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AnswerReal-time (or near real-time) Replication of VHDs

  • Wednesday, October 15, 2008 9:25 PMrebus9 Users MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
     
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    Assume 2 Hyper-V servers, one in New York and one at a disaster recovery site in Chicago. 

    Virtual machines in New York are exported to Chicago, where they are imported to the Hyper-V server there.   At that point in time, the NY and Chicago configs, VHDs, etc. are identical. 

    The VMs in New York are production.  Chicago's virtual machines remain OFF.

    As the NY machines run, data is written to their VHDs.

    Now.... if I want to replicate the New York VHDs to Chicago, I have to stop the VMs temporarily and use rsync or other block-level tool, to replicate the changed blocks of each VHD.

    What products can anyone recommend that can do real-time ("continuous data protection") or near real-time (replication scheduled every X mintes) on the open/locked VHD files without having to shut down or suspend the virtual machine guests?  There are products like Availl/GlobalScape Continuous Data Protection, and XOSoft WanSync that work on open files, but Availl/GS product does not support 2008 x64, and I have not been able to get any reply from XOSoft.

    I should mention that we'd like to do block level transfers, not mess with VSS.  Hard disk space is a bit tight and we don't have the space for lots of shadow copy data.

    If the production VM in NY fails for any reason-- hardware failure, terrorist attack, etc-- we want to be able to bring up the VM in Chicago with a VHD that is fully (or near fully) synched with the last known state of the VHD in New York.

    • Edited byrebus9 Wednesday, October 15, 2008 9:27 PM
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  • Wednesday, October 15, 2008 10:16 PMHyper User Users MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
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    Commvault has some products for realtime replication, but you have to find out if it works for your scenario.
    • Marked As Answer byChang Yin Monday, October 27, 2008 2:22 AM
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  • Thursday, October 16, 2008 4:32 AMNathan Lasnoski Users MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
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    Hello,

     

    Take a look at the upcoming Hyper-V replication product from Double Take.  It will be a cost effective solution for geographically dispersed virtual machine replication.  Here are a few of the links for you to investigate.

     

    http://www.doubletake.com/news-events/press-releases/releases/pressrelease-teched-hyperv-061008.html

     

    Nathan Lasnoski

    • Proposed As Answer byNathan Lasnoski Monday, October 20, 2008 8:07 PM
    • Marked As Answer byChang Yin Monday, October 27, 2008 2:22 AM
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  • Thursday, October 16, 2008 8:21 AMJohn Rennie Users MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers MedalsUsers Medals
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    >I should mention that we'd like to do block level transfers, not mess with VSS. 
    >Hard disk space is a bit tight and we don't have the space for lots of shadow copy data.

    VSS works well with rsync, and presumably other block level transfer aopps to. In fact I use it all the time. I generally use the vshadow applet to create a shadow copy and expose it as a drive letter, then I rsync from the shadow drive.

    The shadow copy shouldn't take very much disk space unless the disk is very active, and the space used will be releaseed as soon as you delete the shadow copy.

    JR
    • Marked As Answer byChang Yin Monday, October 27, 2008 2:22 AM
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