HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure user’s guide Part number: T2558-96086 First edition: January 2008
Legal and notice information © Copyright 2004-2007 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Hewlett-Packard Company makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Hewlett-Packard shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.
Contents About this guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Related documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Document conventions and symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v HP technical support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iv
About this guide This document describes how to use the Storage Mirroring® for Virtual Infrastructure interface to create and validate your application configuration. Related documentation Before you begin to configure your solution, make sure that you have complete documentation for your operating system and Storage Mirroring. The following document(s) contain additional information that you may need while setting up this solution: • Storage Mirroring User’s Guide or online documentation • Readme.
HP technical support Telephone numbers for worldwide technical support are listed on the HP support web site: http://www.hp.com/support/. Collect the following information before calling: • Technical support registration number (if applicable) • Product serial numbers • Product model names and numbers • Applicable error messages • Operating system type and revision level • Detailed, specific questions For continuous quality improvement, calls may be recorded or monitored.
Introducing Storage Mirroring® for Virtual Infrastructure Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure is used to protect entire virtual machines on the VMware ESX Server platform by actively replicating virtual machine files between datastores. Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure leverages VMware published and supported web service APIs for snapshot and virtual machine management, ensuring that protected and replica virtual machines are in known and manageable states.
Requirements Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure requires the following minimum system configuration: • The Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure client and the Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure service must be installed on a server running one of the following 32-bit operating systems: • Microsoft® Windows® XP • Microsoft Windows 2003 • A copy of Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure • VMware VirtualCenter 2.x or later (Strongly recommended: VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.
Getting Started with Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure Configure your VMware ESX server Before you use Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure, you must configure your VMware ESX server to allow remote root login for secure shell (SSH) clients and to enable the client port for SSH. You will need to do this on both the source and target servers. 1. Allow remote root login for SSH. a. Log on to the ESX server through the console, using root credentials. b.
Using the left pane navigation list When you launch Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure, you will see the main Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure window. The first time you launch Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure, the interface will lead you through each step you need to take to configure protection for a virtual machine.
Start Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure Launch Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure by selecting Start, Programs, Storage Mirroring, Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure. The first time you launch Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure, a login window will appear. In subsequent sessions, after you have entered and saved login information for your servers, you will be taken directly to the Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure interface.
Configure the VirtualCenter operation timeout You can configure a single timeout value to be used for all VirtualCenter operations. By default, the value is 90 minutes. 1. Stop all protection jobs. 2. Stop the DTEsxSvc service. 3. Change the default value of 90 minutes in the DefaultJob.xml file: 90 4. Restart your protection jobs.
When you have finished entering the login information, click Next. Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure will verify the credentials that you have entered for the Storage Mirroring server. If any of the information entered is invalid or if the server refuses a connection, a warning message will appear. Because logging on is a two-step process, you will also need to enter credentials if you are logging on to a VirtualCenter server. Continue to the next section, “Connect to the VirtualCenter server”.
When you have finished entering the login information, click Connect. Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure will verify the credentials that you have entered for the VirtualCenter server. If this is your first time to use Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure and no virtual machines have previously been protected, you will be directed to begin selecting your virtual machines to protect. Continue with “Select the source physical machine” on page 10.
• User name—Enter the user name for the account that will access the SMTP server. • Password—Enter the password that is associated with the user name. When you are finished, click Save. If you choose to disable e-mail notification for Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure after it has been configured, delete the server name in the SMTP server field, then click Save.
Add an ESX server If you want to add a new ESX server, click the Add Server button. The Add server window will appear in the right pane. Enter the IP address or DNS name and password for the new ESX server, then click Save to save the server credentials. Set up Protection for a Virtual Machine Select the source physical machine Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure will authenticate and find virtual machines on the selected source server.
Enter the following information for the source server: • IP address or DNS Name—Enter the IP address or DNS name of the VMware ESX server that hosts the virtual machine you want to protect. Or, click the Browse button to browse VirtualCenter to locate a server. In the Select server window, browse through the file tree on the left side to select a source server.
Select a virtual machine on the source server The virtual machines that are found on the source server will be added to the list on the Select virtual machine window. Select a virtual machine to protect from the list, then click Next. NOTE: Each protection that you configure will apply to a single virtual machine. Select the target physical machine On the Select target server window, you will enter information to select the target server.
