iScsi Auto Failover

[vvezzola]

Is this feature available in Open-e DSS?
In the feature comparison table i see iScsi Failover but on the description i read "coming soon".
If yes, does this feature requires some specific license?
Thanks
Vittorio

[To-M]

You will not need a License Key for Auto Failover we had to release 5.0_46 first before the Auto Failover release. We had plans to release this version earlier but decided to release it before mid June.

[robertdalco]

So is iSCSI failover available now as an option for DSS? What is the cost? Is there a charge per DSS Server?

Is this an active-active or active-passive relationship between the two DSS servers?

Does it only failover between identical DSS servers?

Can it auto fail back one the failing DSS server is restored to proper operation

Can it failover between two DSS servers that share SAS or F/C arrays given the arrays have separate controllers in them?

Where can I read about the set up, features and restrictions?

Thank You

Robert

[SuperSAN]

Hello robertdalco...

Let me help the guys here and share what I know about it....

So is iSCSI failover available now as an option for DSS? What is the cost? Is there a charge per DSS Server?

Its not available yet - I am waiting it as well - There will be no cost according to open-e guys, hopefully it will stay like this.

Is this an active-active or active-passive relationship between the two DSS servers?

its an active/passive

Does it only fail over between identical DSS servers?

You have to have the version that support auto failover which will be the next release.


Can it auto fail back one the failing DSS server is restored to proper operation

I am not sure about this, but I belive they have the fail back manually (active/passive)


Can it failover between two DSS servers that share SAS or F/C arrays given the arrays have separate controllers in them?

I dont think so.. as it will give a virtual IP address to the NIC, and I am not sure how it will do this here..

Where can I read about the set up, features and restrictions?

Propally we are going to get the official documents as soon as this been officially released...

Hope I am correct

[To-M]

Thanks SuperSan! Sorry for being late just got back.

You almost got it will Auto Failover to the Secondary then there will be a switch to fail back manually as this is in part of the active/passive operation.

Currently Auto Failover will only be supported for iSCSI Logical Volumes. So Host system will connect to a virtual IP address that Server A (Primary) and Server B (Secondary) are assigned. Please be patient we will have documentation on this when released.
In future releases we have plans for NAS as well.

[broeken]

but when will this be released ??

[enealDC]

Also - here is an additional question. In light of the 4TB limitation for replication, is open-E vigorously working on solution for failing over multiple iSCSI volumes? I don't mean to state the obvious, but these limitations really make this feature hard to use. Lets say that i have a 16TB DSS license and I need to provide some redundancy for that entire 16TB. I have to create 4, 4TB volumes but then I have to choose which volume I will provide redundancy for. That's a really tough choice to make. I don't want to undermine the achievement of failover. We are very thankful for it. I do however want to urge you guys not to rest however because we really need to tie everything together. I didn't ever care about the 4TB restriction for replication until I realized that I could only provide redundancy for 4TB in a system that holds 6TB for example...

[To-M]

We will have multi iSCSI Volume Replication in next release during the week of the 17th.

We do recognize the 4TB limitation and we are looking into this please allow us more time for the developers to research this and hopefully without additional cost.

[To-M]

Auxiliary connection is additional connection used for the cluster communication and checking if second node is ok. Please set for both Public and Replication NIC's.

[juelz]

Auxiliary connection is additional connection used for the cluster communication and checking if second node is ok. Please set for both Public and Replication NIC's.

I did, but that doesn't change anything. I just can't select an iSCSI Task as a Failover Task.