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Abstract
The document describes the reference architecture of a MEDITECH environment
protected by an EMC RecoverPoint solution and VMware vCenter Site Recovery
Manager.
January 2014
Table of contents
Reference architecture overview ........................................................................................................... 4
Document purpose .......................................................................................................................... 4
Solution purpose ............................................................................................................................. 4
Business challenge .......................................................................................................................... 4
Technology solution ......................................................................................................................... 4
Solution Architecture ........................................................................................................................... 6
Architecture diagram........................................................................................................................ 6
Hardware resources ......................................................................................................................... 7
Software resources ......................................................................................................................... 8
Key components ................................................................................................................................... 9
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 9
EMC RecoverPoint ............................................................................................................................ 9
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager ........................................................................................... 9
Brocade Ethernet/Fibre Channel technology .................................................................................... 9
Configuring EMC RecoverPoint ........................................................................................................... 11
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 11
Configuring RecoverPoint consistency groups ................................................................................ 11
RecoverPoint consistency group considerations ........................................................................ 12
Configuring the consistency group for management by SRM .......................................................... 12
Configuring site recovery with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager............................................. 13
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 13
Prerequisites.................................................................................................................................. 13
Installing and configuring SRM....................................................................................................... 13
Configuring Advanced SRM ............................................................................................................ 15
EMC VSI for VMware vSphere: EMC RecoverPoint Management ...................................................... 17
Additional recommendations ......................................................................................................... 17
Testing the MEDITECH recovery plan .................................................................................................. 18
Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 18
Testing the recovery plan ............................................................................................................... 18
Recovery test report ....................................................................................................................... 20
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 21
References.......................................................................................................................................... 22
EMC documentation ....................................................................................................................... 22
VMware documentation ................................................................................................................. 22
Business
challenge
Companies that have deployed the MEDITECH EMR Suite depend heavily on the
information, processes, and availability of their deployed application environments.
In the event of an outage, either planned (testing, upgrades and updates, repairs) or
unplanned disasters, the complexity and distributed nature of these applications
make implementation and maintenance of traditional disaster recovery solutions
lengthy, expensive, and complicated.
Traditional recoveries follow a written playbook, full of technical details on Internet IP
address changing, zoning, storage masking, the order of servers to bring up at
another site, and much more. Each step must be done manually and flawlessly.
Typically, experts in IP protocol, storage management and design, VMware, MS
Windows, (to name some of the key technologies involved in a recovery), are required
to be onsite. But, what are the chances that all these people will be on site to help
immediately if a flood or earthquake strikes in the middle of the night?
To compound these challenges, community hospitals and smaller health delivery
sites are even less likely to have all the expertise on staff, let alone on site 7X24
immediately following disaster, or even a planned outage.
EMC RecoverPoint and VMware virtualization technology helps healthcare delivery
organizations gain key advantages:
Technology
solution
The Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for MEDITECH, enabled by EMC
RecoverPoint and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) solution, focuses on
disaster recovery between two VNX7500 arrays enabled by RecoverPoint continuous
remote replication (CRR).
The virtualization platform for the solution is enabled by SRM and VMware vSphere.
Integration of RecoverPoint CRR and VMware SRM enables automated failover of a
MEDITECH environment from the production site to the recovery site and ensures that
data replicated to the recovery site is available to the recovery site servers.
This solution incorporates the following components:
EMC RecoverPoint Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for VMware vCenter Site
Recovery Manager (SRM)
Solution Architecture
Architecture
diagram
SRM Server
Recoverpoint
Brocade
DS6510
SAN
Protected Site
VMware Client
with Vmware
SRM & EMC
VSI
Figure 1.
