18
White Paper Abstract This white paper describes and provides high-level considerations for providing data protection services for private clouds. It documents the local and remote business continuity options for Vblock Infrastructure Packages that use EMC ® RecoverPoint. Vblock Infrastructure Packages are enterprise- and service provider-class infrastructure solutions using VMware vSphere and VMware vCenter on a Cisco ® Unified Computing System (UCS) connected to EMC VNX family, Celerra ® NS Series, CLARiiON ® CX4 Series, or Symmetrix ® VMAX Series arrays via a Cisco Multilayer Director-class SAN switch, or a Cisco Nexus ® December 2011 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

White Paper

Abstract

This white paper describes and provides high-level considerations for providing data protection services for private clouds. It documents the local and remote business continuity options for Vblock™ Infrastructure Packages that use EMC® RecoverPoint. Vblock Infrastructure Packages are enterprise- and service provider-class infrastructure solutions using VMware vSphere™ and VMware vCenter™ on a Cisco® Unified Computing System™ (UCS) connected to EMC VNX family, Celerra® NS Series, CLARiiON® CX4 Series, or Symmetrix® VMAX™ Series arrays via a Cisco Multilayer Director-class SAN switch, or a Cisco Nexus® December 2011

EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Page 2: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

2 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Copyright © 2011 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided “as is.” EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. VMware, ESX, VMware vCenter, and VMware vSphere are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part Number h8001.1

Page 3: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

3 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Table of Contents

Executive summary .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4  Audience ........................................................................................................................... 5  

Vblock Infrastructure Packages ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5  

Overview of EMC RecoverPoint ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6  RecoverPoint protection services ....................................................................................... 7  Consistency groups and replication policies ...................................................................... 8  

Continuous replication .................................................................................................. 8  Encryption Support ........................................................................................................ 8  RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ........................................................................ 9  

Architecture overview ........................................................................................................ 9  Configuration ................................................................................................................ 9  Write splitters .............................................................................................................. 10  

Monitoring and notification ............................................................................................. 10  

Using RecoverPoint to protect the private cloud ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11  RecoverPoint local and remote replication services ......................................................... 11  RecoverPoint advantages ................................................................................................ 12  Local and remote recovery ............................................................................................... 12  Application-aware bookmarking for recovery ................................................................... 13  Elimination of data loss ................................................................................................... 13  Heterogeneous storage support ...................................................................................... 13  Cost reduction ................................................................................................................. 14  Application recovery improvements ................................................................................. 14  RecoverPoint examples ................................................................................................... 14  

International customer with a federated environment .................................................. 14  Service provider with multiple tenants ......................................................................... 15  

RecoverPoint data protection benefits ............................................................................. 16  

Conclusion ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17  

References .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17  

Page 4: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

4 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Executive summary This white paper describes how Vblock™ Infrastructure Packages can help you implement a cloud-computing environment, and protect application data inside the cloud. Businesses are being flooded with data and demands. A surge of data, new Internet applications, and all forms of video are driving a movement to simpler and faster-to-deploy data centers. Most people can appreciate the benefits of consuming infrastructure as a service with a variable cost model, and the benefits of scale, owning as much or as little infrastructure as you'd like, and so on. What's been missing is the "how," and this is where the concept of clouds gains traction—in the practical implementation of the concept.

Cloud computing uses a shared resource model to deliver computing that is consumed as a service. Many different service models and delivery types exist, but all cloud computing types are capable of on-demand, elastic, self-service delivery of resources via broad network access and can be provided as a measured or metered service from a shared pool of resources.

The cloud is computing and storage provided as a service to the public from a provider’s shared resource; for example Amazon Web Services offers both compute and storage services to the general public or where corporate IT infrastructure is available as a ubiquitous, easily accessible, and reliable utility service conceptually similar to the telephone dial tone and electricity service. Similar to a hosted services provider, but consistent with the characteristics attributable to the cloud, this new breed of cloud service providers delivers on-demand, elastic, self-service resources, accessible over a network, and provided as a measured or metered service from a shared pool of resources.

