Advice on MetroCluster Connections

[EDWIN_LAGUNI]

Hi NetApp Community,

I need your advice regarding a proposed solution that I just got hold of from a local NetApp Pre-Sales. For some reason I can't get the person who made the slide that's why I'm seeking for your kind help.

1. Please refer to the attached screenshot. I've highlighted the connection I'm not sure about - it looks like a connection between the FC-to-SAS bridges at both Sites (A and B) What is it for?

I can remember that the proposed solution is 4-nodes MetroCluster (2-nodes per site), and I can seem to make out this connection in the 8.3.1 MetroCluster documentations.

2. The upcoming project that involves this MetroCluster solution is going to replace the customer's existing several VNX with hundreds of TBs of data. Any recommended approach with regard to migrating these data? Any tool that can dump/migrate contents from VNX to FAS without going through any host?

Please advice. Thank you.

[ekashpureff]

Edwin -

The connections highlighted in the diagram are FC ISLs between the switches.

All four controllers have connectivity to all of the disk shelves.

I don't see the FC SAS bridges that would be there included in the diagram ?

NVRAM is also mirrored 4X in a Cluster Mode Metrocluster implementation.

It's a bit complex.

There's a 2 day MCCIW Metrocluster Cluster Mode Installation Workshop class we teach where we cover this all in detail.

As for your second question...

There's things we can do with a SAN migration appliance.

NAS workload migration is mostly host based.

There are various non-disruptive methods based on the application.

(VMware, Oracle, other)

The questions you ask aren't easy ones to answer with a short post to the community...

I hope this response has been helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, IT Learning Solutions http://sg.itls.asia/netapp
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)

[EDWIN_LAGUNI]

Hi Eugene,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post and answer my questions.

Question 1: I understand that long ISLs are needed between FC switches, which I suppose is what we have on the top switches (check diagram). Given those are indeed ISLs, I assumed that the switches in the middle of the diagram are the FC-to-SAS bridges, which appears to me are connecting the two clusters as well - and that's what I'm not clear about. Do we also need ISL or connections across clusters in there?

Question 2: There were some discussions (nothng final though) about having down times in phases to do the migration, and that the priority is to do the migration as fast as we can withouth going through several hops (network routing). Or perhaps a "Universal Replicator" that would work between VNX and FAS?

[STEFANDELFS]

Hi,

the top switches could be Front-End switches if you have FC based hosts connected.

Then the middle ones could be the backend switches.

The FC-To-SAS bridges wouldn't be connected to each other

regards

/

[ekashpureff · Accepted solution]

Edwin -

Question 1:

The diagram you posted is a bit confusing.

Please see the attached ppt slide of an MCCM installation.

It might make things a bit clearer.

See also the Metrocluster documentation: http://mysupport.netapp.com/documentation/productlibrary/index.html?productID=30022

Question 2:

There's a data migration appliance that can be used for SAN migration.

See the DTA2800: http://www.netapp.com/us/media/ds-3276.pdf

                    and http://www.netapp.com/us/media/tr-4052.pdf

For application migration see: http://www.netapp.com/us/media/tr-4336.pdf

I hope this response has been more helpful to you.

At your service,

Eugene E. Kashpureff, Sr.
Independent NetApp Consultant http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekashpureff
Senior NetApp Instructor, IT Learning Solutions http://sg.itls.asia/netapp
(P.S. I appreciate 'kudos' on any helpful posts.)