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Re: EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

 
Rob Crooks
Frequent Advisor

EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

I just bought a pair of 4400 with CA licenses and am looking for clarification on what I can and can't do with CA. I have set everything up disk wise, created a volume and setup replication. Easy.
My question has to do with Windows Clusters specifically. I have several that I need to migrate from an MSA envrionment.
Right now, my data disk exists either on one MSA or the other (they are in different Data Rooms) and each cluster node has access to the LUN, but only one is in control and has access. If I setup a new cluster and put the data on EVA_A and replicate the data to the EVA_B, when the active cluster node fails, does the failed-over-to node have to access the data on EVA_A or can it use EVA_B? In other words, is CA replication bi-directional?
6 REPLIES 6
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

Rob:

You asked:

"If I setup a new cluster and put the data on EVA_A and replicate the data to the EVA_B, when the active cluster node fails, does the failed-over-to node have to access the data on EVA_A or can it use EVA_B? In other words, is CA replication bi-directional? "


The CA is mor for "Site Failures" rather than server failures. Are both servers in the same room? or are they with their respective storage array?

What kind of replication are you using now, if any, with the MSA's?

Typically... a 2 node cluster would use storage on the primary EVA, and if something happened to the primary EVA.... access would be "switched" to the secondary EVA.

CA is Source --> Target replication... one direction. Virtual Disk 1 on the source is repicated on the Target array. If the source EVA fails, the target can become the source for access to the data.


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)
Rob Crooks
Frequent Advisor

Re: EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

Steven

Right now I don't have any replication with the MSAs, not even Windows shadowing.
I understand your comment about site failures, but I was hoping that node b in room b would be able to address the replicated virtual disk if node a failed.
I'm going to setup a cluster to test this out. I am seeing the Selective Storage from the MSA as where the nodes point to the same volume, but with CA there is (or should be) two identical volumes. Whether the target volume is available without intervention is really what I want to validate.

Rampy(Venu)
Frequent Advisor

Re: EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

Question:- does the failed-over-to node have to access the data on EVA_A or can it use EVA_B?
Answer:- It will still be acessing EVA_A.
The EVA(site) will not failover.

You need a cluster extension software inorder to accomplish that i guess.Suggestions are open.

Let me know if this helped.
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

"I am seeing the Selective Storage from the MSA as where the nodes point to the same volume, but with CA there is (or should be) two identical volumes. Whether the target volume is available without intervention is really what I want to validate."


Ok, so nobe b resides with stoage b.


For CA, there will surely be 2 identical volumes, but nothing will be able to access the target until a failover has occured...

Cluster Extension EVA Software would help with the automation of the failover process.

For more infrmation see:

" http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/ceeva/index.html "


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)
Rob Crooks
Frequent Advisor

Re: EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

Thanks to everyone who replied. I looked at this Cluster Extension EVA Software and it is wildly over expensive. It does exactly what I want, but not at any price.

I guess a little manual intervention is what will be called for during failover.

Thanks again
Algert
Visitor

Re: EVA4400 Continuous Access and Windows Clusters

Hello everyone!

I Have 2 hp p6300 storageworks and 2 CA,i have and 2 mpx 200 also.

I have configured replecation between them,and i am in this situation:

Fail over from source storage to destination storage is ok,but fail back from destination to source fails

From Storage A to B Replication is ok,but from B to A fail.

Do you have any idea what happend?

 

Thank you in advance!