Replication of VMWare VM backup to remote site ?

Did you post this question in another forum as well (yesterday). I think I saw it before

By CX3 SAN I think you mean a SAN plus a Clariion ? Thus (at least) 2 switches and a Clariion ?

- To have the Clariions communicatie with eachother, you need SP ports zoned together and since you only have a tcp/ip link, you need some sort of FCIP solution to convert FC into ip and back on the other side as well.
- With iSCSI Clariions you can use Mirrorview and SANcopy over tcp/ip. You need Flare 26 or better to use this.
- You could consider using VCB or any other form of exporting tool of your VM to get a copy of the VMs and copy them accross the line to another vmfs volume on the other Clariion

With only 9Mbps bandwidth you need to plan carefully, since 9Mbps is very slow, so if you need to get 10TB to the other side, this will take up days.....

Yes, I did. I think I have to asked too many questions on that post and it is better for me to get more basic understanding. In this way, I post this message.

Yes, we are using CX3-20 with Clariion. We are currently running FLARE 26. There are 2 Brocade SW200E FC Switch here. Since we have used up all 8 ports of those 2 switches, my boss is keen on whether we need to purchase another 4 port license.

From your reply, my understanding is
1) If we opt for FC, we have to add more 2 ports to the SW200E Switch (For SPA0 and SPB0 for the Remote SAN). It requires FCIP solution as well.
2) If we opt for iSCSI, we don't need to add any more port to the SW200E FC Switch. It doesn't need any FCIP solution as well.

If we use VCB to export the VM, does it mean that we don't need to use SANCopy or MirrorView (We currently don't have license of those 2 software). If yes, is there any way to copy the image across ?

Thanks again for your advice

The 200E doesn't support FCIP; to support FCIP, you need an ISL from you 200E to a switch that does FCIP, so in your case I'd disconnect 1 host from the 200E and connect it to the 7500 and use the free 200E port for the ISL to the 7500. But you do need an additional Brocade 7500 for that (or a Cisco 9216i / 9222i), so if you want to connect over FC to the other site, you need some sort of communication channel, such as FCIP (FC over IP) to use you exsiting tcp/ip equipment, but if the communication "channel" is a (dark) fiber, you can think about CWDM to multiplex data streams into 1 bundle of light (for example 1Gb ethernet on 1470nm light and 4Gb FC on 1550 nm, both bundled (with some sort of prisma) into 1 bundle of light).




Correct. The CX3-20c has iSCSI ports which you can use for connecting Clariions so you can start using SANcopy or MirrorView.




Uhm.. I'm not really sure about VCB, but I can more or less explain the principles of snapshots and how data is extracted:
- start a snapshot of the LUN you need to have copied to the DR site
- start a vmfstools ... bla bla "export". This command copies the VMDK over tcp/ip to for example a local disk, or ... a share. This share can be on the DR site and you connect to it over that 9Mbps line
- after the export is done, you can stop the snapshot
- on the DR site you now need to import the VMDK you just copied over

Done. Your VMDK is now on the DR site, just like it was during the snapshot.
You can use VMware snapshots (as VCB does) or Clariion snapshots.

Many thanks for your advice.


I have searched and find that we are not able to afford Brocade 7500.

As you have mentioned that we can use SANCopy and MirrorView if we opt for iSCSI at both sites, it seems that it is the best way for us (TCP/IP Link between sites => No additional port required on SW200E Switch / No FCIP is required / Support SANCopy and MirrorView right away).

We just wonder
1) Whether we have to increase the bandwidth of the TCP/IP Link ?
2) Is there any setting we have to set up between the routers at two sites for the SANCopy data across ? Currently, we are using VoIP and QoS is set up.

Thanks again

Message was edited by:
TonyJK

Dear All,

Can I use the iSCSI port to Mirror or SANCopy for a FC LUN replication?

Thanks for any reply.
Dennis Dai

You can use iSCSI for Mirrorview or SAN Copy, yes

Mirrorview and SANcopy are both supported using iSCSI in release 26.

glen