by Sam Marraccini | Twitter @EMCMSFT | Sam.Marraccini@emc.com
I hear it from customers all the time, “My {insert application} needs to be always-on. It can’t go down. My users and my business demand it”. This availability question goes back to the roots of EMC. Game changing technologies like TimeFinder and SRDF (Symmetrix Remote Data Facility) have been around since the late 90’s, and arguably, set the stage for the beginning of the storage software industry.
From an EMC/Microsoft integration, EMC has long provided functionality like Geo-Span and SRDF/CE (Cluster Enabler) to extend shared storage clusters across data centers. In fact, you can find an outstanding Business Continuity white paper detailing Hyper-V with EMC Symmetrix VMAX and SRDF/CE In an EMC Symmetrix environment, SRDF/CE continues to provide an outstanding solution for extending a Microsoft Cluster across data centers. EMC customers continue to deploy SRDF/CE as the primary solution for high availability and extending Microsoft Clusters.
The introduction of advanced virtualization capabilities has extended the possibilities. No longer are we limited to cluster failover across data centers. We now have the ability to extend the production volume across data centers allowing the extension of the HA solution beyond the Microsoft cluster. Now we can also include the “Other” servers that need to be available for the application to be well… always-on. Enter the EMC VPLEX Family.
From VPLEX marketing material:
The EMC VPLEX family is a solution for federating EMC and non-EMC storage. The VPLEX platform logically resides between the servers and heterogeneous storage assets supporting a variety of arrays from various vendors. VPLEX simplifies storage management by allowing LUNs, provisioned from various arrays, to be managed through centralized management interfaces.
The EMC VPLEX platform removes physical barriers within, across and between data centers. VPLEX Local provides simplified management and non-disruptive data mobility across heterogeneous arrays. VPLEX Metro provides mobility, availability, and collaboration between two VPLEX clusters within synchronous distance. VPLEX Geo further dissolves those distances by extending these use cases to asynchronous distances.
EMC VPLEX is not limited to EMC Storage, providing a solution that can extend to all application components across storage arrays. This federation provides endless possibilities. In comparison, SRDF/CE can extend your existing Microsoft Cluster across data centers, leveraging EMC Symmetrix and EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility. EMC VPLEX allows the logical extension of the lun between data centers across heterogeneous Storage arrays. (That lun can easily be a CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) for your Microsoft Cluster.
In addition to the Microsoft Cluster integration, EMC has been working to insure Hyper-V and all Microsoft applications are fully integrated for a true business continuance solution.
The last two episodes of Inside The Partnership (EMC/MSFT) highlighted the advanced integration the EMC Solutions Team has been developing. The obvious integration point is Hyper-V Live Migration. I spent some time with James Baldwin at Microsoft Teched 2011 reviewing exactly that:
Episode #8 covers EMC VPLEX & Microsoft Hyper-V. Take a traditional Microsoft cluster and extend the single CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) across data centers, allowing clusters to extend beyond traditional limitations. The cluster nodes have no idea they are physically separated. They act and provide availability as if they were in the same server rack.
Inside The Partnership (EMC/MSFT) Episode #8 - (http://tiny.cc/jv7to)
A detailed whitepaper on the VPLEX family can be found here http://tiny.cc/u0s84 and the white paper "Microsoft Hyper-V Live Migration with EMC VPLEX GEO can be found here http://tiny.cc/k763s
Shortly after Episode #8, EMC Solutions team introduced an additional whitepaper covering Distance Application Mobility. This architecture "Long-Distance Application Mobility Enabled by EMC VPLEX GEO" highlights a typical customer with Windows Server, Hyper-V, Sharepoint and SAP. (You Can Find the whitepaper here) I quickly introduced the whitepaper in the beginning of Episode #9, then covered Big Data… A future Blog topic.
Inside The Partnership (EMC/MSFT) Episode #9 – (http://tiny.cc/4q5jb)
Thanks for the feedback.. Follow me on Twitter @EMCMSFT and subscribe to the Youtube Channel to get the latest Inside The Partnership Videos. I can also be reached via e-mail (sam.marraccini@emc.com)
