Secondsite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper
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SecondSite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper Revised 6 April 2016 Contents 1. Background 3 1.1 Our Perspective on Disaster Recovery 3 1.2 What is SecondSite? 3 1.3 What SecondSite is not 4 2. SecondSite Components 5 2.1 What are the components of SecondSite? 5 3. Disaster Recovery Events 6 3.1 Disaster has struck aka ‘Live’ Failover Event 6 3.2 Failback/Recovery 6 4. Commercials and Engagement 7 4.1 Pricing Structure 7 4.2 Network (Accessibility) 7 4.3 On Boarding 7 4.4 Software Upgrades 8 4.5 Failover Testing 8 4.6 Responsibilities 8 4.7 Software Licensing and DR 9 5. DR Concepts Compared 10 5.1 Recovery Site 10 5.2 Data Synchronization 10 Zettagrid Pty Ltd – SecondSite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper 2 1. Background 1.1 Our Perspective on Disaster Recovery A key component of your overall Business Continuity Plan is ensuring that you can manage, maintain and recover access and usability of your mission critical IT applications and services in the event of a disaster. In the most basic form this aspect of disaster recovery requires: Recovery Site - an environment, logically and physically separate to production that can take over the operation of your mission critical IT applications in case of a disaster. Data Synchronization – a way of keeping the recovery site environment up to date by way of real time replication of production systems and data. Accessibility – ensuring your end users can access this environment in order to quickly resume normal operations. Activation – a means of activating your DR environment when the unthinkable happens. 1.2 What is SecondSite? Zettagrid SecondSite is a virtualised DR Service that provides recovery site, data synchronization, accessibility and activation for part or all of your production virtual environment. SecondSite keeps your virtual environment synchronised to the Zettagrid cloud, enabling real time failover and failback of an environment with short Recovery Point Objectives (RPO). SecondSite is a powerful component of an overall DR Strategy with the following key features: Zero capital investment for provision of your Recovery Site. Cloud pricing model by way of a single monthly charge of $99 per VM with no lock in contracts. Enables simple and automated full DR failovers. Allows for fully ring-fenced DR testing with full reporting. Software-defined and vendor agnostic (storage, network and compute). A VM based product (not reliant on snapshots) so you can pick and choose which VMs need protection and only pay for what you need. Zettagrid Pty Ltd – SecondSite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper 3 1.3 What SecondSite is not SecondSite is not: An all-encompassing DR or BC strategy or solution. A silver bullet that negates the need for comprehensive, well documented disaster recovery plans, processes and procedures. A service that magically works for all use-cases and all applications. Zettagrid Pty Ltd – SecondSite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper 4 2. SecondSite Components 2.1 What are the components of SecondSite? SecondSite is made up of four key components: 1. Second Virtual Data Centre (Recovery Site): A pool of reserved virtual resources housed within a Zettagrid Virtual Data Centre. 2. Virtual Replication Platform (Data Synchronization) A simple, high-performance, multi-tenant, award-winning, hypervisor-level replication platform. 3. Network Connectivity (Accessibility): Connectivity between your existing virtual environment and Zettagrid. Connectivity can range from a simple IPSEC VPN over existing internet resources to a dedicated 100Mbit – 10Gbit private fibre link. Connectivity can be supplied by Zettagrid if you want to take advantage of no traffic charges to our network. 4. Failover & Failback (Activation): a simplistic pre planned methodology, with technical assistance and support by Zettagrid. Zettagrid Pty Ltd – SecondSite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper 5 3. Disaster Recovery Events 3.1 Disaster has struck aka ‘Live’ Failover Event SecondSite keeps your data replicated and resources reserved, ready to go at a moment’s notice. But what happens when a DR event actually occurs? SecondSite allows you to trigger or activate a failover via either your local vSphere/Hyper- V management environment, your dedicated SecondSite portal or with assistance from the Zettagrid Support Team. It is important to ensure that your plan includes how your employees will continue to access services and the implication of firewalling and IP address routing. Note that the failover event results in Zettagrid becoming your production site, replication from your premises ceases until you are ready to failback. 