Three Site replication

Quick note.. the CX4 line is EOL and it may be extremely difficult to purchase a new one. VNX replaces the CX4 and the Celerra line and the equivalent to CX4-960 would be VNX7500 (as far as maximum drive count).

Are you looking for SAN or NAS replication.. I’m assuming that you are looking for SAN since you specified CX4 rather than VNX or Celerra.

The ability to do 3 site replication depends a bit on what you are trying to accomplish and what applications you are dealing with. Also, do you want to replicate the same source LUN to two destinations, or would one dataset go to destination A and a different dataset go to destination B?

1.) You can use SANCopy to replicate a single LUN on a schedule (scripted or with Replication Manager) to multiple destinations.

2.) You can use Mirrorview/S to synchronously mirror a single source LUN to two targets

3.) Mirrorview/A can replicate a source LUN to only one destination LUN, but you can replicate different LUNs to different destinations.

4.) RecoverPoint can be configured to synchronously replicate a source LUN to a second array, then asynchronously replicate the second copy to a third.

If you can provide a little more detail on what the 3 sites are for, we can help narrow down the choices

Richard J Anderson

The EMC VNX storage system is the replacement for CX4. It supports SAS drives which are functionally equivalent to FC drives. The FC drive interface is being phased out by hard disk manufacturers and SAS is replacing it. The VNX supports SSD, 10K and 15K RPM SAS drives, and 7K RPM NL-SAS (equivalent to SATA) drives.

For equivalent drive count, here are the model breakdowns…

CX4-120 (120 disks) = VNX5300 (125 disks)

CX4-240 (240 disks) = VNX5500 (250 disks)

CX4-480 (480 disks) = VNX5700 (500 disks)

CX4-960 (960 disks) = VNX7500 (1000 disks)

You may be able to reduce the number of disks required by leveraging FASTCache and/or FASTVP technologies in VNX and depending on your workload you could go with a smaller system as a result of the fewer drives. The VNX systems are 2-4X faster than the CX4 systems they replace.

If the two current sites are within 100km(60 miles) then you could synchronously replicate data from primary to backup, then asynchronously replicate to the new distant site. RecoverPoint can do that.

What are the distances between the sites, and what kind of network connectivity do you have between them?

Richard J Anderson

Thanks for your response.

I asked about Clariion because it fittet our needs counting on number of disks and type, as we were looking for FC HDDs.

Yes i was talking for SAN replication.

With three site replication i meant replicating the same dataset in two different locations. We actually have two sites(primary ad backup)  and we are building a third one distant from the others, and we are going to use the last one as a disaster recovery site.

Going back on system choices, our first choice was for Clariion, but since it is EOL we have to pick another one. What would you recommend me considering that i am  looking for a mid-range solutions ? Support of FC HDDs prefered.

Thanks