initial volume replication - over wan

[edavies]

I am interested to learn the best method of copying a new/additional volume image for the first time from one open-e storage server to a remote one (to set up volume replication) if they are both already in production and we add a new volume at a later date. Can we copy a volume to portable media such as an external USB drive and send it to the remote site and add the volume to the storage server? Should we use snapshot?

[To-M]

You wont be able use portable media such as an external USB drive. Link below provides information on config and setup procedures to assist you that might help.

http://www.open-e.com/library/product-presentations/

Open-E Replications
2008 - Replications supported by Open-E software, March 2009
2008 - Open-E DSS Asynchronous Data Replication over a WAN, April 2009
2009 - Open-E DSS Asynchronous Volume Replication over a LAN, April 2009
2009 - Open-E DSS Asynchronous Volume Replication over a WAN, April 2009
2008 - Open-E DSS Synchronous Volume Replication over a LAN, April 2009
2009 - Open-E DSS Synchronous Volume Replication over a WAN, April 2009
2008 - Open-E DSS Synchronous Volume Replication with Failover over a LAN, April 2009

[edavies]

ok, thanks for that.

We have used these docs, they have been very helpful, and the data replication over a wan is working well.

The only thing we were worried about was once the system was running, for say 6 months, and we decide to add a new volume to the main storage server and then setup replication of that new volume, that it would take considerable time for the initial replication over the wan and we were looking for a way to manually copy just that initial replication (as I gather once the first one is complete it is incrementals afterwards).

[To-M]

Yes and this is a good point as you would have to start from the begging and would take a long time. Currently we don't have any other way unless you can predict the amount of the next volume size and add that just incase to be ahead of the game.

[pturnbull]

Hi Todd,
Are you sure there is no way to do this? Other devices allow for replication jumpstart and especially if used over a WAN seems vital.
something like Portable Volumes to let users use an external USB drive to jumpstart replication. When the system admin creates a replication pair between arrays, the destination and source is created then source array exports the data to the USB disk(s). The admin then drives or ships the USB disk to the standby site and plugs it into the destination array there. Now the link between the sites can be sized for the data change rate
Cheers,

Paul

[To-M]

When using a USB drive it is seen as a Dynamic Volume not as a Volume Group. So this is why it wont work. Now if you have a Disk that is connected via IDE, SATA, SAS or SCSI then yes this would would work. Just make sure to name the volume different then the one your shipping it to.