ONTAP Discussions

MetroCluster Without Syncmirror

albertium
4,491 Views

Hi Everybody

Does anyone configured a Fabric MetroCluster without usin syncmirror?

Is that supported??

our customer bought a Metrocluster gateway, but they have just one disk cabin at this moment.

1) I would like if it is a supported configuration / will it work?

2) if not, can i implement syncmirror taking plexes from the same box ( altough it is senseless; syncmirror intends to have physically separated disks )???

Thanks in advance and best regards, Alberto

7 REPLIES 7

rodrigon
4,491 Views

Alberto,

How are you doing?

SyncMirror is required to have a MetroCluster Solution.

To build plexes is necessary to have disk at pool 0 and pool 1.

I hope it helps you!

See you.

Nasc

NetApp - Enjoy it!

http://armazenar.wordpress.com

aborzenkov
4,491 Views

There is little point in having metrocluster without syncmirror; it makes it impossible to take over in case of site outage. For the same reason “syncmirror in a box” it totally pointless.

I do not understand what “disk cabin” is. Could you elaborate?

albertium
4,491 Views

Thanks for the post.

I already know this configuration is absolotely pointless, i just asking about if it was possible.

I found this Note in the MC implementation guide.

Best Practice

Make sure all storage is set up under SyncMirror. While nonmirrored storage is technically permissible, NetApp does not recommend it, since the data on that storage is not available after a site failover.

This is, my configuration is not recommended ( as it is supposed to be ) but it is possible.

aborzenkov
4,491 Views

I believe, NetApp will nag you with errors in log as long as at least root aggregate is not mirrored.

alexander7
4,491 Views

I agree. We tried MetroCluster without SyncMirror. It worked somehow but our filers annoyed us by messages that we should mirror the root aggregate.

peter_lehmann
4,491 Views

just "remove" the syncmirror license as long as you cant use it, and the system will be quiet...

martin2
4,491 Views

Hi Alberto.

By definition MetroCluster is SyncMirror. To answer your question, you could run FMC with both nodes sharing the single shelf and only assign pool 0 disk.  You would not mirror plexes. I believe normal CFO will function but DR takeover (forcetakeover -d) will not (since you do not have mirrored plexes).

 

As everyone mentioned, doing this is not recommended and probably not supported. Perhaps this would be configured for a lab where hardware is limited but definitely not in a production environment.  I do not recommend this configuration.

 

Cheers

Marty

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