By harnessing the power of virtualization, clouds place considerable benefits within reach, including:

• Business enablement:

• Increased business agility and responsiveness to changing priorities

• Speed of deployment and the ability to address the scale of global operations with business innovation

• Service-based business models: Ability to operate IT as a service

• Facilities optimization: Lower energy usage; better (less) use of data center real estate

• IT budget savings: Efficient use of resources through consolidation and simplification

• Reduction in complexity: Moving away from fragmented, “accidental architectures” to integrated, optimized technology that lowers risk, increases speed, and produces predictable outcomes

Page 5: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

5 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

• Flexibility: IT gains responsiveness and scalability through federation to cloud service providers while maintaining enterprise-required policy and control

The Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition comprised of Cisco, EMC, and VMware helps customers accelerate their journey to the internal private cloud with integrated infrastructure packages combining best-of-breed networking, compute, storage, security, and management technologies with end-to-end vendor accountability. These integrated infrastructure packages are called Vblock Infrastructure Packages (hereafter referred to as Vblock systems). These packages are jointly tested and supported to deliver optimal performance and reduce operational expenses. Vblock Infrastructure Packages are part of an entirely new way of delivering service on demand, validated to enable the creation of customized solution packages by the channel, partners, and ISVs.

EMC® RecoverPoint provides replication services for Vblock configurations to protect applications and data that reside in cloud storage, combining massive scalability with automated replication to help efficiently protect information anywhere in the world. EMC RecoverPoint fulfills many use cases for Vblock configurations including local and remote replication, disaster recovery, and data re-purposing for decision support and test and development.

Vblock Infrastructure Packages enable IT professionals to quickly deploy virtualized infrastructures using advanced technologies from Cisco, EMC, and VMware to accelerate their journeys to the private cloud. The solutions are jointly created, validated, tested, and supported by Cisco, EMC, and VMware, reducing the risk associated with deploying new solutions.

These integrated infrastructure units enable the rapid implementation of a virtualized infrastructure, so customers can quickly realize a return on investment (ROI). Vblock Infrastructure Packages are available with varying storage capacity, processing, network performance, and capabilities. These extensible packages support incremental capabilities such as enhanced security and business continuity to satisfy SLAs.

Audience

The target audience for this white paper is business and technical decision-makers, IT planners, administrators, sales engineers, field consultants, advanced services specialists, and customers who want to protect Vblock configurations with EMC RecoverPoint.

Vblock Infrastructure Packages Vblock Infrastructure Platforms by VCE are enterprise- and service provider-class IT infrastructure built upon industry leading technology by Cisco, EMC, and VMware. Vblock Platforms are pre-engineered, tested, and validated units that streamline IT infrastructure acquisition, deployment, and operations.

Page 6: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

6 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Vblock Infrastructure Platforms are scaled for customer technical and business requirements. Each of the components is carefully selected and tested, enabling the customer to run applications on a high performance, stable and supported configuration:

• Virtualization by VMware vSphere™ and VMware vCenter™ Server

• Networking by Cisco Nexus® switches

• Computing by Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS)

• Storage by EMC Symmetrix VMAX and EMC VNX

• Security by RSA enVision® (optional)

• Management by EMC Ionix™ Unified Infrastructure Manager

• Additional hardware may be required for racking, cabling, uninterruptible power supplies, etc.

The two major Vblock infrastructure platforms include:

• Vblock Series 700MX: The 700MX is based on the EMC VMAX series of unified storage arrays. The 700MX is deployed for massive scaling with ERP, CRM, and virtual desktops in configurations that are extensible to meet the most demanding IT requirements of any enterprises or service providers and utilizes a SAN storage medium or a NAS (File) storage medium. UCS local book disks are optional.

• Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX unified storage family.

Optional recommended management components for Vblock configurations include EMC Ionix™ Unified Infrastructure Manager and VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager (SRM).

The VCE coalition does not include replication with any Vblock Infrastructure Package. By using EMC RecoverPoint customers can replicate application data that resides on block LUNs in Vblock 0 and Vblock 300. RecoverPoint will support all LUNs in Vblock 2 or Vblock 1 or Vblock 700.

Overview of EMC RecoverPoint EMC RecoverPoint provides local and remote data replication over any distance—locally within the same site, and/or remotely to another site. RecoverPoint protects and supports replication of data that applications are writing to SAN storage, including Vblock 2 and Vblock 1 storage. Local replication can be performed within the same Vblock configuration, between two Vblock configurations, or between non-Vblock storage and a Vblock configuration. For long distances, RecoverPoint will use either Fibre Channel or an IP network to replicate the data to the remote site.