Brocade
VDX6720
LAN
SRM Server
Recoverpoint
Brocade
DS6510
SAN
Recovery Site
VMware Client
with Vmware
SRM & EMC
VSI
Solution architecture
Hardware
resources
Solution hardware
Quantity
2
Configuration
Notes
Gen 5 hardware
Brocade 6510
SAN switch
8 GB/s FC switches
Brocade VDX6720
10 or 1 Gigabit Ethernet
switches
Rackmount systems
Network Switch
Intel server
128 GB RAM
Converged network adapter
MEDITECH File
Servers (FS) VM
30
2 vCPU
4 GB Memory
40 GB VMDK
2 vCPU
8 GB Memory
25 GB VMDK
100 GB VMDK
vCenter Site
Recovery Manager
Server VM
SQL Server VM
2 vCPU
8 GB Memory
40 GB VMDK
2 vCPU
8 GB RAM
75 GB VMDK
Software
resources
Table 2.
Solution software
Software
Configuration
Notes
EMC VNX7500
Release 32
EMC RecoverPoint
5.5.0
Server hypervisor
VMware vCenter
5.5.0
5.5.0
2.2.0
5.6.0
5.9
2008
R2
Key components
Introduction
This section briefly describes the key components used in this solution, including:
EMC RecoverPoint
EMC RecoverPoint
VMware vCenter
Site Recovery
Manager
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is the market-leading disaster recovery
management product. It ensures the simplest and most reliable disaster protection
for all virtualized applications. SRM leverages cost-efficient vSphere Replication and
supports a broad set of high-performance storage-replication products to replicate
virtual machines to a secondary site. SRM provides a simple interface for setting up
recovery plans that are coordinated across all infrastructure layers, replacing
traditional, error-prone run books. Recovery plans can be tested non-disruptively as
frequently as required to ensure that they meet business objectives. At the time of a
site failover or migration, SRM automates the failover and failback processes,
ensuring fast and highly predictable recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery
time objectives (RTOs).
Brocade
Ethernet/Fibre
Channel
technology
High performance and low latency: Provides high performance with 10 GbE
ports and ultra-low latency through wire-speed ports with 600 nanosecond
port-to-port latency and automated hardware-based Inter-Switch Link (ISL)
trunking.
Optimizes virtualization: Offers the automation needed to support highlyvirtualized server and storage environments while enabling the transition to
cloud computing.
The Brocade 6510 Switch meets the demands of hyper-scale, private cloud storage
environments by delivering market-leading Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology and
capabilities that support highly-virtualized environments. Designed to enable
maximum flexibility and reliability, the Brocade 6510 is configurable in 24, 36, or 48
ports and supports 2, 4, 8, 10, or 16 Gbps speeds in an efficiently designed 1U
package.
A simplified deployment process and a point-and-click user interface make the
Brocade 6510 both powerful and easy to use. The Brocade 6510 offers low-cost
access to industry-leading Storage Area Network (SAN) technology while providing
"pay-as-you-grow" scalability to meet the needs of an evolving storage environment.
Additional highlights include:
Enables fast, easy, and cost-effective scaling from 24 to 48 ports using Ports
on Demand (PoD) capabilities
Maximizes availability with redundant, hot-pluggable components and nondisruptive software upgrades
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EMC RecoverPoint sits below the VMware infrastructure and is responsible for
replicating all changes from the production LUNs to the remote replica LUNs at the
disaster recovery site.
For this solution, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) leverages
RecoverPoint continuous remote replication (CRR) to provide external replication
between protected and recovery sites.
Configuring
RecoverPoint
consistency
groups
Once RecoverPoint is installed and replication sites established, the next step in
setting up and testing a disaster recovery plan using SRM with RecoverPoint is to
configure RecoverPoint consistency groups for the VMware volumes that are to be
protected and managed by SRM.
The general procedure is as follows:
1. Create consistency groups.
2. Configure copies.
3. Add journals.
4. Add replication sets.
5. Enable group.
6. Start replication.
This process is described in detail in the EMC RecoverPoint administrators guide,
located at http://support.emc.com.
Figure 2 shows the consistency groups in the RecoverPoint Management console.
Figure 2.
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For this solution, three consistency groups were created with 10 MEDITECH FS servers
assigned to each group. For MEDITECH implementations using RecoverPoint, there
can be more or less numbers of consistency groups configured; it depends on the
RPO requirement the site is requiring.
