Best Practices for Configuring Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance for Vmware

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Best Practices for Configuring Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.5

ORACLE WHITE PAPER | DECEMBER 2017

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Overview 2

Prerequisites 2

Appliance Prerequisites 2

Operating System Prerequisites 2

Storage System Prerequisites 2

General Requirements 3

VMware SRM Architecture 3

Array-based Replication: Single-Protected Site 3

Array-based Replication: Dual-Protected Site 4

Array-based Replication: Multi-Protected Site to Multi-Recovery Site 5

Configuring Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Projects for Replication 6

Configuring VMware SRM with Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication

Adapter 5.1.1 6

Pairing VMware SRM Protected and Recovery Sites 6

Configure Array Managers 7

Configure Inventory Mappings 10

Configure Placeholder Datastore 11

VMware SRM Protection Groups 12

Recovery Plans 15

Testing a Recovery Plan 16

Recovery 18

BEST PRACTICES FOR CONFIGURING ORACLE ZFS STORAGE APPLIANCE STORAGE REPLICATION ADAPTER FOR VMWARE VCENTER SITE RECOVERY MANAGER 6.5

Reprotect and Failback 20

Reprotect 20

Failback 21

Recommended Configurations 21

VMware SRM 22

VMware vSphere 22

References 23

BEST PRACTICES FOR CONFIGURING ORACLE ZFS STORAGE APPLIANCE STORAGE REPLICATION ADAPTER FOR VMWARE VCENTER SITE RECOVERY MANAGER 6.5

Introduction

This white paper details the best practices of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) with Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance. Topics include the installation and configuration of VMware SRM, as well as running a disaster recovery (DR) plan or DR test plan.

DR is more complicated than just failing over the infrastructure of a virtual environment. DR procedures must be part of a larger business continuity plan. This plan should cover all business processes of a company, identifying risks to their continuity as well as risk mitigation strategies for avoiding or minimizing disruption of those business processes. The IT environments are a critical part of such plans, but the plans should not be limited to them. Identifying and defining the following elements are key input requirements for business continuity plans:

» Recovery Time Objective (RTO) – How long it takes to recover from the disaster or how long it takes to execute the recovery plan to make critical services available again. » Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – How far back in time the data will be after the recovery plan has been completed.

The relevant RPO and RTO factors as identified in the business continuity plan for the business processes should match your architected solution.

The intended audience for this paper is virtualization engineers, system administrators, storage administrators, and anyone who would like to understand or deploy VMware SRM with Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance.

This paper assumes readers have working knowledge of:

» Configuring replications on Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance systems » Deploying replications with VMware ESX » Understanding of DR solutions

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Overview Proper integration of Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance and VMware vCenter SRM presents an effective solution for DR. Understanding this solution’s functionality, as well as important considerations in its setup, helps you realize its full benefits.

VMware SRM creates a protected site, a recovery site, and enables the automatic recovery of grouped virtual machines (VMs) residing on the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance systems' replicated shares. The VMs are grouped into VMware SRM protection groups on the protected site, and the protection groups are placed into recovery plans at the remote recovery site.

After a recovery plan is executed, VMware SRM clones the replicated projects on Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance at the recovery site and mounts the project's NFS shares/ISCSI LUNs/FC LUNs within VMware ESX as network attached storage (NAS) datastores/VMFS Volumes accordingly. VMware SRM also reconfigures the VMs’ networking to work at the recovery site and then powers on the VMs.

For recovery test plans, VMware SRM also connects the VMs to a private test bubble network to allow for isolated testing.

A primary benefit of this solution is that replication is supported across the entire Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance product line and across storage profiles. No dedicated link is necessary for replication, and any network can be used. Additionally, to provide faster and more efficient target site catch-up, only changes are replicated (except during the initial replication).

VMware SRM is implemented on Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance through the plug-in software called Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager.

Prerequisites The following prerequisites are for Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.5.

Appliance Prerequisites Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 supports VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.5 and above only.

Operating System Prerequisites Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 has been tested, qualified, and certified with the following VMware software releases:

» VMware ESXi 6.5 » VMware ESXi 6.0 » VMware ESXi 5.5 » VMware vCenter Server 6.5/6.0/5.5 » VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.5/6.0/5.5

Storage System Prerequisites Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 has been tested, qualified, and certified with Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance software release OS 8.7.0 and later.

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It is recommended, but not mandatory, that no other replication exists, other than the configured VMware SRM setup, on the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance systems at the protected and recovery sites. We can take advantage of “Project name Prefix Filtering” option while configuring array managers, which is discussed later in this document.

