EMC VPLEX Uptime Bulletin

A newsletter from VPLEX Engineering

Volume 3 — May 2011

EMC GeoSynchrony 5.0

EMC® VPLEX™ GeoSynchrony™ 5.0 was announced at EMC World 2011 and delivers important new
capabilities in each of the three use case categories that VPLEX uniquely enables: Inside this issue:
Mobility EMC GeoSynchrony 1
The newest product in the VPLEX family, VPLEX Geo, is now available 5.0
with GeoSynchrony 5.0. VPLEX Geo enables you to move data and
applications between data centers separated by up to 50 ms of net- EMC VPLEX Geo 2
work round-trip time (RTT) latency. Best Practices
To support VPLEX Geo’s asynchronous caching feature, the VPLEX
Management Console has introduced the concept of consistency EMC VPLEX Witness 3
groups, which offer a convenient way to group the volumes support- Best Practices
ing an application together so they can be managed as one. When
EMC VPLEX Adds 4
their cache-mode is asynchronous, consistency groups guarantee
ALUA Array Support
dependent write ordering for the volumes within the group.
With regard to application mobility over distance, consistency groups Target Software 4
are a usability enhancement since moving an application is now as Levels
simple as selecting a consistency group and telling VPLEX which cluster you’d like to move it to. The
data on all supporting volumes is then copied to the remote site, and you can move your application
(quickly or nondisruptively) prior to committing the data mobility job.
GeoSynchrony 5.0 allows you to move your applications further, and makes it easier too.

Availability
Included in the base license for both VPLEX Metro and VPLEX Geo is a
new component called the VPLEX Witness. The VPLEX Witness elimi-
nates the need for an administrator to step in and override the cluster
detach rule when a volume’s preferred cluster goes down due to dis-
asters such as fire, flood, HVAC failure, etc. When a loss of communi- Find the current
cation between clusters occurs, the VPLEX Witness is able to differen-
tiate between WAN link failure and VPLEX cluster failure. It then in-
and past VPLEX
forms the surviving cluster(s) so that distributed volumes are sus- Uptime Bulletins
pended where required, to prevent split brain, and then makes them on Powerlink!
available for I/O where appropriate. The VPLEX Witness is a new and
important component that helps you automate your disaster recovery
procedures.
In addition to the VPLEX Witness, GeoSynchrony 5.0 also supports
the host cross-cluster-connect configuration for VMware vSphere 4.1 environments. Support for other
host platforms will be added to the support matrix asynchronously to EMC’s release schedule, so
check the EMC VPLEX Simple Support Matrix for updates.
Two new solutions, known collectively as Metro High Availability (HA), are enabled by the VPLEX Wit-
ness and the host cross-cluster-connect in different combinations:
Metro HA, when combined with host failover clustering software, like VMware HA, is able to withstand
any failure at or below the VPLEX virtualization layer, and restart applications automatically in the
case of either server failure or complete data center failure. No human intervention is required, mak- Contact us:
ing it a very straightforward high availability solution. UptimeFor
VPLEX@emc.com
 Page 2 Uptime Bulletin: EMC VPLEX Edition
(Continued from page 1)

Collaboration
In the collaboration space, customers have the following challenges:
 Transfer time for large data sets
 Difficulty maintaining data consistency and versioning
 Reduced global workforce productivity
These challenges are exacerbated as the distance between collaborating sites gets greater. For dis-
tances up to 50 ms, VPLEX Geo provides a compelling answer. By asynchronously mirroring data at
the two sites and enabling local performance for reads, VPLEX Geo allows remote users (or compute
nodes) to collaborate as if they were all co-located at the same site. This increases the productivity of
your knowledge workers.
In addition, by replacing inefficient workflows like FTP, VPLEX Geo delivers operational savings by
decreasing bandwidth utilization between your sites.
VPLEX GeoSynchrony 5.0 extends and enhances the unique, customer-focused use cases that VPLEX aims to solve. Contact your EMC
Customer Service Representative to schedule an upgrade today.

