Disaster Recovery - HP ProLiant DL980 G7 Technical White Paper

Technical white paper | HP ProLiant DL980 G7 and P2000 G3 MSA Storage

Disaster recovery

This reference architecture can be duplicated across 2 different sites for disaster recovery purposes. The HP P2000 G3 MSA
arrays provide native snapshot capability and allow for the simultaneous replication of incremental changes throughout the
system. The diagram in Figure 9 below provides a high level overview of this multi-site configuration.
Figure 9. Disaster Recovery Overview
The P2000 G3 FC/iSCSI Combo MSA controllers allow for the replication of snapshot data using the P2000 iSCSI links, while
communication between the Fast Track server and the P2000 arrays is done using the Fibre Channel links between the
P2000 arrays and the Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) installed in the server. This separation of duties prevents data access traffic
and replication traffic from interfering with each other, providing optimal speeds for both functions.
Through the use of the HP P2000 VSS (Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service) Provider for Windows x64, the Fast Track
server can be "paused" while a snapshot is taken, then resumed once it is complete. This allows the databases that are
contained within the snapshot to be in a consistent state for the replication process. Once these databases are replicated to
the DR site, they can be attached to the DR server, and mounted in the same state as they were during the initial snapshot.
In order for end users to access the databases on the secondary server, Domain Name Services (DNS) aliases are used for
connection. This allows for user connections to be directed to the new server during the failover process. In order for end
users to access the database on the DR server, many processes must happen behind the scenes to ensure that the data is
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