General Requirements The following installation and configuration requirements must be met:

» VMware vCenter Server and VMware SRM are installed and configured at both protected and recovery sites. Note: Installation and configuration of VMware vCenter and VMware SRM are out of the scope of this document. » Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 is installed on both the protected and the recovery sites (see the installation guide included with the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 software). » NAS/NFSv3 shares, FC LUNs, or iSCSI LUNs are configured on VMware ESX servers. » A small Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) datastore is configured at both protected and recovery sites as a VM placeholder. Replication should not be enabled on this datastore. » NAS datastores/VMFS datastores must contain configured VMs or virtual disks (vdisks) to be discovered by the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 software.

VMware SRM Architecture This section provides array-based replication architecture for single- and dual-protected sites.

Array-based Replication: Single-Protected Site The configuration shown in the following figure is generally used when the secondary site does not have any VMs that need to be protected by VMware SRM. The secondary site exists solely for DR purposes.

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Figure 1. Supported Layout – Single-Protected Site

Array-based Replication: Dual-Protected Site The configuration shown in the following figure is generally used when both sites have VMs that need to be protected by VMware SRM. In this example, each site has VMs that must be protected by VMware SRM. Each site replicates its VMs to the opposing site where they can be recovered.

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Figure 2. Supported Layout - Dual-Protected Site

Array-based Replication: Multi-Protected Site to Multi-Recovery Site Most of the time, VMware SRM is deployed as a single-site-to-single-site solution. VMware SRM works well in multi- site configurations as well. Deploying VMware SRM in multi-site topologies provides flexibility to support a wide variety of use cases and business requirements.

Shared-recovery and shared-protection sites work well for data center consolidation.

Multi-site topologies provide additional flexibility to allow VMware SRM to handle any number of complex scenarios.

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Configuring Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Projects for Replication The Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 software requires Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance projects to be configured for remote replication. Configuring project-level replication therefore enables the automatic replication of all constituent NFS shares, FC LUNs or iSCSI LUNs. Each project in a protected Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system can be replicated to only one recovery Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system.

A consistency group is a set of shares that are replicated in a consistent fashion with the write order preserved across all the devices in this group. Each Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance project serves as a specific consistency group. Therefore, the ordering of writes is always preserved to a replicated project's constituent NFS shares or FC or iSCSI LUNs.

The Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 software itself does not configure replication between the protected or recovery sites. Actions such as configuring replication targets, selecting appropriate projects for replication, and initiating remote replication must be performed prior to configuring VMware SRM to discover replicated Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance systems.

For configuring remote replication on projects, refer to the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Administration Guide, Release OS8.7.0 or later.

At the recovery Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system, the Storage Replication Adapter does not alter project names, share names, or mount points following test failover operations.

After a DR failover operation, all replication between the protected and recovery sites should be stopped, if possible.

The VMware datastore utilizing NFS, FC or iSCSI protocols should reside on an Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system belonging to a replicated project.

Configuring VMware SRM with Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 The configuration of VMware SRM with Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 and an Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system requires the following high-level tasks: 1. Install the VMware SRM plug-in on each VMware vCenter Server. Installation of the VMware SRM software and plug-in is documented in the VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide. 2. Install the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 5.1.1 software on each VMware vCenter Server. 3. Configure the VMware SRM pairing between the protected site’s VMware vCenter Server and the recovery site’s VMware vCenter Server. 4. Configure the storage array manager to communicate with Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance systems. 5. Create protection groups at the protected site. 6. Create a recovery plan at the recovery site. 7. Test the recovery plan. Step-by-step procedures for these tasks are provided in this document.

Pairing VMware SRM Protected and Recovery Sites 1. Install the VMware SRM plug-in on VMware vCenter Servers as per the VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide. 2. On the VMware vCenter Server, select Services and ensure that the VMware SRM service is running. 3. Enable the VMware SRM plug-in at both the protected and recovery sites. 4. In the VMware SRM plug-in GUI, browse to the protected VMware vCenter Server.

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5. To pair the protected site to the recovery site, right-click on the protected site and, in the Setup screen, select the pair Site Option and enter the address of the recovery site VMware vCenter Server. 6. Enter the user name and password. The following figure shows a successful site pairing.

Figure 3. Successful Site Pairing

Configure Array Managers After establishing the partnership between the protected and recovery sites, configure the Array Manager, which is the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system that is local to each VMware SRM instance. For the VMware SRM server to correctly see the Array Manager, it must have access to the management IP address. 1. From the VMware SRM section of the VMware vSphere client, select one of the sites. 2. Click the Monitor tab, click SRAs, and ensure that storage replication adapter (SRA) “Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter” is displayed.

