Dell PowerStore Protecting Your Data

Before configuring metro protection, consider the following limitations:

• Metro support is available only with PowerStore T model and PowerStore Q model appliances.
• Metro protection is enabled for volumes and volume groups.
• Metro protection supports FC/SCSI or iSCSI connected Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi hosts.
  NOTE:Windows and Linux hosts are supported as of PowerStore version 4.x.

When a connection to a remote system is established, the system automatically detects the configuration and enables the supported capabilities for the remote system. To enable block metro capability, ensure that the following conditions are met on both PowerStore systems:

• The two systems are running PowerStore 3.x or later.
• The latency on the remote system is low.
• The data connection type is TCP - When local and remote PowerStore systems running version 3.x (or later) are installed , TCP connection is automatically supported. However, when one or both of the PowerStore systems are running version 2.x, you must upgrade the systems to 3.x to enable metro. Following the upgrade, an alert is displayed, requiring you to update the remote system connection type. Click the link in the displayed alert to open the Update Remote System Transport window. Then, click Update Transport.
  NOTE:The alert is cleared only after transport is updated.

To deploy a witness, ensure that the following pre-requisites are met:

• The witness must be installed on a Linux host (virtual or physical).
  NOTE:It is highly recommended to deploy the witness on a third fault domain, which is separated from the two PowerStore systems.
• Supported operating systems: See Dell Technologies PowerStore Simple Support Matrix on the PowerStore Documentation page.
• Dependencies (required on the Linux host):
  • Java 11
  • SQLite
  NOTE:The listed dependencies are installed automatically when using a package manager (such as yum or zypper).
• Hardware:
  • The operating system must be running on an x64 CPU architecture.
  • A minimum of 4 GB RAM
  • A minimum of 5 GB available disk space
• Ports:
  • Port 443/tcp must be open on the witness host before installing the witness.
  • Datacenter firewalls must allow traffic on port 443 to enable PowerStore to send requests to the witness.
• Network latency - Maximum latency of 100 millisecond on the management network between PowerStore and the witness
• User account access - root or sudo access is required to install the witness on the host.
• Ensure connectivity to the PowerStore Management network.
• For a virtual witness, it is recommended to use a static IP address for the witness VM. However, if you are using DHCP, add the witness to PowerStore using the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).