Replicating 1 drive between 2 servers in different sites

[sharapov]

We have 1 Hyper-V Host server installed in primary site and 1 Hyper-V Host server installed in DR site. (see attached diagram)
Bothe sites are connected via Site-to-Site VPN. Each site has different subnets.
Hyper-V server host in Primary site has 2 NICs. NIC 1 has IP 192.168.1.10 NIC 2 has IP 10.10.10.4
Hyper-V server host in DR site has 2 NICs. NIC 1 has IP 192.168.2.10 NIC 2 has IP 10.10.11.4
Both servers can ping each other using all IPs.
StarWind virtual SAN v8 is installed on both Hyper-V Hosts.
Hyper-V Host in primary site and Hyper-V Host in DR site each have 1 Guest Server installed. On Each Guest Server Application is installed on C: partition and database is installed on F: Partition. Size of Database is very small (less than 50 GB.)

Question: Can F: partition replicate between 2 servers using StarWind software. If yes what is needed and how can it be setup? Will free version of Starwind SAN be sufficient to achieve that?

[anton (staff)]

StarWind does not replicate partitions or whatever. We're virtual storage with a very flexible back end. So you may "chunk away" some space on a local hosts (images on a file system preferred, raw partitions are also OK but less desirable) and create virtual distributed iSCSI LUN from them. Then you place CSV on top of it and then you put your shared VHDX on that CSV. Back to a geo-clustered scenario: you need to have a) juicy and b) redundant links between sites to avoid brain split and performance issues. If you have at least 1 GbE between them (+ some lower bandwidth but also low latency network for "pings") you'll be able to setup a config like you have on your pic. Hope this helped

[sharapov]

Hello Anton,

Thank you for your reply. As there step by step instructions somewhere that will help me achieve what you are describing. I read manual, watched videos and tried to setup virtual drive, but wasn't able to.

We have 100Mbit pipe between 2 sites. I know this is not ideal, but for DR site it should be sufficient.

Also, will free version of Starwind's virtual SAN be sufficient for what I'm trying to achieve or we need paid version?

Thank you

[Anatoly (staff)]

Hi!
Well... 100 Mbps channel is not enough for synchronous replication. Is there any way to get faster link into the play?
Depending on the answer you need to go with synchronous or asynchronous replication.
Please note that free license covers only synchronous replication.

[sharapov]

Hello Anatoly,

Unfortunately we can't increase speed of the channel at this time. On the good side database that we want to synchronize is very small (less then 50 Gb) and that database is growing very slow. So I want to setup replication between 2 sites just to see if it will be even possible. So even if it will be very slow, but working, I still want to try it just as a proof of concept. We got full license for now just to see if it will work. So if you can provide steps on how to achieve what Anton have described in your first reply, I will really appreciate it.

[Anatoly (staff)]

Gotcha. Thank you for clarification. OK, try that out please:
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/technic ... Server.pdf

[sharapov]

Hello Anatoly,

Thank you for the link to the article. It was very informative, but still doesn't provide any steps on how to achieve what we are trying to do. Can you help?

Thank you

[thefinkster]

If you're just trying to do an HA setup over WAN (that is not at least 1gbps); then just setup the replication partner and point it to your DR site node as if it is local. Either it works or it doesn't. You can check your StarWind logs to see if there are any issues with timing, etc.

Did you need the step-by-step for doing an HA partner node?

[sharapov]

hefinkster,

If you can provide step by step instructions how to setup HA partner nodes, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[Anatoly (staff)]

Here is the Quick Start guides about create HA:
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/quick-s ... irtual-san
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/quick-s ... irtual-san

And here is the instruction of how to add DR node:
Currently, we do have the following whitepaper describing the Asynchronous replication:
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/asynchr ... eplication
The process of configuring the asynchronous replication is available as a step-by-step guide in the StarWind Management Console help section: StarWind functionality\Replication\Asynchronous replication.
The asynchronous replication in StarWind V8 uses a journal on the primary node to form and replicate snapshots of the primary site to the secondary site.
The LU snapshots can be configured using StarWindX (PowerShell Management CLI).
The Snapshot Scheduler wizard is going to be introduced in the StarWind Management Console with the next minor update scheduled for mid-October.
In the event of primary site failure accessing the data on the replica server is performed using the steps below:
1. Select the replica device and right click on it, select the Snapshot Manager menu item.
2. Select the snapshot you would like to mount and press the Mount button.
3. Using iSCSI initiator, connect to the replica device.
4. View the contents of the replica using Windows explorer or vSphere Browser, depending on the client OS/Hypervisor used.


Please note that the replica snapshot can only be mounted in a read only mode. In order to launch the VMs contained in the snapshot they have to be copied to a different disk/datastore.