Page 7: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

7 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

RecoverPoint protection services

EMC RecoverPoint provides data replication services for application data that resides on block volumes in a storage area network (SAN). These services include the following:

• Replication, recovery, and failover for local business continuity and remote disaster recovery

• Tracking of changes to data using continuous data protection (CDP) technologies

• Recovery of data to specific points in time and presenting it to the same or different hosts

• Policies to map business SLAs for application and VM availability

• Unified support of multiple physical and virtual servers, storage array agnostic support, and storage networks

• Integration with VMware vCenter SRM for VM failover and with vCenter Server for SRM failback

• Integration with VMware vCenter Server for VM monitoring and management, and SRM failback

EMC RecoverPoint is the most flexible approach to protecting your data. When you implement RecoverPoint you will get the following benefits:

• RecoverPoint can work with your existing technology to protect multiple application servers across multiple storage arrays. RecoverPoint supports:

o Multiple physical and virtual machines

o Applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server, SharePoint, and SQL Server, as well as applications from Oracle, SAP, and others

o Multiple storage arrays, including block LUNs from EMC VNX, Celerra, CLARiiON, and Symmetrix storage arrays, as well as many third-party storage arrays

• Using RecoverPoint you can protect more of your environment with less capital investment. You can protect everything you need, not just what you can afford:

o RecoverPoint’s bandwidth reduction services enable you to save up to 90 percent in network usage for remote replication as compared to other technologies.

o RecoverPoint’s journal compression service enables you to save about 55 percent of the disk space required by other replication services.

o RecoverPoint’s journal consolidation service can further increase your disk space savings from 55 percent to more than 80 percent.

Page 8: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

8 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

• With RecoverPoint you can select the recovery service levels required for your applications or Vblock configurations. For example, RecoverPoint allows you to recover your application’s data to any point in time.

• RecoverPoint also includes policy-based management and application integration. With RecoverPoint, customers can protect application data and replicate data across heterogeneous storage. This capability simplifies management and reduces the cost of recovering data at a local or remote site to any point in time, and verifies continuous replication to a remote site without impacting performance.

Consistency groups and replication policies

RecoverPoint replication is based on logical entities called consistency groups. SAN-attached storage volumes at the primary and secondary sites (either in a Vblock configuration or outside of one) are assigned to one or more consistency groups, which define the application data to be locally and/or remotely replicated. RecoverPoint maintains write consistency and write-order fidelity across all the volumes that reside in RecoverPoint consistency groups, including those volumes accessed by different hosts or that access data residing on different storage systems.

RecoverPoint replication policies are specified for each consistency group. Policies are comprised of a set of parameters that collectively govern the way in which replication is carried out. Replication behavior changes dynamically during system operation based on policy, level of system activity, and availability of network resources.

Continuous replication

EMC RecoverPoint optimizes replication performance based on current conditions, including the replication type (local, remote, or both), application load, throughput capacity, and replication policies. Regardless of the replication optimization, EMC RecoverPoint guarantees a consistent copy at the target site under all circumstances. For asynchronous remote replication, the user can set a recovery time objective (RTO) for high frequency—or small-aperture—image captures, which gives synchronous replication benefits without the synchronous cost. By reducing the lag between writing data to storage at the source site and writing the same data at the target site, the difference between the source site and the remote site copy is dramatically reduced. For local replication and synchronous remote replication, the RTO is zero.

RecoverPoint replicates all writes to protected volumes, and for remote asynchronous replication RecoverPoint replicates all the writes after applying bandwidth reduction and compression technologies. This results in a significant savings in bandwidth while maintaining the RTO. RecoverPoint also maintains a history of the entire local and/or remote write for use during the restore process.

Encryption Support

RecoverPoint obfuscates the replication data stream with its data reduction and compression, which prevents casual snooping of the replicated data. Customers who

Page 9: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

9 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

want to encrypt the replicated data must use an outboard device, usually switch-based or appliance-based. This approach permits the customer to encrypt all of their inter-site traffic, not just the RecoverPoint replication data stream. It also allows the customer to choose their favorite encryption vendor and standard. The only requirement from RecoverPoint is that the encryption and decryption processes be transparent to RecoverPoint.

RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture

Specific components of RecoverPoint replication used in a Vblock configuration are shown below and key elements are defined later.

Figure 1 EMC RecoverPoint replication

Architecture overview

RecoverPoint uses RecoverPoint appliances (RPAs) in the storage network to perform all aspects of the local and remote replication and recovery. The RPA is installed in the same SAN as the source storage and target storage (such as the storage in a Vblock configuration). During remote replication, an RPA at the source site makes intelligent decisions regarding when and what data to transfer to the target site. The RPA at the target site distributes the data to the target-site storage. During recovery, the RPA at the recovery site is responsible for performing the recovery operations.

Configuration

There is a minimum of two RPAs at each site, which comprise a RecoverPoint cluster. RPAs can be added to an existing cluster, with up to eight RPAs supported per site. A configuration that uses RecoverPoint local replication has only one site so additional RPAs can be added one at a time. Configurations that include RecoverPoint remote replication involve two sites (or more), so additional RPAs are added in pairs, one at each site. RecoverPoint supports simultaneous bi-directional replication, where the same RPA can serve as both the replication source and target.

SAN

REMOTE RECOVERY SITE PRODUCTION SITE

Prod LUNs FC/WAN

Local copy

Application servers

SAN

RecoverPoint appliance

Remote copy

Standby servers

RecoverPoint appliance

Storage array Storage array VNX/CLARiiON-based splitter Intelligent Fabric-based splitter Host-based splitter

RecoverPoint Bi-directional replication

90% Bandwidth Reduction

Page 10: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

10 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

The administrator can perform all management activities for RecoverPoint from a single location, wherever they are located, even if physically separated from the RecoverPoint appliances.

Write splitters

RecoverPoint is an out-of-band solution that utilizes write splitting, which monitors the volumes being protected by RecoverPoint. When a write occurs to one of these volumes, a copy of the write is sent to the local RPA. The write splitter carries out this activity with little perceptible impact to performance, since all the processing necessary for replication is performed by the RPA. RecoverPoint supports the following three write-splitters types. Note that for replicating Vblock configurations, either the VNX/CLARiiON-based write splitter (for Vblock 300, Vblock 1 and Vblock 0) or the intelligent fabric-based write splitter (for Vblock 700, Vblock 300, Vblock 2, Vblock 1, and Vblock 0) is used.

VNX/CLARiiON-based write splitter — For Vblock 300, Vblock 1 and Vblock 0 configurations, RecoverPoint supports a VNX/CLARiiON-based splitter that resides and runs inside the storage processors on VNX series, CLARiiON CX3 and CX4 storage arrays and in the CX4 array included in the NS-120, NS-480, and NS-960 unified storage platforms. Using a VNX/CLARiiON-based splitter, the write-splitting function is performed in the array’s storage processor; no other write splitters need to be used.

Host-based write splitter — The host-based write splitter is device driver level software installed on all hosts that access protected volumes or their replicas. The splitter driver can be installed on IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, and Microsoft Windows physical hosts; other hosts, including VMware, require the CLARiiON-based splitter or intelligent fabric-based splitter. The Windows host-based write splitter can also be installed on VMs that run Microsoft Windows.

Intelligent fabric-based write splitter — For all Vblock configurations, RecoverPoint also supports the Cisco SANTap API available for the Cisco MDS 9506 Multilayer Director-class SAN switch or the MDS 9222i Multiservice Modular Switch for Fibre Channel with the MDS 18/4 Multiservice blade. In this configuration, the Cisco switch using the SANTap APIs carries out the write-splitter function. When using an intelligent-fabric splitter, no other write splitters need to be used.

Monitoring and notification

RecoverPoint monitors not only the status of every replication, but also the health of the environment. RecoverPoint is not a site manager like EMC Ionix ControlCenter® or HP OpenView, but it will monitor the health of the servers, storage, IP networks and SANs, and RPAs used by RecoverPoint.

Alerting

RecoverPoint will issue an alert should there be a problem with one of the components that comprise a RecoverPoint cluster or are used by a RecoverPoint cluster. This alert is logged in to the RecoverPoint log and is also passed to the RecoverPoint event management system. The event management system will display

Page 11: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

11 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

the alert on the RecoverPoint GUI and can send the alert via SNMP or e-mail, or to a central logging facility with a copy of the alert being sent to EMC.