By default, the previously installed SRA is displayed. If necessary, click Rescan SRAs to manually discover the correct SRA.

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3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for the other site.

Figure 4. Installed SRA from Sites Tab 4. From the Actions drop-down menu, select Add Array Manager. 5. On the Option page, select Add a pair of array managers and click Next. 6. On the Location page, select the relevant pair of sites and click Next. 7. On the Select SRA Type page, select Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter and click Next.

Figure 5. Add Array Manager - Select Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter 8. On the Configure Array Manager page, enter a display name that is descriptive and makes the array easy to identify, for example, “Primary Array.”

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9. Under Primary Appliance, enter the IP address or hostname, the NFS IP address, and the credentials. 10. (Optional) Complete field “Project name prefix filtering.” This information is optional; if it is not specified, no filters are applied.

This is an important field because it is used for filtering the discovered projects. When completed with a prefix, VMware SRA only presents projects with the specified prefix. To use multiple prefix filters, enter them as one string that is separated by commas. Ensure that you use the same prefix for the primary and recovery sites. This field is useful when replication actions run for different purposes on an Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system. 11. Click Next.

Figure 6. Add Array Manager - Configuring Array Manager 12. On the Configure Paired Array Manager page, repeat the steps 8 through 11 for the replication/DR array at the DR site. 13. On the Enable Array Pairs page, select the array pair and click Next. 14. On the Ready to Complete page, review the settings and click Finish. This establishes the protection site array manager.

Viewing the Array Pair's Relationship Status To view the status of the relationship between the array pairs and datastore replication, perform the following steps.

1. From either site, click Array Based Replication, click the Manage tab, and click Array Pairs. 2. Select the protected and recovery sites array pair. The datastores and their current status are displayed. 3. In the future if a new datastore is added and configured for replication, select the array pair again to discover new devices.

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Figure 7. Array Pairs

Configure Inventory Mappings Inventory mappings are settings that match the protected site’s resources with the recovery site’s resources. This can be used to match data centers, resource pools, folders, storage policies, and networks on the protected site with data centers, resource pools, folders, storage policies, and networks on the recovery site for testing and failover purposes. This enables administrators to guarantee that broad configuration choices that are made in the protected site match on the recovery site when a failover occurs. These settings can be overwritten at the individual VM level.

To configure inventory mappings, use the following steps.

1. From the VMware SRM section of the VMware vSphere client, navigate to Site Recovery Home and click Sites. 2. Select either the protected site or the recovery site and click the Manage tab. 3. Select one of the options (Network Mappings, Folder Mappings, Resource Mappings, and Storage Policy Mappings) and click New to create a new mapping for that type. In the following figure, the network mappings between the production and recovery sites are shown. Similar options are available for resource, folder, and storage policy mappings.

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Figure 8. Inventory Mappings

Configure Placeholder Datastore After the inventory mappings are created, create a placeholder datastore.

1. Click Placeholder Datastores. 2. Click Configure Placeholder Datastore and choose a location to store the recovery placeholder VM configuration files. This is a datastore on the recovery site. You do not need to allot much space because it is a temporary space to hold the small .vmx file and other configuration files for each of the protected VMs. It is recommended to use a volume datastore that is shared among all of the recovery VMware ESXi servers. 3. Click OK. 4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 for the protected site. If the protected site is reprotected in the future, the placeholder datastore will be used to unregister and reregister the VMs for a failback operation.

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Figure 9. Configuring the Placeholder Datastore

VMware SRM Protection Groups A protection group is a collection of VMs that are recovered together, and these groups are used by VMware SRM when creating recovery plans. The protection group is configured at the protected site and identifies which datastores and which VMs will be recovered on the recovery site when VMware SRM fails over. Each replicated datastore must belong to a protection group for VMware SRM to protect it.

The Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance system replicates data at the project level; therefore, all NFS shares, FC LUNs or iSCSI LUNs in a project (and all VMs in the project) are recovered together. If more than one project is being replicated, a separate protection group needs to be configured to hold the VMs in that project.

Use the following steps to define and configure a protection group.

1. From the VMware SRM section of the VMware vSphere client, log into the protected site, click Home, and select Site Recovery from Inventories.

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2. Click Protection Groups and select Create Protection Group. 3. Provide a name and description that clearly identify what will be protected, and then select the relevant site pair. Click Next. 4. On the Protection Group Type page, select the direction of protection (in this example, the production site fails over to the DR site) and then select the protection group type (in this example, “Datastore groups”). 5. Select the array pair and click Next.

