Replication SAN-2-SAN wihtout LAN?

[b.stromberg]

Hello

I just *love* this forum, thanks for all the answers.

I simply want to replicate my vsphere5 machines from one SAN to another via FC.
- The only b&r (6.1) machine does have SAN-Access (FC) to both storages (source and destination) and LAN access to the cluster
- The hosts in the cluster do have SAN access to both storages, too
- The B&R-machines (LAN) route to the vcenter is somewhat sluggish, but the FC interconnect is fast and reliable

How do I accomplish a SAN-to-SAN replication without (or with minimal) use of the LAN? Whenever I set up a replication, the data flows through the LAN-Port ... what am I doing wrong? I do not need a history in the first place, just a 1:1 replication of my source vm's.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Björn,

Basically there are two ways of achieving what you want:

1. Install backup proxy on the physical machine and present your SAN LUNs via FC. This will allow you to retrieve source VM data through the storage stack directly. As regards writing VM data to the target host, then the most efficient way to do that (avoiding network stack) is to use any VM as a target backup proxy. Make sure that ESX(i) server which will be hosting this proxy VM has access to your target SAN. In this case all the traffic will be written via HotAdd mode (directly to your storage).

This approach will allow you to minimize network traffic, but will not eliminate the need in the network connection completely, since VM data will be transferred through the LAN between your proxy servers.

2. As a second variant, you may want to setup a single virtual backup proxy which should be hosted on the ESX(i) server which in turn should have access to both SANs. Here is an existing topic with more information about this setup: Several Virtual Veeam Servers on same subnet

Hope this helps!

[b.stromberg]

Do I really need 2 (proxy) machines to do this?

[Vitaliy S.]

For the second variant you only need one. As to the first scenario, then since direct SAN access (FC) is only possible with physical proxy, you need to have a second proxy (VM) to write data through the HotAdd.

[b.stromberg]

sounds weird
My physical B&R machine does have SAN access to both storages, but I have to install another virtual one in my cluster (all hosts there do have SAN access to both Storages) to replicate via the physical B&R.

However, thank for the article, I will give this a try. Variant 2 sounds more logical to me, since I do not want to write to an extra-host (I just want to write into an datastore) and every machine does have access to both storages.

Thank you!

[foggy]

sounds weird
My physical B&R machine does have SAN access to both storages, but I have to install another virtual one in my cluster (all hosts there do have SAN access to both Storages) to replicate via the physical B&R.

This is because direct SAN restores are not possible.