Real World Experiences with RM

Question

Can anyone comment on the following with RM:

- How many array's do you manage with it?
- What is the maxim number of hosts you have put on RM to manage?
- What are the different types of OS installs you currently have on RM?
- What is the maxim amount of snapshot's you are managing:
A. How many do you manage (meaning keep track of (currently snapped)
B. How many do you initiate in a given hour/day/week?

Thanks,
Shmac

Jeff_Tabian · Answer

- How many array's do you manage with it?

Varies by Customer, Max Array's I've done for one customer with RM is 4 CX's

- What is the maxim number of hosts you have put on
RM to manage?

18 Licensed hosts was the most

- What are the different types of OS installs you
currently have on RM?

Primarily Windows 2000/2003, a few Red Hat Linux AS 3.0

- What is the maxim amount of snapshot's you are
managing:
A. How many do you manage (meaning keep track of
(currently snapped)

I tend to use clones for Exchange/SQL/Oracle & SANCopy related tasks, so that cuts down on snaps considerably, though for file servers or the like usually the max of 8 or a minimum of 5 or so per host

B. How many do you initiate in a given
hour/day/week?

Preference tends to lead towards a 35 snap rotation scheme weekly (9am,12pm,3pm,5pm,MWF,TTS,Sunday) all mounted to a mount-host via mountpoints. Sometimes an 8th or else left for SANCopy etc.

Thanks,
Shmac

PS. RM/SE is terrible IMO even in some of our smallest installations, especially when compared to the power of RM. These answers are all based upon regular RM (formerly RM LOCAL).

csmykay1 · Answer

CXSANGUY,Thanks for the responses. Yeah I have already heard about NOT using RM/SE and just going with RM. However from what I can tell with meeting with my EMC SE's they are going to combine this into one product.In regards to Linux, are you taking snapshot's of the LUN's that are mounted to those Linux hosts? Or just clones?

Jeff_Tabian · Answer

EMC seems to monkey with these products more often than any other (SIME was merged in not all that long ago to give us what we have today) but I do really think its a good thing. RM is far ahead of what other vendors provide IMO. Especially in some of its customization possibilities such as callout scripting. An advanced feature thats even pretty well documented in the manuals for those that wish to use its power.

I'm not much of a Linux fan. Windows 2003 makes a far better SAN connected system these days (This even according to EMC's own white papers). To date any Linux work I've done is purely Oracle (and thus clones) and/or the rest would be VMware which is its own animal (And something I am very much a huge fan of despite the Linux Management Layer)...

Replication Manager

Real World Experiences with RM

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