The following article outlines a suitable design for an
effective green-field site implementation of VMware vSphere and Site Recovery
Manager, with Dell Compellent Storage. The design requirements were for a best
practice implementation, which would be easy to expand/scale as future needs
require, and allows for failback in both directions (Active/Active SRM Site
Configuration.)
The design
Fig. 1: A best
practice and scalable, vSphere, SRM, and Compellent design showing how the
components interact
Server Colour
Coding Key:
Green =
Virtual Server
Green/Blue =
Can be virtual or physical - it depends …
Blue =
Physical Server/Appliance
Explanation
We have no existing suitable database servers, so we will
build a virtual SQL Server in each site. To start off with we use the free SQL Server 2008 R2 Express which allows
any number of up to 10GB databases to be created within it. As needs require;
the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express can be upgraded to a full unlimited version of
SQL Server 2008 R2.
For scalability and performance reasons, it is
recommended to separate
database server, VMware vCenter Server, and VMware Site Recovery Manager Server
roles, and this is what we do here.
The Compellent
Enterprise Manager Data Collectors by best practice should be on a physical server or a virtual server that is not on
the Compellent SAN (this makes logical sense, since in the unlikely
event there is a problem with the Compellent SAN, it is imperative to keep the
Enterprise Manager data available.) In this scenario we will be deploying the
Enterprise Manager Data Collector on available
physical backup servers in either site - we can either use the embedded
database that comes with the installer (this is good for a maximum of 30 days
or 2 GB) or we could use any of the following databases - MySQL 5.0/5.1, Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 to 2008 R2 with Express editions. The database used for storing
Enterprise Manager data can be changed after installation.
Note 1: If we were
using the Classic SRM Primary Site/DR Site Configuration, we would have just
one Enterprise Manager Data Collector in the Recovery Site.
Note 2: Slightly
off topic - the vCenter Servers in this scenario are configured in Linked Mode,
and a requirement for Linked Mode is that the vCenter Servers are part of an
Active Directory Domain.
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