Application VM affinity

A Vblock configuration includes VMware vSphere 4 and vCenter Server. RecoverPoint is integrated with vCenter Server and will discover the ESX servers installed on the UCS blades and the associated applications running in the virtual machines. Using this information and the knowledge of the underlying Vblock storage, RecoverPoint maps the storage resources used by each application to RecoverPoint consistency groups. The RecoverPoint protection status for each application’s virtual machine is displayed in the GUI and a RecoverPoint alert is raised when the protection status of an application changes. The user can decide to filter out ESX servers, individual VMs on an ESX server, and application-specific volumes.

VMware Site Recovery Manager support

VMware vCenter SRM is a disaster-recovery manager and automation solution for VMware vSphere 4. SRM accelerates recovery by automating the recovery process and simplifying disaster-recovery plan management by integrating disaster recovery with the management of the VMware virtual infrastructure. SRM also ensures reliable recovery by eliminating complex manual recovery steps and by enabling non-disruptive recovery plan testing.

SRM integrates tightly with VMware vSphere, VMware vCenter Server, and storage replication to make failover and recovery rapid, reliable, affordable, and manageable. It enables organizations to take the risk and worry out of disaster recovery and to expand protection to all their systems and applications, including SAP. RecoverPoint provides a storage replication adapter that supports the underlying Vblock storage. This replication adapter simplifies RecoverPoint use with VMware vSphere.

VMs can be brought back online rapidly with no data loss when using RecoverPoint with SRM. RecoverPoint is the most flexible approach to protecting virtualized data for Site Recovery Manager —replicating VMware VMFS to protect and recover a single virtual machine, an application or federated application that spans multiple virtual machines, or the entire VMware ESX server.

Using RecoverPoint to protect the private cloud

RecoverPoint local and remote replication services

RecoverPoint provides complete protection of applications that run in the private cloud against many possible disaster scenarios. Using RecoverPoint helps ensure resiliency against failures within the data center infrastructure. RecoverPoint contains quality of service (QoS) prioritization, supports capacity-on-demand provisioning, and includes service level management.

QoS: RecoverPoint provides better service levels for the local and remote replication sessions (referred to as a RecoverPoint consistency group) for one or more

Page 12: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

12 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

applications over consistency groups for other applications. The primary goal of QoS is to provide a priority for each consistency group that includes dedicated bandwidth, compression resources, and recovery point objective (RPO) settings. Also important is making sure that providing priority for one or more consistency groups does not make other consistency groups fail.

Capacity on demand: RecoverPoint supports capacity on demand by allowing the administrator to easily add additional consistency groups for new applications or to expand existing consistency groups as existing applications grow their compute or storage resources.

Service-level management: In addition to standardized alert reporting, RecoverPoint also monitors VM storage resources for business continuity protection and will alert the administrator if this protection status changes. This alert will help the customer improve VM recovery after a regional disaster, all with the added benefit of immediate and instantaneous VM recovery.

Highly available components: Vblock configurations are built from high-availability components that provide enterprise-class reliability without compromising security, performance, or scalability. RecoverPoint enhances these built-in availability features, by protecting the user from infrastructure failure, from local or regional disasters, and from data corruption. RecoverPoint ensures that changes to an application’s data are tracked and retained for later recovery. The following section shows the advantages of deploying RecoverPoint.

RecoverPoint advantages

RecoverPoint preserves a record of the write transactions that takes place with the environment, providing crash- or application-consistent recovery points within the environment. For local replication, RecoverPoint captures every application write and preserves them in a local journal; for remote replication, application transactions are grouped based on user-specified policies, with write changes preserved in a journal at the remote site.

This preservation of application write transactions guarantees recovery from a clean copy of application data even if the original data is lost or corrupted from a server failure, virus, Trojan horse, software errors, or end-user errors. For local recovery, the recovery point is to the previous write; for remote recovery, the recovery point will be to a prior significant point in time. Using RecoverPoint the data can be immediately accessed and mounted back to production environments in seconds—much less time than with disk-based snapshots, disk or tape backups, or archives.

