Finish Technical White Paper 16
E) HPE 3PAR SRA Installation and Configurations 1. Prerequisites: HPE 3PAR SRA is packaged in MSI format and installed on the host where SRM is installed. HPE 3PAR SRA requires the following companion packages to be installed on the host before you start the installation. o VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager 6.1 or later o Microsoft.NET Framework 4.0 HPE 3PAR SRA does not require Microsoft.Net Framework to operate in Windows 2012 2. Installation: The steps to install HPE 3PAR SRA remains same for Stretched and Non-stretched storage. Upgrade from an earlier version of the software to HPE 3PAR SRA 6.1 is not supported. Follow the steps below for the HPE 3PAR SRA installation. o o o Remove an existing version of HPE 3PAR SRA Install the latest version of HPE 3PAR SRA Verify that the installation is successful HPE 3PAR SRA must be installed in SRM server on both Protected and Recovery sites. 3. Configurations: HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificates should be fetched for protected and recovery arrays at both SRM sites using HPE 3PAR SRA. This operation must be done in order to communicate with HPE 3PAR arrays. HPE 3PAR SRA requires that you accept and validate the HPE 3PAR StoreServ server SSL certificate to perform any operations related to HPE 3PAR StoreServ systems. You must validate the HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate using SRA command line interface (TPDSrm.exe) before you configure arrays from SRM. If you do not accept the specific HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate, then the connection is not established with HPE 3PAR StoreServ and SRA returns an error message to SRM. The certificate validation is supported using SRA command line options. HPE 3PAR SRA supports the following commands to view, validate and remove the HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate. o o o TPDSrm.exe viewcert : To view the currently accepted StoreServ certificate. TPDSrm.exe validatecert : To accept and save the HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate. TPDSrm.exe removecert : To delete the accepted HPE 3PAR StoreServ certificate from the cache memory. Add and configure the Array manager by entering the name and connection parameters for the array manager in SRM GUI. o o o Configure array manager Configure paired arrays Enable array pairs For more information, refer to the HP 3PAR SRA User Guide document. Technical White Paper 17
Planned migration using vmotion Planned migration using vmotion can be performed after successful creation of Recovery Plan. Select Enable vmotion of eligible VM s for the live migration of the VMs as shown below. For the SRM planned migration operation, the major difference between the SRM workflow for the stretched and non-stretched objects is that the VM to be migrated is shutdown (with down time to VMs) at protected site and brought up at recovery site in non-stretched environment where as in a stretched storage environment, SRM uses vcenters vmotion utility and performs live VM migration (without any VM shutdown or down time). In stretched storage environment, planned migration can also be achieved without enabling the vmotion feature in which case there would be minimal downtime for the VMs. You can also perform planned migration of the VMs without enabling the vmotion. 1. Click on the Recovery Plan (SS_RecoveryPlan) and Run. Running this plan in recovery mode will attempt to shutdown the VMs at the protected site and recover the VMs at the recovery site 2. Click on Finish to start Recovery using planned migration. Technical White Paper 18
3. Recovery Steps for Recovery Plan (SS_RecoveryPlan) Live migration of VMs to recovery site is shown below in step 5. Technical White Paper 19
Test Recovery Test Recovery can be performed as described below. Test Recovery Plan: Click on Recovery Plan (SS_RecoveryPlan) Click on Test Recovery Plan Click on Next Click on Finish to start the Test Recovery Test Recovery Steps for Recovery Plan (SS_RecoveryPlan) is shown below Technical White Paper 20
Disaster Recovery Disaster Recovery can be performed as described below. Click on the Recovery Plan (SS_RecoveryPlan) Click on Run Recovery Plan Select " I understand that this process will permanently alter the virtual machines and infrastructure of both the protected and recovery datacenter Select Disaster recovery option Click on Next Click on Finish to start the Disaster recovery Technical White Paper 21
Disaster Recovery Steps for Recovery Plan (SS_RecoveryPlan) is shown below. Note: 1. Please do not perform SRM Failover/Failback operation whenever the recovery plan includes VMs residing on stretched devices and when Remote Copy links are down between two HPE 3PAR storage arrays and both the arrays and all IO paths are operational to avoid any potential data corruption issues. For more information, refer to the HP 3PAR SRA User's Guide document. 2. In the stretched storage configuration with SRM/SRA and 3PAR Peer Persistence, if the primary array goes down for some reason and if you decide to migrate the VMs to the secondary site, then you need to perform the disaster recovery operation using the SRM GUI with forced recovery option for the VMs. Technical White Paper 22
Conclusion The document covers the sequence of steps to configure Stretched storage support with VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager 6.1 for HPE 3PAR StoreServ using HPE 3PAR SRA. Technical people with little knowledge of vcenter and SRM can refer this document to configure SRM/SRA with 3PAR StoreServ and run recovery plans using vmotion technique and do the live migration of VMs by minimizing the overall service down time. For more information and references Additional documents can be found via the following website HPE 3PAR SRA Software for VMware vcenter SRM 6.1: https://h20392.www2.hpe.com/portal/swdepot/displayproductinfo.do?productnumber=hp_3p AR_SRM Technical white paper for Non- Stretched Storage: VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager 6.0 Configuration and Testing for HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage: http://h20565.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?sp4ts.oid=5218145&docid=emr_nac04800724&doclocale=en_us HPE 3PAR SRA SPOCK Documents: https://h20272.www2.hpe.com/spock/ VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG) for SRA's: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?devicecategory=sra Stretched Clusters and VMware vcenter Site Recovery Manager: https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/stretched_clusters_and_vmware_vcenter_site _Recovery_Manage_USLTR_Regalix.pdf VMware vcenter SRM: http://www.vmware.com/products/site-recovery-manager/ Copyright 2015 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. This document contains confidential and/or legally privileged information. It is intended for Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Channel Partner Internal Use only. If you are not an intended recipient as identified on the front cover of this document, you are strictly prohibited from reviewing, redistributing, disseminating, or in any other way using or relying on the contents of this document. 868393-001, June 2016 Technical White Paper 23