This post is more than 5 years old
16 Posts
0
2139
Vplex Metro- anyone booting from SAN?
Using Vplex metro, we have a number of physical servers starting to request boot from SAN so OS drive is available at DR site. Anyone doing this successfully with VPLEX fronted Storage? We have VMAX backend.
Jeff
ankur.patel
286 Posts
0
March 15th, 2012 06:00
Jeff it looks like what you are descirbing is a distributed boot volume. Today this is not supported and you should see that restriction on the ESSM soon. You could replicate the boot volume using VMAX replication tools to the second site. If you want to create a local boot volume presented through the VPLEX that is fine.
RickBrunner1
117 Posts
0
March 15th, 2012 13:00
Jeff,
Ankur has answered your question but I would like to better understand the use case you have for replicating the boot from san volumes.
Typically we see customers implementing VPLEX-METRO configurations to either enable non disruptive mobility or increase resiliency/HA across two sites.
In both cases it is required to have host at both sites participating in a stretched cluster configuration to enable this unique use case. Replicating BFS volumes predicates that one site has host that are powered off, which takes away from the unique use case of VPLEX-METRO and increases / lengthens the recovery time objectives (RTO) as well as the simplicity afforded via automation of HA functions of clustered systems.
The one benefit I can see to replicating BFS is reduction in patch/updates as you only update one site and the other gets the updates via replication but this is at the sacrifice of mobility and RTO's and simplicity.
In addition if a customer chooses to replicate BFS, I can see an advantage of using VPLEX to do so as it would allow greater flexibility in array combinations since VPLEX would mask the differences from the host and allow greater flexibility in that regard. Other than that I struggle with the reasoning.
Can you provide some insight into your particular use case?
thanks
-rick
jeffwade_96e6ca
16 Posts
0
March 15th, 2012 14:00
Great message Rick. I’m completely following and in agreement with the benefits and loss of benefits you have outlined. We are definitely on the same page. In my particular use case, the customer was interested in being an exception to the stretched benefit of VPlex metro and using their BFS at the DR side for easy patch/version control.
Jeff Wade