Local and remote recovery

The integration of local and remote replication protects application data against catastrophic events that can bring entire data centers to a standstill. RecoverPoint allows local and remote replication with no application degradation. As a result, organizations and service providers alike can deploy private or public clouds in geographically dispersed data centers giving protection from local or regional failure

Page 13: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

13 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

or disaster. RecoverPoint will protect against combinations of disasters, including data corruption and hardware failures, as well as cascading disasters.

Every time the application writes to the local storage, the splitter will send a copy of the write to the local RecoverPoint appliance. This enables quick recovery from array failure and/or complete site failure and the ability to roll back to any point in time within the protection window configured for the application.

Application-aware bookmarking for recovery

Each application replicated by RecoverPoint has a corresponding history log that enables recovery to any point in time for all volumes associated with the application. This crash-consistent recovery is performed as if the application server had crashed and had to be recovered from data resident on the storage.

For application-awareness, agents or customized scripts are used to place the application into hot backup mode, and once in this mode a bookmark is written into the RecoverPoint journal to show that the specific image represents an application-consistent recovery point. EMC ships agents for Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SQL Server that integrate these applications with RecoverPoint. By using these agents, an administrator can be assured that an application restore can be immediately mounted and the application restarted.

The administrator also can select a specific point in time to roll back and forward as needed. Recovery can occur at the local or remote disaster recovery site and is a very effective way to perform disaster recovery tests or fire drills. This powerful capability allows creation of time-based and transactional-consistent images at any point in time without impacting the production image.

Elimination of data loss

When RecoverPoint is used it complements existing backup products, such as EMC Avamar®, by providing an online and near-instantaneous any-point-in-time recovery of changed application data. RecoverPoint’s disk-based recovery provides higher performance and better management and security at lower costs than removable media backup products for disaster recovery. Removable media has its place for remote or branch office backup with recovery times of 24 hour or less and for long-term archiving, but may not be the best alternative for adhering to specific, more aggressive RTOs.

Heterogeneous storage support

RecoverPoint is a heterogeneous, network-based replication product that supports a wide range of host platforms, SAN elements, and storage arrays. Included is support for the virtual computing environment UCS servers, storage, and interconnect that make up the Vblock Infrastructure Packages. EMC’s E�Lab™, which provides industry-leading interoperability testing and qualification for a wide range of products and solutions including Vblock configurations backs RecoverPoint’s heterogeneous support capabilities. While the competition may claim support for various

Page 14: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

14 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

heterogeneous environments, EMC E-Lab support guarantees the highest level of interoperability assurance available.

Cost reduction

RecoverPoint uses a network-based appliance to journal changed application data for rapid, flexible point-in-time recovery. This active approach eliminates the need to identify backup windows and a lengthy process for mounting disks or tape for recovery in the event of failure.

RecoverPoint incorporates bandwidth management, data deduplication and data compression technologies that can reduce the data replicated over an FC or IP network by up to 90 percent. This capability is especially critical as networks are usually leased and represent a reoccurring (monthly) cost. Additionally, RecoverPoint does not require third-party network optimization devices.

RecoverPoint saves changes to application data in the RecoverPoint journal. This journal can be on a different tier of storage or on a different array from the production volumes. The journal is compressed and RecoverPoint can also consolidate recovery points. All of these capabilities enable RecoverPoint to retain more recovery points than equivalent array, host, or tape-based technologies at the least cost.

Application recovery improvements

Application recovery can be complex and time-consuming. RecoverPoint is a solution that incorporates application consistency with the recovery process. RecoverPoint includes utilities that integrate with vendor application APIs such as those that support Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SQL Server. Additionally, RecoverPoint ships with application programming and scripting interfaces that enable business-specific processes to be integrated with RecoverPoint.

RecoverPoint examples

This section shows two examples of how RecoverPoint works with Vblock infrastructures. The first example shows a customer who has two data centers thousands of miles apart. The second example shows a service provider with multiple tenant environments.

International customer with a federated environment

This example shows a large international customer with data centers several thousands of miles apart with a virtualized SAP landscape deployed on a Vblock 2 and Vblock 1 configuration. This customer needed to supplement their database’s backup and recovery capabilities with a solution that let them meet their RPO and RTO requirements. This customer tested how RecoverPoint performed in their SAP landscape across their two data centers. They found that RecoverPoint met their RPO and RTO requirements without data loss, reduced their backup and recovery impact, and provided SAP-consistent application recovery points. Additionally, the customer was able to replicate their SAP landscape data between a Vblock 2 and Vblock 1 configuration.

