00:00
Disaster recovery may not be a fun topic and can often raise tough questions, such as which applications actually need protection, how much downtime or data loss can we realistically tolerate. But when it comes to protecting your business, it's crucial you get it right. So how do you protect your most important applications and data,
00:20
minimize downtime and ensure your recovery plan actually works. Let's talk about active DR and how it can make your life a whole lot easier. ActiveDR by Pure Storage is designed to take the guesswork out of disaster recovery without nickel and diming you. It delivers near zero recovery point objectives over any distance,
00:46
combined with ultra low recovery times so your critical applications and data remain accessible when disaster strikes. Active VR keeps your work flows constantly protected and provides a seamless failover and failback process and even lets you test your DR plan without risking production. Giving you the confidence to handle anything that comes your way.
01:09
So here we are in the Active DR Pure Storage test drive lab, and this is the exact same lab that you would have access to or have access to if you sign up to do test drive on your own. So you can definitely follow along with the actions I'm doing here in the lab, or if you're an existing Pure customer, you for sure can follow along and do these on your own
01:27
pure arrays in your own production environment or Testing environment. Just note that since we are dealing with replication technologies, you are going to need two arrays at minimum to do this. So with all that said, the very first thing we need to do is get the two arrays connected and speaking with each other so they're they're aware of each other.
01:49
So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go ahead and get into Flash array 2, which is the array at let's call it our DR site or our secondary location. So I'll bring up uh Google Chrome. I'll log into Flash ray 2. I'll use Pure user and our super secret admin password to get logged in. And this will bring us into the purity dashboard or the pure storage flash ray
02:14
dashboard. And the very first thing I want to do is on the left hand side in the navigation menu, I want to go to protection, because like I said, what we want to do is get the array key from Flash array to to join it to flash array 1. So I've select the protection node and on the middle of the screen,
02:33
you see that I've got this array connections here right in the middle, and then on the far right, I've got this little burger menu or this dropdown that I can click on. So, I'm gonna click on that, I'm gonna grab Git connection key. And then that's going to give me this connection key window as you can see here, and I've got this nice long string of letters and
02:51
numbers. I'm going to go ahead and click copy to copy it to my clipboard and I'm going to click OK. And for right now, that's really all we need to get from Flash array 2. Now we need to log into Flash array 1, so I'm going to open a new tab. Going to flashery one.
03:08
Basically the same process, use my pure user account with our strong admin password. And I'm going to get logged into the system. And again, I'm just gonna go into the protection note over here on the left. And again, notice in the middle of the screen, I've got a rate connections and nothing is listed, and I now I want to add Flash array too. So instead of clicking the little burger menu,
03:31
I'm gonna click the plus sign here on the right. And it's gonna give me this connect array dialogue and here in the management address field I can enter the IP address or the DNS name, and I'm a DNS guy, so I'm gonna just put the DNS name in so it's flashy2.t test drive.local. For the replication type, we are using Active DR so that is our asynchronous replication,
03:57
so we don't need to change anything here. But note if you're going to use synch synchronous replication or active cluster feature, you would change this to sync rep. But since we're doing async, we'll leave that alone. I will paste in our connection key.
04:13
From our clipboard, and then we don't need to worry about the replication transport or replication address, and then I'm just gonna go ahead and click connect. That will take just a moment. And as you see now, we've got in the ray connection screen in the middle, we've got Flash ray 2 with a green light shows us that it's connected.
04:33
We've got asynchronous replication going and we're running Purity version 6.5. And when I go over to Flash array 2, I'll see the same thing, but basically the reverse because it's gonna show flash array 1 so let me refresh the screen. And as you can see here, array connections, we've got flash array one. It's in a connected status and again it's showing the type is a sync replication and
04:56
purity version 6.5. So that's the very first thing we needed to take care of is we basically need the arrays to be aware of each other and talking to each other. The next step is going back to flash array one. We have this concept of a pod, and a pod is an envelope or a consistency group that's going to
05:17
hold all of the volumes or the data basically that you're going to want to replicate between these two systems and the pod is what lets you set up the replication strategy, the scheduling, what volumes, so on and so forth. So to do that on the left hand navigation screen, we're gonna click up into storage. And we're gonna click into pods.
05:39
And as you notice here again, since this is a clean lab in the middle of the screen pods, there's nothing listed. So we just need to go ahead and click the plus sign here to create a pod. And I'm going to call this, uh, we'll be very technical, we're call it Langer, demo ADR and I'm gonna call this source because this is the source side of the replication
06:02
or it will be because this is the primary site so I'll click create and you'll see that it creates the pod, it's online. It's in the status of promoted and promoted is a keyword that we use in pure speak of. That the volume or the pod is promoted, meaning that it can accept read and write activities. If the other status that you'll see is of demoted state,
06:28
that just means it's it's a read only volume and it can't be written to. So obviously in a production side, your volume is more likely are going to be in a promoted state and on the DR side you're going to see them in a demoted state, meaning they're read only and they're taking in the replication data or the replication information. So we'll go ahead and click into the pod.
