9.5 HP P4000 Storage Replication Adapter for VMware SRM Deployment Guide (AX696-96101, September 2011)

Installing Application Aware Snapshot Manager (optional)
Install and configure Application Aware Snapshot Manager on both Primary and Remote site
VCenter servers. For installation instructions, see HP P4000 Application-Aware Snapshot Manager
Deployment Guide
The replication schedule controls the application aware snapshot integration. If the schedule has
managed enabled then that enables the application managed snapshot integration, where in SRA
takes managed snapshots in syncOnce and reports to SRM the recovery points with VM snapshots
using VmImageConsistencyEnabled flag. If the schedule has managed disabled then that disables
the application managed snapshot integration as no managed snapshots are taken. Exceptions:
The SRA can handle any changes in configuration, but this is a normal, baseline scenario.
How the HP P4000 SRA Works with VMware SRM 5
The HP P4000 SRA has four primary functions for SRM.
• Test Failover - A Test scenario that checks failover conditions and parameters. This will create
temporary writable sources at the Backup Site. In the case of HP P4000, Smart Clone Volumes
will be created.
• Failover - Transitioning production services from a Primary Site to a Backup Site, either with
the Primary Site available or not.
• Reprotect - After a Failover, planned or unplanned, transitioning production services from the
Backup Site back to the Primary Site. This entails reversing Replication so Replication goes
from Backup to Primary Site, doing a Failover in Reverse, and then reversing Replication again
so replication goes from the Primary to Backup Site.
These functions each depend on specific configuration information in a HP P4000 SAN Solution
management group.
Array and volume discovery
SRM gets information from the HP P4000 SRA about what volumes are being replicated by the
SAN/iQ software. SRM then compares that list to the volumes it recognizes in a VMware
environment.
For normal SRM operation, a replicated volume needs to have a Remote Copy schedule with
completed remote copies at a different HP P4000 SAN Solution management group under a remote
volume that is not mounted at the remote site. This is a standard HP P4000 SAN Solution Remote
Copy configuration.
For instructions on how to configure Remote Copy schedules, see the Remote Copy User Manual
which can be found on the HP P4000 Management Software DVD. The latest version of this
document can be found by browsing to http://www.hp.com/support/manuals. Click Disk Storage
Systems in the storage section and then select HP P4000 G2 SAN Solutions. The same information
is available from the online help in the HP P4000 Centralized Management Console.
Volumes recognized by the HP P4000 SRA
Volumes must be configured with scheduled remote snapshots or they will not be considered for
SRM by the SRA. The HP P4000 SRA recognizes the scheduled remote snapshots as replicated
LUNs for SRM to manage. Volumes that are being remote copied only manually are not updated
consistently enough to be useful for disaster recovery and SRM.
If a volume has scheduled remote snapshots, and you create an ad hoc manual remote snapshot
of that volume, then the HP P4000 SRA will recognize the manual remote snapshot along with the
scheduled remote snapshots. Such ad hoc remote snapshots may be useful to test failover with a
more recent copy than the schedule has, or to push the latest updates to the remote site before a
foreseeable disaster occurs.
4 Using the HP P4000 SRA for VMware SRM 5