Page 15: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

15 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Figure 2 RecoverPoint remote replication

Service provider with multiple tenants

In this example, a service provider supports multiple remote tenants each with different service levels for data protection. With RecoverPoint, these tenants can implement their own storage, network, and server strategies. RecoverPoint access controls ensure that the tenants can only monitor and manage their own data. While the tenant does not need to implement a Vblock infrastructure, doing so will also allow them to take advantage of the virtualized application availability capabilities of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager. Additionally, these tenants can use the VMware affinity capabilities of RecoverPoint to identify those virtualized applications that are not protected by RecoverPoint.

The service provider implements a Vblock 300, Vblock 1 or Vblock 0 infrastructure, which enables them to share the VNX, CLARiiON or Celerra storage resources among four tenants. Each tenant gets protection of their application data with point-in-time recovery and can implement their applications using any storage supported by RecoverPoint, including Vblock 700, Vblock 300, Vblock 2, Vblock 1, or Vblock 0.

If the service provider also implements EMC Data Protection Advisor, they can provide services that analyze and create chargeback reports on a tenant-by-tenant basis.

Page 16: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

16 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Figure 3 Replication to a Service Provider

RecoverPoint data protection benefits

In both examples, RecoverPoint provides local and remote replication and recovery for application data. These examples showed how using RecoverPoint helps eliminate application data loss and improve RTO. RecoverPoint also works across heterogeneous storage including Vblock 700, Vblock 300, Vblock 2 and Vblock 1 configurations, and helps reduce operational cost with its integrated compression, Vblock support, and bi-directional replication. Finally RecoverPoint improves recovery objectives with application-based recovery points and reduces application impact with its reliance on out-of-band technology.

Page 17: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

17 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

Conclusion Virtualization technology has matured to the point where it is now suitable for deploying mission-critical applications in large data center environments whether delivered internally via enterprise IT, or from a service provider to a tenant. Today's business imperatives for IT demand that the deployment of complex applications be accomplished securely and safely, without affecting production environments. With the availability of Vblock systems in the marketplace, the deployment of applications on this platform meets the most demanding customer requirements. RecoverPoint is the one product that can provide the necessary data protection and replication for applications deployed in the private cloud — easily, simply, and dynamically.

Cisco, EMC, and VMware have extensive experience deploying business-critical applications in virtual environments and they can help customers quickly and confidently achieve better utilization of infrastructure assets while maintaining performance and availability. A customer’s applications and infrastructure will benefit from improved deployment speed, greater business agility, and operational efficiencies through template-based provisioning. Vblock-powered solutions enable efficient and rapid response to continually evolving business needs while improving service levels

Protecting your applications is easy with EMC RecoverPoint. It supports local and remote replication for application data, as well as QoS, capacity on demand, and service level management. With its customer-defined RPOs and RTOs, RecoverPoint allows critical business processes to be available locally for operational recovery, or remotely at a disaster recovery site hundreds or thousands of miles away from the primary site. With support for consistency groups RecoverPoint is a no-data-loss model providing full write-order consistency for replicated volumes that span multiple heterogeneous storage systems and servers.

References Visit VMware’s Technical Resource Center or the EMC RecoverPoint page on EMC.com and on Powerlink® for more information.

VMware publications include:

• VMware HA: Concepts and Best Practices

• DRS Performance and Best Practices

• Introduction to VMware vSphere

• vCenter Site Recovery Manager Administrator Guide

EMC publications include:

• EMC RecoverPoint Family Overview

• Improving VMware Disaster Recovery with EMC RecoverPoint

Page 18: EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD · RecoverPoint with a Vblock architecture ... • Vblock Series 300: A line of Vblock Platforms that are based on the EMC VNX ... 2 or Vblock

18 EMC RECOVERPOINT: PROTECTING YOUR CLOUD

• Improving Microsoft Exchange Server Recovery with EMC RecoverPoint

• Using EMC RecoverPoint Concurrent Local and Remote for Operational and Disaster Recovery

• Solving Data Protection Challenges with EMC RecoverPoint

• EMC RecoverPoint: Replicating VMware ESX Technical Note (on Powerlink only)

• Leveraging EMC Technologies for Business Continuity as a Service (on Powerlink only)