SyncIQ two-way replication

Question

Hello. New to Isilon. When we worked with our VAR and told them our requirements, they said it was possible with Isilon.

We have two geographically separate sites (A) and (B). Both sites have active users accessing file shares. Users travel between sites. With our current storage we have DFS replication setup between sites so users connect to shares located at the site they are at. Changes are synchronized between the sites to keep data consistent between.

We now have configured two Isilon clusters that will be at each site. We want the same ability for changes at either site to be replicated back to the other. I have a SyncIQ policy synchronizing from site A to site B running, but as I understand it, that won't sync changes from site B back to site A.

Would I need to setup a SyncIQ policy on site B to synchronize to site A?

Eg:
Current policy:
Source: \\siteA\ifs\Data\Share
Target: \\siteB\ifs\Data\Share

Add this?
Source: \\siteB\ifs\Data\Share
Target: \\siteA\ifs\Data\Share

Thanks in advance.

szekelyk · Answer

One SyncIQ policy replicates data only in one direction, and the target site is not accessible to modify content on it. Two way replication works when you configure two distinct policies, on two distinct folders.

Current policy:
Source: \\siteA\ifs\Data\Share
Target: \\siteB\ifs\Data\Share

Policy B -> A
Source: \\siteB\ifs\Data\Share2
Target: \\siteA\ifs\Data\Share2

Hope this helps!

Krisztian

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello BrewBen,

There is not a way to do two-way replication on the same policy. What you will have to do is to create 2 different policies. Here is the link to Dell EMC Isilon SyncIQ: Architecture, Configuration, and Considerations. https://dell.to/3azAQBS

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

BrewBen · Answer

Thank you @DELL-Sam L .

I reviewed the documentation and didn't see any deployment that matches my scenario. (It's kind of like a one-to-one-back-to-one topology).

I have no concerns creating a second SyncIQ policy on the remote cluster, but will there be issues setting the target to the source directory of the local cluster? According to @szekelyk , I will have to create a second directory and synchronize to that, but this is not the solution we want.

ppp25 · Answer

The scenario you're describing can't be done on the Isilon, there is no 2 way replication of the same data between 2 clusters, making it available and writeable on both clusters at the same time.

SyncIQ replicates a source to a target, and the target is read only, so while you could access that data on the target cluster, users wouldn't be able to write to it. If you broke the association to make it writeable, you then would no longer be able to continue syncing from the source.

Isilon

SyncIQ two-way replication

Was this post helpful?