EMC VPLEX Geo Best Practices

VPLEX Geo with EMC AccessAnywhere™ enables active-active, block-level access to data between two sites within asynchronous
distances of up to 50 ms round-trip time (RTT). VPLEX Geo enables better, more cost-effective use of resources and power while pro-
viding the same distributed device flexibility as VPLEX Metro. VPLEX Geo extends VPLEX Metro by adding additional functionality,
including asynchronous consistency groups, write-back caching, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet cluster interconnectivity to deliver Acces-
sAnywhere between clusters. Use the guidelines below when planning your VPLEX Geo environment.
Q) Does VPLEX Geo require bandwidth assessment and planning?
A) Yes, as with any asynchronous solution, bandwidth is an important consideration for optimal operation. Your EMC Sales Repre-
sentative can use the VPLEX Sizing Tool to ensure proper sizing of the communications network between VPLEX clusters for a specific
workload.
Q) What are the VPLEX Geo inter-cluster network requirements?
A) The EMC recommended best practices for inter-cluster network connectivity include ensuring multiple, redundant IP networks are
used and then isolating VPLEX IP traffic using VLANs, QoS, or using independent IP networks. In addition, the bandwidth should be
provisioned such that failure of one link does not restrict overall throughput between the clusters below that which is required for
sustained activity. Finally, the largest MTU supported by the network should be used.
Q) What are the best practices for consistency groups?
A) Consistency groups are required for distributed devices with VPLEX Geo. To reduce the chance of errors with inconsistent detach-
rule settings and to facilitate the automated movement of virtual volumes between clusters using VPLEX Mobility Central, the best
practice is to use consistency groups for all devices with VPLEX Metro or VPLEX Geo.
Q) Are there any VPLEX Geo-specific performance best practices?
A) VPLEX Geo uses asynchronous consistency groups to control I/O consistency and behavior across virtual volumes. Care should be
taken in setting the maximum queue depth for each consistency group. Plan maximum queue depth to according to write workload
spikes to provide consistent I/O response times. VPLEX delta set queue depth is impacted by how quickly deltas can be moved be-
tween each site (bandwidth between sites). These queues provide a temporary buffer against I/O spikes, but are not a substitute for
sufficient bandwidth to sustain the overall write workload between clusters.
Q) What are the VPLEX Geo logging volume requirements?
A) VPLEX Geo uses logging volumes to track writes to distributed devices during a loss of connectivity between clusters. Logging
volumes typically have no I/O during normal cluster operations, but will have high write I/O during loss of connectivity between clus-
ters and then high read I/O during the recovery process. As such the best practices for these volumes are as follows:
- Minimum of one logging volume per cluster, total of two for VPLEX Geo
- Requires 1 GB for every ~32 TB of distributed device space
Uptime Bulletin: EMC VPLEX Edition Page 3
(Continued from page 2)

- Stripe and (optionally) mirror the logging volumes

Q) Does VPLEX Geo support nondisruptive upgrades for hardware and software?
A) VPLEX Geo supports the same nondisruptive upgrade processes as VPLEX Local and Metro. A key best practice for VPLEX software
NDU is to keep director CPU utilization average at or below 50 percent.
For more information about VPLEX Geo, please refer to the Long-Distance Application Mobility Enabled by EMC VPLEX Geo—An Archi-
tectural Overview white paper.

EMC VPLEX Witness Best Practices

VPLEX Witness was announced with VPLEX Geo and VPLEX GeoSynchrony 5.0 . VPLEX Witness is a technology that can be used with
either VPLEX Metro or VPLEX Geo to improve or eliminate storage recovery time objectives (RTO). RTOs are reduced by removing the
need for manual intervention at the VPLEX layer with VPLEX Metro. With VPLEX Geo, manual intervention is still required, but it has
been minimized. Without VPLEX Witness, manual intervention may also be required if a site failure or link partition were to occur.
VPLEX Witness is able to assist because it sits outside the VPLEX failure domain and thus can distinguish between a site or link fail-
ure.
Q) Where should I place the VPLEX Witness server?
A) It is mandatory that this resides in a third failure domain separate from the two VPLEX clusters connected over the IP management
network (a separate network leg to each management station).
NOTE: If this is not possible, in some cases the possible RTO using VPLEX Witness will be worse than if not using it. Simply use the
default Static Bias rules instead of VPLEX Witness in that case.
Please see the figure below showing the architectural layout.

