Remote replication requirements and restrictions, Restrictions on using remote replication, Setting up remote replication – Dell POWERVAULT MD3600I User Manual

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Remote Replication Requirements And Restrictions

To use the standard Remote Replication premium feature, you must have:

Two storage arrays with write access and both these storage arrays must have sufficient space to replicate

data between them.

Each storage must have a dual-controller Fibre Channel or iSCSI configuration (single-controller configurations

are not supported).

Fibre Channel Connection Requirements — You must attach dedicated remote replication ports to a Fibre

Channel fabric environment. In addition, these ports must support the Name Service.

You can use a fabric configuration that is dedicated solely to the remote replication ports on each RAID

controller module. In this case, host systems can connect to the storage arrays using fabric.

Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL), or point-to-point configurations, are not supported for array-to-array

communications.

Maximum distance between the local site and remote site is 10 km (6.2 miles), using single-mode fibre Gigabit

interface converters (GBICs) and optical long-wave GBICs.

iSCSI connection considerations:

– iSCSI does not require dedicated ports for replication data traffic
– iSCSI array-to-array communication must use a host-connected port (not the Ethernet management

port).

– The first port that successfully establishes an iSCSI connection is used for all subsequent

communication with that remote storage array. If that connection subsequently fails, a new session is

attempted using any available ports.

Restrictions On Using Remote Replication

RAID level, caching parameters, and segment size can differ between replicated virtual disks.

The secondary virtual disk must be at least as large as the primary virtual disk.

Only standard virtual disks can be included in a replication relationship. Snapshot (Legacy) virtual disks,

snapshot virtual disks, and thin virtual disks cannot be used.

A primary virtual disk can be a source virtual disk or a target virtual disk in a virtual disk copy. A secondary

virtual disk cannot be a source virtual disk or a target virtual disk unless a role reversal is initiated after the copy

has completed. If a role reversal is initiated during a Copy in Progress status, the copy fails and cannot be

restarted.

A virtual disk can be included in only one replication relationship.

A virtual disk participating in a copy request cannot be a replicated secondary virtual disk.

Setting Up Remote Replication

Setting up Remote Replication between local and remote storage arrays using MD Storage Manager consists of the
following:

Activating the Remote Replication premium feature on both the local and remote storage arrays

Creating a remote Replication group on the local storage array

Adding a replicated pair of virtual disks to the Remote Replication group

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