RecoverPoint consistency group considerations
When creating RecoverPoint consistency groups for SRM management, the
RecoverPoint consistency group has to contain the protected VMs boot drive and any
data volume associated with it. The boot volume and data volume can be on different
VMware datastores but cannot be in separate RecoverPoint consistency groups
because when creating protection groups in SRM, SRM computes the set of virtual
machines into a datastore group based on the RecoverPoint consistency group. SRM
checks the datastore group to ensure it contains all the files of a protected virtual
machine. If a volume is not present in the datastore group, the VM will not be
protected by SRM.
Configuring the
consistency group
for management
by SRM
After the consistency group has been created and SRM has been installed, the
consistency group needs to be configured to be managed by SRM. This is done in the
RecoverPoint management console. Select the consistency group that is to be
protected by SRM and go to the Group Policy tab to adjust the settings.
Figure 3 shows the external management of the consistency group to SRM in the
RecoverPoint Management console.
Figure 3.
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Prerequisites
Installing and
configuring SRM
SRM has several requirements that need to be met in order to have a successful
installation.
Each site must include a vCenter server containing at least one vSphere data
center.
The recovery site must support array-based replication with the protected
(production) site, and must have hardware and network resources that can
support the same virtual machines and workloads as the protected site.
The recovery site must have access to the same public and private networks
as the protected site, though not necessarily the same range of network
addresses.
Installing and configuring SRM with RecoverPoint includes the following tasks:
1. Configure SRM databases at both sites.
2. Install the SRM server at both sites.
3. Pair the Protected and Recovery site.
4. Set up Inventory Mappings.
5. Install EMC RecoverPoint Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for VMware
vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM).
6. Configure protection groups.
7. Create the recovery plan.
8. Install EMC VSI for VMware vSphere: EMC RecoverPoint Management.
Details of the installation process can be referenced from the Site Recovery Manager
Installation and Configuration Guide and the VSI for VMware vSphere: EMC
RecoverPoint Management 5.6 Product Guide.
13
For this solution, a single protection group was created to failover the thirty
MEDITECH servers. Multiple protection groups could be created as long as the
protection groups match the number of RecoverPoint consistency groups that are
managed by SRM. Explanation about array-based replication and protection groups
can be found in the Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide, located on the
VMware website.
Figure 4 shows the protection group created.
Figure 4.
Protection group
A single MEDITECH recovery plan was used in the solution. The recovery plan
specifies how SRM recovers the virtual machines in the protection group. Just like the
protection group, it is possible to have multiple recovery plans to recover mission
critical, business critical, or business important systems independently. When using
multiple recovery plans, SRM will execute one recovery plan at a time.
Within the MEDITECH recovery plan the FS servers were divided into several priority
groups. This allows granularity on which VMs go down first and come up first in a
recovery scenarios. Within a priority group, dependencies can be created so that
certain VMs in that priority group come up in a certain order. Figure 5 shows priority of
the FS servers that are to start up during a recovery. FS002 has a dependency to
FS001 so it will not power up until FS001 is up.
14
Figure 5.
Configuring
Advanced SRM
Using the Advanced Settings, you can view or change many custom settings for the
SRM service. Advanced Settings provide a way for a user with adequate privileges to
change default values that affect the operation of various SRM features.
SRM applies the advanced settings to the virtual machines that you protect on a
given site, and not to recovery plans. SRM applies advanced settings to a virtual
machine at the moment that you configure protection on that virtual machine. If you
change any of the advanced settings after you have configured the protection of a
virtual machine, the new settings do not apply to that virtual machine. Modifications
to advanced settings apply only to virtual machines that you protect after you
changed the settings. This is by design, because if SRM were to apply changed
advanced settings to virtual machines on which you have already configured
protection, it could lead to unwanted changes in the protection of those virtual
machines.
For this solution, a few of the advanced settings were modified to improve the
recovery process. Settings were applied on both the protected site and recovery site.