Enter the following information for the target server: • IP address or DNS Name—Enter the IP address or DNS name of the VMware server that will provide a backup for your source virtual machine. Or, click the Browse button to browse VirtualCenter to locate a server. In the Select server window, browse through the file tree on the left side to select a target server.
Select a data store on the target server The data stores that are found on the target server will be added to the list on the Select target datastore window. NOTE: Sufficient free space is determined by the following formula: 256 MB * # of snapshot-capable virtual disks + sum of all virtual disk base flat files - amount of disk space used by prestaged data Select the datastore where the source virtual machine data will be replicated.
Edit replica virtual machine Select the options that will configure the replica virtual machine. • Enter the display name—Enter the name you would like to use to identify the replica virtual machine. NOTE: Do not use any special or unique characters in the replica virtual machine name, including the following: #/\:*?'"<>| • Map replica virtual network adapters to target VSwitches—If there are multiple target networks, you can select the network on the target to use.
Modify protection settings The first time you access the Protection summary page, it will be populated with default values that are recommended for a basic environment. You can change protection settings for this job by clicking on the Change buttons. See the following sections for more information.
Schedule protection start time By default, Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure starts the initial synchronization of a protection immediately after the protection is created. If you want to specify a date and time in the future at which the initial synchronization will be started, click the Schedule button at the top of the window. The Configure protection start time window will appear.
Set data transmission options You can modify the data transmission options in order to make them more suitable for your environment. Click the Change button in the Data Transmission area. The Set data transmission options window will appear. You can change the snapshot data compression settings in the Compression area. The following options are available: • Never—(Default) No compression will be applied to the data.
You can specify a limit for the bandwidth to be used by source-to-target communications for this protection job. In the Bandwidth Limit area, select the Limit Bandwidth checkbox, then enter a value (in kilobits per second) that bandwidth cannot exceed. When you are finished, click Save. NOTE: A snapshot transmission cycle from the source to the target will begin when either of the threshold conditions are met: time or size. During the snapshot transmission cycle, the thresholds are not monitored.
In the Recipients area, enter the e-mail address(es) to which you want to send the automatic e-mail notifications. Separate the addresses with either a comma, semicolon, or carriage return. In the Notifications area, select the events for which you want to send e-mail messages. To verify that your settings are valid, click the Test E-mail Settings button.
Enter the following information in the appropriate fields: • Server—Enter the IP address or fully-qualified domain name of the VirtualCenter server. NOTE: If you have changed the default port used by the VirtualCenter server, specify the port as well. Enter the IP address and port in the Server field, using the format Address:Port. • User name—Enter the user name for the account that will access the VirtualCenter server. • Password—Enter the password that is associated with the user name.
Save protection settings Review the protection settings on the Protection summary page. If the settings are acceptable, click Finish to save your protection settings. After your protection has been configured, you will be able to monitor the protection status of your virtual machine(s). See “Monitor your Protected Virtual Machines” on page 23.
NOTE: While using Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure, you should not attempt to manually create or delete snapshots on the protected virtual machine. Doing so will disrupt the protection of the virtual machine and may generate unpredictable results on the source and target virtual machines. Monitor your Protected Virtual Machines The Monitor protection page displays a status summary for each of the virtual machines you have protected using Storage Mirroring for Virtual Infrastructure.
NOTE: When you click the Delete Protection button, you will be prompted to either keep or delete the associated replica virtual machine. If you no longer want to protect the source and are no longer interested in the target replica, then select the Delete the associated replica virtual machine option. If you no longer want to move data from the source to the target but still want to keep the target replica, then select the Keep the associated replica virtual machine option.
Understanding failover and job reversal When you select the Failover button, the following dialog box appears where you can select failover options: • Live failover—Select this option to perform a failover with network connectivity. • Test failover—Select this option to perform a test failover in which the source is not actually shut down. • Complete the current replication cycle before failover—Select this option to let the current replication cycle complete before failing over.
Perform a failover test to verify the quality of the backup data without disrupting clients 1. Click the Failover button. 2. Choose the Test failover option. 3. Review the target virtual machine to verify that the data quality is acceptable. At this point, you can either: • Undo the failover as described in step 4. • Promote the replica virtual machine to be the production server by shutting down the source and enabling the target replica’s NIC through the Virtual Infrastructure client. 4.
