ONTAP 9.131P4 - Multiple Peer relationships via different WAN links

[kobusventer]

Hi Everyone

I have a Customer who wants to use multiple WAN links between two sites, to do mirroring from one Cluster to Another. The peering and snapmirror relationships has already been established from the Production to the DR systems via the first WAN link, but they are adding an additional application on the Production system, which they want to mirror via a separate WAN link. (Same Prod and DR systems). I know in 7-mode you were able to force mirroring to use dedicated network interfaces - is it possible to do that in the latest versions of ONTAP? I assume you will need different VLANS etc, but how will the peering work, as it is already established? Will it be better to create a new vserver for this application and use SVM mirroring? Regards and thanks for your help.

[TMACMD]

Look at IPSPACES in ONTAP. 

Essentially, you would need either different connections that would be isolated to individual IPSPACEs.

With CLuster peering, all nodes on either side must be able to reach all other nodes. I do not have the link handy, but I am sure someone will chime in. This is a great use case for IPSPACEs.

[ansley_tj]

While cluster peering is a one-time relationship and can happen across any shared connection, SVM/vserver peering must be done for each SVM.

As @TMACMD indicates, you can setup a different IPSpace for each network you wish to use to replicate across. As long as both clusters are configured to use the same IPSpace for a given SVM, that SVM will use that connection within that IPSpace for replication.

[kobusventer]

Thanks guys - the problem is currently there is ONLY 1 vserver configured on each Cluster, which hosts all of the different applications. So - in essence - I will have to move this volumes from the current vserver, to a new vserver, and create a new IPSpace specifically for that vserver and create vserver peering between the Prod and DR vservers. Mirroring is not yet set up, but the Prod environment is already in pre-prod. Thanks for the confirmation all.

[ansley_tj]

Yes, that would be necessary...and actually something I would recommend to allow for independent management of each application's data.  SVMs are a great tool or granular management of resources, access control, DR, etc.

[kobusventer]

Hi Tony, yes, that is my preference as well. Unfortunately I "inherited" this environment, and was not able to change much. There is many thing additionally would could have been i.e. SVM replication instead of volume replication but that is how it is... 

[John_Kolacz]

I think this might be easier than everyone thinks.

add the vlans and  create inter cluster lifs on the new vlans.  Then do cluster peer modify and give it the list of all the ips you want to use.  
If your vlans aren’t stretched and there is routing involved you might need to run a route command but without looking it up I’m not sure on that part.

[kobusventer]

Just on this - I do not want all of the traffic to go over the "new" link, just some of it - my thought is that I will still need a second SVM for that.

[Drew_C]

Curious what solution you've opted for here, @kobusventer. Sounds like there are two potential options to choose from.

[kobusventer]

Hi Drew, I put both options to the Planners of the Customer, they will have a look and decide as there are majour routing and stuff needed via WAN links. So far I accept both as possible solutions. 

[kobusventer]

I am still awaiting  the Customer to provide the IP addresses etc in order for us to do the testing.

[kobusventer]

Hi, okay - the Customer got back to me and gave the 2 new IPs in the same range as the previous which are already in use for mirroring. to be honest - I have no clue now how to configure this as I cannot create another VLAN, nor other routes. Any suggestions?