Figure 10. Protection Group Type 6. On the Datastore Groups page, select all datastores to be included in the protection group and click Next. To view which datastore group VMs will be associated with the protection group, select a datastore group. If a VM has entities that reside across multiple datastores, all of them will be included in the same group.

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Figure 11. Datastore Groups 7. On the Ready to Complete page, verify the settings and click Finish. 8. Repeat this procedure for each protection group that needs to be configured. Each replicated datastore must belong to a protection group for VMware SRM to protect it. 9. View the Summary page for each protection group to ensure that the status is “OK.”

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Figure 12. Protection Group

Recovery Plans A recovery plan facilitates and automates the process of testing and failing over VMs. The recovery plan can encompass any or all of the protection groups created on the protected site. The plan allows more comprehensive full-site and test-site failover operations by creating multiple, granular recovery options. Recovery plans can be configured from either the protected site or the recovery site because you will be prompted for the recovery plan location.

1. From the VMware SRM section of the VMware vSphere client, log into the protected site, click Home, and select Site Recovery from Inventories. 2. Click Recovery Plans and select Create Recovery Plan. 3. Provide a name and description that clearly identify what will be recovered by this recovery plan, and then select the relevant site pair. Click Next. 4. On the Recovery Site page, select the recovery site where the VMs will be recovered and click Next. 5. On the Protection Groups page, select the protection groups for this recovery plan and click Next.

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Figure 13. Recovery Plan - Selection of Protection Groups 6. On the Test Networks page, select an option and click Next.

Test networks are isolated network environments that are created in real-time during the test to ensure that the VMs being brought online do not interfere with already running VMs, including those in production. By default, VMware SRM automatically creates a new vSwitch for the duration of test failover. These vSwitches are isolated from other vSwitches that were created by other failover tests run at the same time. 7. On the Ready to Complete page, verify the information and click Finish.

Figure 14. Recovery Plan

Testing a Recovery Plan Running a test failover allows you to execute the recovery plan in a controlled and easily rolled-back manner. Test failover operations ensure that proper VM operation will occur during a real failover.

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1. From the VMware SRM section of the VMware vSphere client, click Recovery Plans and select the recovery plan to test. 2. From the Actions drop-down menu, select Test.

Figure 15. Recovery Plan - Select Test 3. (Optional) Select the checkbox for Replicate recent changes to recovery site. This testing option is independent of replication schedules and could take several minutes to complete, depending on the amount of data that has changed since the last replication. 4. Click Next.

Figure 16. Recovery Plan - Complete Test 5. On the Ready to Complete page, review the recovery plan and click Finish. 6. On the Recovery Steps page and as the test progresses, the status is displayed for each recovery step. The test prepares the storage by creating clones, bringing the clones online, rescanning the storage subsystem, reconfiguring the VMs, and powering up the VMs according to the plan’s priority order.

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Figure 17. Recovery Plan - Test Operation in Progress 7. After the recovery plan test has successfully completed, plan status” Test complete” is displayed.

Figure 18. Recovery Plan - Test Operation Successful Completion 8. After you have verified the test failover of the individual VMs, click Cleanup to finish the test and clean up the environment.

VMware SRM reconfigures the VMs to point to the temporary datastore and removes the isolated test network. The storage is then unregistered from VMware ESXi hosts, and the clone volumes are deleted to free up space on the array. After a few minutes, the recovery site environment reverts to its original settings before the test was run. Without disrupting the production environment, this testing provides the ability to find errors and to fine tune the DR recovery plan before a real disaster occurs.

Recovery An actual DR situation involves more than simply failing over VMs. The range of operational, business, and security considerations that must be considered will vary from installation to installation.

There are a few high-level tasks to consider when using VMware SRM for a DR scenario:

» Use the test failover feature to ensure that all VMware SRM/SRA installations are functional and have been correctly configured. » Ensure network access to the recovery site for anyone who needs to manage DRs, including system administrators, security administrators, storage administrators, and virtual environment administrators. » Ensure that adequate infrastructure is in place at the recovery site. This might include DNS servers and Active Directory servers. » Monitor Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance replication to ensure proper functionality. To perform a recovery operation, use the following steps.

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1. From the VMware SRM section of the VMware vSphere client, click Recovery Plans, select a recovery plan, and click Run. 2. Select the checkbox to acknowledge the warning that the recovery will permanently alter the VMs and the environment.

