Replicating Microsoft Hyper-V cluster with Recoverpoint

Hi,

I don't believe there exists a comprehensive guide with Hyper-V and RP blessed by EMC and published by them, however I wrote one for the field while part of EMC and if you DM me and share your email, I can clean it up and share some of it with you (the agnostic stuff). Is there anything in particular you are looking for or had questions about?

thanks

Thank you.

Really I need to know it all about replicating the Hyper-V. Here are some of the questions that came up:

1. Consistency group configuration - do I have to include all the VNX volumes in the same CG, including the quorum, or can I have multiple CGs - one for each volume for example? I assume it has to be one CG with all the VNX volumes presented to Hyper-V, since the hosts are clustered?
2. Any best practices, gotchas here?
3. What is the failover process? Can it be automated? How to present the replica LUNs to the DR hosts in case of a failover?
4. Do I need to have all the target LUNs in the Hyper-V storage group at the DR array?
5. Does it require any additional EMC software to be installed on the hosts?

If you could share with me the documentation you have it would be awesome.

Appreciate it.

Hi,

I will send the cleaned up doc when I get back online, but I'll try to provide some insight to the questions above:

Really I need to know it all about replicating the Hyper-V. Here are some of the questions that came up:

1. Consistency group configuration - do I have to include all the VNX volumes in the same CG, including the quorum, or can I have multiple CGs - one for each volume for example? I assume it has to be one CG with all the VNX volumes presented to Hyper-V, since the hosts are clustered?

>>> Typically you would have all the CSV (assuming they are CSVs) that belong to a Hyper-V cluster in the same CG for consistency purposes, but it is not required. You can use groupsets and keep NPIV LUNs separate if needed.

1. Any best practices, gotchas here?

>>> Oh man...loaded question...haha. I am not aware of any published BP's or caveats. There are nuances with this process that can be enhanced after a few rounds of testing (script this, use X for naming convention, etc). There is nothing really from an RP perspective once the LUNs are replicating. All of the nuances are on the MS/Hyper-V side for the mosts part and I call some of these out in the doc I will send you. There could be more though that I haven't tested. My doc uses CSV, vFC's, and NPIV LUNs across different clusters to try and test as much breadth as I could, but it is by no means and exhaustive all-in-one doc nor representative of any vendor-published materials.

1. What is the failover process? Can it be automated? How to present the replica LUNs to the DR hosts in case of a failover?

>>> Essentially after the RP failover or test, there is an import wizard process with Hyper-V 2012 (assuming 2012 here) that you can follow to get the VM's imported successfully. Anything outside of CSV's like NPIV LUNs have additional steps on the SAN side needed like zoning/masking, but some of those could be scripted or setup ahead of time. The replica LUNs can be presented to the DR hosts in the Hyper-V cluster just like you have them presented to the production hosts in their Hype-V cluster.

1. Do I need to have all the target LUNs in the Hyper-V storage group at the DR array?

>>> Masking is agnostic to the failover process depending on how you are using Hyper-V, but during a failover or test, you would want to present the replica's to the DR Hyper-V cluster, so yes, they would all be masked in some way.

1. Does it require any additional EMC software to be installed on the hosts?

>>> No

One additional note - SCVMM (which is the manager of VMs for Hyper-V) was not used in this testing. Should it be required, there could be additional steps. The testing utilized the native Hyper-V and Failover Cluster Managers in Windows to do the imports and testing.

HTH

-Keith

Thank you. This is a great starting point for me.

Thanks for the doc, I appreciate it.

Can I get a copy of the revision too please? 

Shannon.stanko@dell.com

Thank you sir!

Hi Gents

I have a bank here that needs something like this. Could you please share this document with me also?

Thanks.

MJ

Can I also have a copy of this document?

One of my customer is planning this integration.

Thanks in advance,

Stefano.

stefano.panigada@dell.com

Hi, Colud you, please, share the document with me?

gergely_rab@dell.com

Thanks,

Gergo

Can u share the doc with me..

rahuldeo.chepurwar@dell.com

Hello, can you also share with me please?

jemma.taipan@dell.com

Hi ,

Can you please share the document.

Thanks

VJN

Hi can you please share he document to me. I use VMware with SRM and Recoverpoint appliances now with EMC VNX SAN's. Our parent company wants the shift to Hyper-V 2016. I would like to have similar functionality. Bruce Roberts

Hi, Can you please share the document with me. I'm trying to setup a two sites replication between two Hyper-V 2016 using EMC RecoverPoint. . Thanks in advance.