Solution Introduction

Context

As IT services being increasingly used, continuous and secure running of IT systems becomes critical for normal enterprise operation. In production environments, many factors pose threats to proper running of enterprise IT systems. These factors include the device breakdown, network failure, power failure, and human-made and natural disasters. To eliminate those threats, enterprises often establish DR solutions for critical service systems or data centers.

Solution Description

This solution belongs to Huawei Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Solution. In the Disaster Recovery Data Center Solution (Geo-Redundant Mode), three data centers coexist. The continuity of core services can be ensured when two data centers are damaged, remarkably improving availability of the DR solution. The production center, same-city DR center, and remote DR center are the three data centers in the solution.

• Production center

  Provides external services.

• Same-city DR center

  locates at a place dozens of kilometers away from the production center. Fibre Channel network-based direct connection is recommended. Synchronous or Asynchronous replication is implemented and level-1 DR protection is provided in the data center.

• Remote DR center

  locates at a place hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from the production center. The data center is used to respond to major regional disasters. Periodic asynchronous replication is implemented and level-2 DR protection is provided in the data center.

This solution is applicable to scenarios where data and services at the production center need to be protected in multiple levels.

Service DR: If the production center fails in a disaster, services are quickly switched to the same-city DR center. If both the production center and the local DR center fail in a disaster, data copies stored in the remote DR center can be used to recover production services, protecting business continuity.

The following lists the supported DR technologies:

• Active-active (SAN) and asynchronous replication (SAN)

This solution is developed based on the HyperMetro data center solution. The production and same-city DR centers correspond to the two production centers of the solution in two data center mode. For details about the HyperMetro data center solution, see HyperMetro DC Solution.

Deployment Modes

Centralized and distributed deployment modes are supported:

• Centralized deployment: The UltraVR is deployed on the server of the DR center with service restoration priority and manages resources of the three centers. The UltraVR must communicate with other two centers properly over networks.
• Distributed deployment: The UltraVRs are deployed on servers of same-city and remote DR centers. The UltraVRs in the same-city DR center manage local resources and those of the production center. And the others manage resources of the remote DR center. The network between the two UltraVRs must be properly connected.

Compared with centralized deployment, distributed deployment is more secure and provides shorter latency during daily production center maintenance. Up to two UltraVRs can be deployed.

HyperMetro (SAN) + Asynchronous Replication (SAN) DR

The production and same-city DR centers are deployed in storage active-active mode. Synchronous or asynchronous remote replication is enabled between the same-city and remote DR centers.

Figure 1 shows the network in distributed mode.

Figure 1 HyperMetro (SAN) + asynchronous replication (SAN) DR in distributed mode

• Replication network: Communication network used by the production site to replicate service data to the DR site.
• Management network: The management network includes DR management network and production management network. The two networks may reside on a same network or be separated.
  • DR management network

    Communication network used by UltraVR to provide external services. The maintenance terminal and third-party systems access this network using the management IP address of the DR server.

  • Production management network

    Communication network used by UltraVR storage devices, hosts, FusionManagerFusionCompute, and VRGs to provide external services. The maintenance terminal and third-party systems access this network using their management IP addresses.

• Service network: Communication network that transfers the read and write I/Os between hosts (or VMs) and storage resources.
• HyperMetro replication network: It is the heartbeat network between the storage arrays in the production site and same-city DR site. It enables the storage arrays to concurrently provide services for hosts and ensures data synchronization between the storage arrays in the two sites.
• Same-city data center network: The storage arrays in both production site and same-city DR site provide services for hosts and can carry the same services. A mutual backup relationship is set up between the storage arrays in the two sites. If the storage array in one data center malfunctions, the storage array in the other data center automatically takes over services without data loss or service interruption.
• Quorum network: The HyperMetro quorum server is deployed on the network. If communication between the storage arrays in production site and same-city DR site interrupted or a storage array malfunctions, the quorum server determines which storage array can be accessed.

DR Management

UltraVR provides the following functions:

• Automatically aware VMs running virtualization infrastructure (FusionManager or FusionCompute) being added.
• Protect service FusionCompute VMs based on preset DR policies.
• If a planned disaster (such as an outage or system maintenance) is to happen:

  Migrate services from the production center to the remote DR center through one-click scheduled migration.

• If an unplanned disaster (such as an earthquake, fire, or flood) occurs:

  Restore services by using backup data in the remote DR center by one click.