Note: A planned migration or DR is an executive decision and should not be invoked without planning and thought. 3. Select one of two types of recovery processes: o Planned migration: Replicates changes between datacenters. If a failure is encountered, an additional replication is attempted. If that attempt also fails, migration is stopped and not completed. o Disaster recovery: Use this option when the protected site is unavailable or in the event of a real disaster. The plan attempts to synchronize and power down VMs on the protected site. If there are any errors, the plan continues to move forward. 4. Click Next.

Figure 19. Recovery Operation in Plan 5. To begin the recovery process, verify the settings on the Ready to Complete page and click Finish. 6. To view progress, click the Monitor tab and click Recovery Steps.

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Figure 20. Recovery Operation in Progress 7. The “Plan status” field updates to show when the recovery process has completed. Any errors during the recovery are also displayed. Each VM is displayed on the recovery site registered to the correct recovery datastore and runs according to the plan. This completes the recovery failover operation, and you can utilize the recovery site as the full production site according to the DR plans for your organization.

Reprotect and Failback After VMs are migrated from one site to another using either the DR or planned migration feature in VMware SRM, they are in an active running state on the network at the secondary site. However, without further VMware SRM protection, they are vulnerable to failure at the secondary site.

Reprotect After protected VMs are migrated or DR failed over to the secondary site, the VMs are unprotected. After a protected group is migrated, VMware SRM automatically reprotects the VMs at the secondary site. The following figure shows plan status “Recovery complete” for a successful reprotection operation.

Figure 21. Successful Completion of Reprotect Operation

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During a reprotect operation, VMware SRM commands the SRA to reverse storage replication for each of the datastores/volumes in the protection group. The protection group originally set up at the primary site is migrated to the secondary site. Placeholder VMs originally set up at the secondary site are now created at the opposite site on its respective placeholder datastore. The following figure shows a reprotection operation in progress.

Figure 22. Reprotection Operation in Progress

Failback After the protected site has been brought back to service, the most common action is to fail back the recovery site to the protected site so it can manage normal operations.

Failback is the manual process that brings back the recovered VMs at the DR site to the original protected site after a full recovery plan has been run.

To perform a failback, use the following steps, in which site A is the original protected site with data in production, and site B is the original recovery site as the failover destination.

1. Test Now that the reprotect operation has occurred, run a test recovery to go from (now) protected site B to recovery site A. Verify that the test plan is successful before failing back the environment. 2. Run the Recovery Plan After verifying the test, fail back to original site A. Run the recovery plan to bring the VMs from protected site B to recovery site A as normal. There is no failback option because the protected site and recovery site roles were reversed. 3. Reprotect After the VMs are back on site A, run the reprotect operation one more time to make site A the protected site and site B the recovery site. This step starts replication from site A to site B. After this final reprotection has completed, site failback has completed. Continue to run tests and update protection groups and recovery plans as needed to protect the environment.

Recommended Configurations The following sections contain recommended configurations for VMware SRM and VMware vSphere.

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VMware SRM For Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance SRA, the following VMware SRM settings are highly recommended for proper SRA operation:

» storage.commandTimeout = 900 » storageProvider.hostRescanRepeatCnt = 2 » storageProvider.hostRescanTimeoutSec = 900

Editing Settings Groups 1. From the VMware SRM section of the VMware vSphere client, click Sites and select a site. 2. Click the Manage tab and click Advanced Settings. 3. Select a settings group to edit and click Edit. The following figure shows the Storage settings group selected.

Figure 23. Tunable Parameters for the Storage Provider

VMware vSphere VMware recommends to enable Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) at the recovery site to appropriately prioritize and suspend VMs, and to install VMware Tools on all protected VMs.

Enabling VMware DRS on the Recovery Site VMware SRM creates placeholder VMs at the recovery site for each protected VM on the protected site. During a recovery (test and real), each of these placeholder VMs are replaced by a VM registered from the recovered datastore. If VMware DRS is enabled on the recovery cluster, then VMware SRM will utilize VMware DRS to load balance the recovered VMs across the hosts to ensure optimal performance and RTO.

High Priority VMs and Suspending VMs In a recovery plan, the VMs being recovered can be assigned as high-, normal-, or low-priority VMs. The recovery time is affected by the order of these VMs and the total number of VMs placed in each category.

VMware Tools It is strongly recommended to install VMware Tools in all protected VMs. Many VMware SRM recovery operations, such as heartbeats and network change notification, depend on the proper installation of VMware Tools on the protected VMs.

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References » Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance: » Overview » Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Administration Guide » Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Administration Guide » VMware: » Website » Education and training » Online documentation » Communities

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Best Practices for Configuring Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.5 December 2017, Version 1.0 Author: Vinod Kumar Laxman