3.2 Failback/Recovery Once your primary site is back up and running, replication can be reversed automatically from Zettagrid back to your own site. You may then initiate ‘failback’ at your convenience from either your dedicated SecondSite portal or your own on premise vSphere/Hyper-V management environment. This failback process should be part of your DR plan and we highly recommend that you co-ordinate this process with your managed services partner or the Zettagrid team. You’ll be charged for the full resources used in Zettagrid for the period that you are using Zettagrid as your production site. A handy pricing calculator is available on our website to detail what these costs are. You will continue being charged the SecondSite costs of $99 per VM. At this point you have the option of continuing to use Zettagrid as your production site long term and simply keep your own on premise equipment as your DR site. Zettagrid Pty Ltd – SecondSite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper 6 4. Commercials and Engagement 4.1 Pricing Structure This is our simplest product in terms of pricing, it costs $99 per VM per month. It doesn’t matter if the VM has 2Gb or 128Gb of RAM. It doesn’t matter if the VM has 40GB or 1TB of storage. The product is designed for protecting real world VMs and as such has a fair use policy governing its usage. On average, your protected VMs need to be under 1TB per VM across all VMs. If the total storage of all protected VMs in terabytes is greater than the number of protected VMs then you require an additional license. 4.1.1 DR Tests When performing a test the VMs you are protecting will actually run in Zettagrid and consume resources. For this we will charge a flat fee of $1000 per test and will allow you to test a maximum of 50 VMs for up to 24 hours. 4.1.2 DR Failovers When failing over into Zettagrid and we become your production site we will continue to charge the $99 per VM and will also charge you for the resources utilised as per the normal pricing schedule. This amount can be determined via our handy pricing calculator available on the website. 4.2 Network (Accessibility) During the engagement your Account Manager will work with you to determine the size of the network link required for the high-speed replication traffic between your local production site (primary) and your SecondSite in Zettagrid. We have automated the deployment and setup of VMware’s advanced NSX Edge and also an IPSEC VPN for every SecondSite customer which will allow for connectivity over the internet. If it is determined that your current outbound internet is insufficient to guarantee the RPO your business requires then additional connectivity may be required. The network and related IP addressing such as external DNS during a DR event is crucial for successful business continuity. Particular consideration needs to be taken on how your users and customers will continue to access your environment when primary access methods such as the corporate internet and local LAN are not available. You will be responsible for the review and implementation of the appropriate network configuration, including firewalls to enable SecondSite replication and DR network access. 4.3 On Boarding SecondSite requires some thought around the design, implement and testing of the solution to see if it best meets individual customer DR needs. We have automated the target setup and all the customer needs to do after purchase is the configuring of the on premise side by following our videos and FAQs. If you require a new or dedicated link for the DR traffic then Zettagrid staff will assist with this and will deploy and connect the most appropriate link based on the information Zettagrid Pty Ltd – SecondSite Technology Whitepaper DR Technology White Paper 7 gathered using our WAN sizing tool. 4.4 Software Upgrades The SecondSite software residing at your location will require software updates every 6- 12 months. This ensures that the replication software is up-to-date and maintained within two major releases of the Zettagrid SecondSite software. The upgrade process will pause replication but is not disruptive to any production VMs and takes on average 10-20 minutes and should be co-ordinated with your typical change control process. 4.5 Failover Testing With traditional DR platforms failover testing can be both expensive and disruptive with the result that it’s rarely performed and there is a significant risk of problems when an event occurs. SecondSite enables your organisation to fully test the infrastructure component of your DR plan. Failover testing enables you to confirm that your environment is being replicated successfully and that your applications operate as they should. Your servers are activated in an isolated test environment without disruption to ongoing replication. 4.6 Responsibilities SecondSite is not a full DR plan but will be a pivotal piece of your DR puzzle. You are expected to develop, provide and maintain your own DR plan. We recommend that the SecondSite solution is implemented and maintained by staff with either VMware or Hyper-V experience.