These suggested values can be changed to meet the site needs.
15
Figure 6.
Figure 7.
16
EMC RecoverPoint Management is a plugin of the EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI)
framework for VMware vSphere. EMC RecoverPoint Management VSI is designed to
assist the SRM administrator in designating a specific point-in-time (PiT) copy to use
for data protection and execution of a recovery plan when using SRM. During a
recovery operation, if a point-in-time is selected using the VSI, VMs will be restored to
that specific backup. If a PiT is not chosen, then SRM uses the latest PiT that it is
aware of.
Figure 8 shows the PiT available for VM FS001 in the EMC RecoverPoint Management
VSI. MEDITECH_MBF_Backup PiT is selected for recovery.
Figure 8.
Additional
recommendations
List of PiT copies for FS001 from the RecoverPoint Management VSI
Based on testing in the Vertical Solutions lab, other recommendations are as follows:
Install the Site Recovery Manager database as close to the Site Recovery
Manager server as possible. This reduces the round trip time (RTT) between
them. The impact of round trips to the database server on recovery time
performance is also reduced.
17
An SRM recovery plan can be tested at any time without disrupting replication or
ongoing operations at the protected site.
The non-disruptive test is carried out in an isolated environment at the recovery site,
using a temporary copy of the replicated data. It runs all the steps in the recovery
plan except powering down of the virtual machines at the protected site and
assumption of control of replicated data by devices at the recovery site.
This facility allows the recovery plan to be tested for disaster recovery compliance
confirming timings and reliability. Another use case is having a temporary test/
development environment to troubleshoot issues or host/application patching
validation.
Testing the
recovery plan
Figure 9.
When running a test plan, SRM creates an isolated network on the recovery site and
enables image access on the RecoverPoint consistency groups. The test VMs will be
powered up and any customizations that need to be done to them will be applied.
18
Figure 10 shows the recovery steps performed during the MEDITECH Recovery Plan
test.
Figure 10.
At this point, the environment is available on the recovery site and administrators can
verify application functionality in the secure environment. Once the environment has
been validated, click Cleanup to return the recovery plan back to a ready state. The
cleanup will power down the VMs, unmount the storage, and disable image access on
RecoverPoint.
19
Recovery test
report
Figure 11.
20
Conclusion
This document, using the example of a multi-tier MEDITECH application deployed on
VMware virtual infrastructure, demonstrates how VMware vCenter Site Recovery
Manager (SRM) with EMC RecoverPoint software enables the design of an effective
and automated disaster recovery point-in-time solution.
Traditional disaster recovery solutions are slow and prone to failures because they
involve many manual and complex steps that are difficult to test and require
expensive duplication of the production data center infrastructure to ensure reliable
recovery.
SRM is specifically designed to leverage the capabilities of vSphere, to simplify and
automate the disaster recovery process so that you can reliably recover from data
center outages in hours rather than days. SRM integrates tightly with vCenter Server
to simplify disaster recovery management by automating the testing and
orchestration of centralized recovery plans. MEDITECH users can replace traditional,
manual runbooks with centralized recovery plans, reducing the time required for set
up from weeks to minutes.
When deployed in conjunction with EMC RecoverPoint continuous remote replication
(CRR) in a virtualized MEDITECH environment, users can leverage the EMC VSI
RecoverPoint management plugin to allow administrators to recover to any point in
time across the virtualized MEDITECH universe during a failover.
Using SRM and RecoverPoint for this solution lets you:
Recover to specific points in time, either the latest replicated crash consistent
copy or from a MEDITECH Integrated Disaster Recovery (IDR) backup.
21
References
EMC
documentation
VMware
documentation
The following documents, located on the EMC online support website, provide
additional and relevant information. Access to these documents depends on your
login credentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC
representative:
VSI for VMware vSphere: EMC RecoverPoint Management 5.6 Product Guide
VSI for VMware vSphere: EMC RecoverPoint Management 5.6 Release Notes
The following VMware documents, located on the VMware website, also provide
useful information:
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