Unity and RecoverPoint

I'm in the process of a similar deployment and also could not find any documentation.  Here's what I've found so far:

1. Using 2 directly attached Recoverpoint appliances via Fiber Channel, the initiators are automatically registered.

2. Splitter seems to be already installed on the Unity.

3. I had to manually create a Repository volume and present it to the Recoverpoint host.  There does not appear to be any direct integration like the VNX.

My biggest question yet to test is whether I'll have to add the Recoverpoint host to the access list for each LUN I want RP control of.  Unfortunately it appears as though EMC has done away with Storage Groups in Unity. 

That's as far as I've gone with the deployment to date.  Good luck and let us know if you discover any additional details!

Thanks for the response, I can see the response for my questions are part of the document, I will refer to it.

By the sentence "Currently, only EMC Customer Service is authorized to enable VNX splitter. Contact Customer Service for assistance" It means the "xml file" needed for deployment right?

I have seen while deploying RecoverPoint for VM you can actually point it to update automatically.

Is this also similar in case of Unity/VNXe? as it is saying it is automatically enabled.

Thanks again for your kind response.

Hi,

The RecoverPoint Technical notes have answers to all of your quries , please go through it as soon as you can

Trying to answer your quires one by one .

Q: By the sentence "Currently, only EMC Customer Service is authorized to enable VNX splitter. Contact Customer Service for assistance" It means the "xml file" needed for deployment right?

A: it is referring to VNX enabler package , which is added to VNX via Unisphere Service Manager. ( it is not a .xml file)

Q:I have seen while deploying RecoverPoint for VM you can actually point it to update automatically.

Is this also similar in case of Unity/VNXe? as it is saying it is automatically enabled.

A: i am not sure about RP4VM configuration but in case of VNXe/UNity the RecoverPoint splitter is embedded/enabled and will be detected by RP Wizard automatically .

Please make sure that you have added the required licenses on the recover point side before adding Unity/VNXe to Recover-point .

Best of luck.

Thanks for your response again, why I thought it is xml, as for all the deployments we have done that is the only thing we wait for EMC to help us with. Splitter installation we have done ourselves for all deployment after getting it from Partner Portal.

RecoverPoint for VM and RecoverPoint with VNX we have done.

There was no specific information given for Unity and RecoverPoint, I can see you and Jeremy had answered most of my queries.

Thanks for your help, this community have always been helpful because of helpful people like you guys

Thanks again.

Hi,

Did you got chance to test all the scenario's? I did an implementation and tested and found the following issues:

1. With a test volume (just added to recoverpoint at both sides with a small 10 gb lun replication completes) -- Basically empty lun

2. A 1 TB (200 GB * 5) luns which is in production when adding it to replication it just goes to "long resyn mode" and status shows "Paused by System" with no transfer progress.

All the volumes at production says "Unaccessible by RPA at just production site"

The only difference between test and actual CG is the actual CG have lun's mapped to original server along with recoverpoint. Of course we will not unmap the volumes from production to replicate

I tried disabling and enabling CG it just stays same. One time the status showed "recovering production" just after doing disable and enable, not sure what is wrong.

Have you seen anything like this? Also one more thing, we don't need to add Unity under Storage right? As there is no option for Unity. Under Splitter is it showing registered.

Hi Swapnil,

Thanks for the detailed description of the problem. We are stuck at one of our Implementation with the same scenario.

If you hear any solution or known bug from EMC, kindly post it here.

Thanks

Venkat V

Are you having IBM AIX as operating system. It is an issue with AIX where there is reservation_policy (you many need to say no reseve for the AIX file system). Hope this helps

Hi Swapnil,

No we don't have any IBM hosts as such. I was referring to the "Paused by System" problem on Unity/Recoverpoint.

Thanks

Venkat V

It was not Xtremio or recoverpoint issue.

At AIX dt there is attribute of reserver_policy. If you have native aix mpio use no_reserve. If you have emc powerpath mpio reserve_lock should be "no"

Check output for lsattr -El hdiskX

Hope this helps

Just to be sure.

Is disabling scsi reservations on AIX necessary if you want to replicate it with RecoverPoint?

Does this have impacts (other than the reboot for changing the parameter) on AIX functionalities like clustering or others?

Thanks

Guido

We have tried this at one of our customer place. You will need to reboot and remember every time to check this after creating any fs going ahead. I think this is also mentioned in AIX and RecoverPoint documentation. As AIX reserved the volumes and the recoverpoint needs access to it. It resolved our issue. If any doubt you can raise a case with support and ask them to verify.