Open-E DSS Replication

[amscanada]

Hey Guys,

I am currently running Open-E 1.37 in production as our main SAN, I would like to replicate our current volumes to a 2nd server to add some redundancy but our budget is small at the moment. Would I be able to use the new lite 2TB version as the destination for this?
Also how do I go about setting up Replication, does anyone have any good how-to's?

[To-M]

Yes you can use the DSS LITE to replicate with your DSS.

Create iSCSI LV (please create volumes of equal sizes), enable the Replication check mark.

Then go to the Volume Replication on the left screen from the Volume Manager Set for Source. If source set IP of Destination Server then select the Logical Volume.

Click on the task from the left side and then click the green play button.

Then enable the Target in the Target Manager (select WB).

On Destination server set the same iSCSI Logical Volume size as the Source and set for Replication. Then go to the Volume Replication on the left screen from the Volume Manager and Set for Destination. Enter IP of Source Server then select the Logical Volume.

To view the synchronization processes go to Status > Tasks > Volume Replication and there you will see if it is consistent).

[amscanada]

So then in the event our primary unit had a problem we could tell our server to find the Volumes on the backup server then, correct?

[To-M]

You change the destination server to source (and the metadata - manual provides this information as well) and enable the target and make sure the initiator is pointing to the destination server.

[amscanada]

Are their any preformace hits taken with Replication if the main box is fast hardware raid and SAS disks and the destination is slower SATA disks using software raid would this cause a bottleneck?

[To-M]

If the destination is over burden with other IO then yes, but if there is little activity then there could be something else happening in the replication and or the target are using the same NIC or Ethernet port. Best to use separately. You can see the replication transfer rate in Status > Tasks to review. But if there is a dedicated NIC for the replication on both ends and good controllers even on SATA I have seen on both ends from 5MB/s (usually RAID issue) to 50MB/s+.

[amscanada]

I have a senario and would like to see if Open-E can do this, We have our Primary SAN and we would like to replicate it to a 2nd San onsite in the event we have a harware problem. In the near future we would like to have a DR site and i would like to replicate out to a server in the DR. Can this dual replication take place and what would the setup look like?

[To-M]

Currently this will work with a VPN connection in a 1 to 1 replication relationship, not many (Source servers) to 1 (Destination server), though we are looking to have this feature available in future releases.

So Source is connected to Destination using a VPN connection.

[Robotbeat]

We have a set up at one of our customers with 2 open-e iSCSI boxes (one replicating to the other) that are then mounted on a red hat server. The mounted volumes are then rsynced (i.e. file/data replication) to another box (a NAS open-e box), which is then rsynced to an off-site box over the internet. So, you could do it that way.

[amscanada]

So in you example abox the Red Hat host server rsynced the attched iSCSI volumes to a Open-E NAS box, is that correct?