Q) What is the maximum latency?

A) The maximum latency that can be sustained to the VPLEX Witness server is 1 second (RTT).
Q) Can my third failure domain be in a different subnet?
A) Yes, as long as traffic can route to this location. (A three-way VPN tunnel will be formed across these networks; therefore, the fire-
walls should not block IPsec and tunneling).
Q) Does the VPLEX Witness server need to be physically located in between the VPLEX clusters?
A) No. Even though most diagrams will show the VPLEX Witness in the middle, it is not required. For instance, it would be valid to
place a VPLEX Witness server in New York that is serving a VPLEX cluster in Boston and another in Providence as long as the latency
does not exceed one second (RTT) across the management network. In addition, the network legs from New York to the other data
centers can not route via another remote data center (i.e., New York to Boston should not go via Providence and vice versa as a fail-
ure in Providence would partition the link to Boston also).
Q) Can I use one VPLEX Witness instance for more than one pair of VPLEX clusters?
A) No, Only one VPLEX Witness instance will service a single Metro or Geo implementation; however, you can run more than one
VPLEX Witness server virtual machine on a single ESX physical server.
For more information about VPLEX Witness, please refer to the EMC VPLEX Metro Witness Technology and High Availability Tech
Book.
 Page 4 Uptime Bulletin: EMC VPLEX Edition

EMC VPLEX Adds ALUA Array Support

With the release of GeoSynchrony 5.0, VPLEX has added support to take advantage of Asymmetric Logical Unit Access (ALUA) in stor-
age arrays to provide improved throughput to those arrays.
ALUA is a feature offered with many active-passive storage arrays. In an active-passive array, logical units or LUNs are normally ex-
posed through several array ports, providing servers with multiple paths to the same LUN. This provides high availability and allows
access to storage even in the event of a port or path failure. However, not all paths are created equally. The characteristics of the
paths might be different and provide different performance. ALUA calls path characteristics “access states.” ALUA provides a frame-
work for managing these access states and provides the means for an initiator to choose optimal path for LUN access.
The SCSI protocol defines a number of access states; the most important access states are active-optimized and active-non-
optimized. Active-optimized paths are paths that go to the service processor of the array that owns the LUN. These ports provide
greater performance. I/O that goes to the active non-optimized ports must be transferred to the service processor that owns the LUN
internally, which increases latency and has an impact on the array.
VPLEX is able to automatically detect the path access state and performs round robin load balancing across all of the active-
optimized paths. Since VPLEX is aware of the active-optimized paths, it is able to provide the user with better performance to the
LUN.
VPLEX supports EMC and non-EMC ALUA-capable arrays. For the list of ALUA-capable arrays supported by VPLEX, refer to the VPLEX
Simple Support Matrix, available on Powerlink, or check with your local EMC Account Representative.

Target Software Levels

Remaining current on the target version of EMC GeoSynchrony software is an EMC best practice to maintain stable and reliable envi-
ronments. GeoSynchrony 4.1 for VPLEX is the current target release of software and contains fixes that are critical to the continued
stability of the VPLEX system. In addition, GeoSynchrony 4.1 includes new features outlined in the Q3 2010 edition of the VPLEX
Uptime Bulletin.

Software Release Date % of Systems

GeoSynchrony 4.1 August 25, 2010 More than 35%

Upgrading to target GeoSynchrony software at least twice a year is an EMC best practice.
Please contact your local EMC Customer Service Representative for information and requirements for upgrading to the most stable
and feature-rich version of GeoSynchrony.

VPLEX Uptime Bulletin Powerlink > Hardware/Platforms > VPLEX Family > Uptime Bulletins

VPLEX Simple Support

E-Lab Navigator > Simple Support Matrix > EMC VPLEX
Matrix

VPLEX Procedure Gen- Powerlink > Support > Product and Diagnostic Tools > Procedure Generators >
erator VPLEX Procedure Generator

EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information
is subject to change without notice.
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