06:49
And as you'll see here, we noticed we have Flash array one, we have pod replica links, and we have volume. So right now it's since it's a net new pod, there's no replica links and there's no volumes and following along with this lab, since we already have existing volumes created in the volume section, we're gonna go ahead and create or click on this burger menu and select the move in option,
07:14
meaning we've got an existing volume. That's already on the array and we want to move it into this pod, so we'll click move in. We'll grab our Windows one volume because we're gonna be working with this Windows uh Windows host. We're gonna set the protection group to our ADR demo pod and then click select and then go
07:35
ahead and just click move. And now we've got a volume within our pod that we're saying, hey, we want this volume to be replicated to from the source to a target. Now I will say in this lab we're doing a move in, but if you're doing this on your own or you want to do a little. But unscripted from the lab,
07:54
you could just click the plus sign and create a new volume or if you're working in your own environment, you've got some volumes or you want to create something new again, you can click the plus sign. We're just using the quote unquote move in option because we have something already existing. Now, the next step is we've got the volume,
08:13
we've got the pod. Now we need to start actually replicating it somewhere, and that's where this pod replica links option comes in. So notice again that this is completely empty, it doesn't mean we're so we're not showing a remote array, and this is where you can probably guess we want to add Flash array too. So, on the right hand side over here, we're gonna click the plus sign.
08:34
And it's already knows that we're working within the local demo ADR source pod because that's where we're at. We're gonna hit the drop down for the remote array, which will be flash array 2. Now granted, if we had multiple arrays or if you have multiple arrays, you potentially could see more, but since we only have one additional array in the slab,
08:53
we're just seeing flash array 2 so just know that if you have multiple arrays, you could see multiple options here. And now we need to create the remote pod name. So we now need the target destination. And since we didn't create, one does not already exist, we're gonna click this button here for create remote pod.
09:11
So we'll click that. And we're given another great name. I'll name it Langer, uh demo ADR and this time I'll call it Target because, you know, we're working with the DR side of the equation. So ADR target, I'm gonna click OK. We've got it in here and then I'm gonna go ahead and click create.
09:33
And now this will just take a second um to kind of go into a replicating status. So right now in the status area it says baselining. So it's basically, it's seeding the data, it's doing a baseline, it's moving the content over and then once it hits replicating, that means it's been seeded and then any net new changes will start being replicated over.
09:54
So we'll give that one second. Maybe I just refresh it probably should be. To replicating and it is right so now we know we've got the local pod which is the source and again notice it's in this promoted state. The direction is it's going to the remote pod which is Langer demo ADR target,
10:15
and the remote array is flash array too and it's the status is replicating. So on Flash array one, we see that the pods set up, the replica link is set up, and the volume is moving. So if I go over to Flash array 2. And I do somewhat the same thing if I go into storage.
10:35
I go into pods, instead of creating it, because as we created all that in the setup, we now see the target pod is here. So we'll click into pod. And notice we see the array as flash ray too because that's where we're at. Of course, it's online.
10:50
And in the pod replica links, you see the ADR target, which is our local pod, you see that it's in that demoted state. Remember that's the read-only state of the data. Uh, the direction is it's coming to us and it's coming from the ADR source. You see flash array one, and you see down here you see the Windows one volume. So with that we've got the baseline of the actual arrays connected and data is replicating.
11:18
But now I should actually show you that it's working. So let's take a look at creating some files and then kind of show you actually how ADR is going to function. With the production arrays and the disaster recovery arrays communicating to each other and replicating, the next step is to basically prove it. So what I'm going to do is on Windows one,
11:40
the VM that you're going to initially see when you connect to the lab. I'm just gonna go ahead and create some files on the D drive or what is the flash array connected volume, and I'm just going to give it a really great name of, you know, really important document. And then we'll put that in and then I'll just put something inside of it that says uh don't
12:04
delete me. So we now have some data in there that will be replicated from the production site to the secondary site. But again, how do we know that that's actually happening? Now, one of the great features of Active DR is your ability to test a DR scenario without bringing your production data or your production applications down or offline.
12:33
And to do that, what we're going to do is go back into our flash ray systems. And we're going to go into Flash array 2 because we're going to be testing this uh on our DR side or our DR Windows host. So we want to make sure our host is connected, so Windows 2 is connected to. Our Lager demo Windows volume.
12:57
Volume, for lack of a better word, using a lot of volumes there that's being replicated over, but notice when we go into protection. And active DR we've got that demoted state. Remember I was telling you that a volume is either promoted or demoted and one gives you read or write or read only access. So what we want to do on the DR side is we're going to promote this volume so we can
13:27
actually see it and present it to our DR Windows host or what is we're gonna call Windows 2. So I'm gonna, on the far right, I'm gonna click on the burger menu and I'm going to say promote local pod, meaning the local pod is here to flash array too. So I'll go ahead and click on that and it's gonna say promoting a pod makes it rideable and
13:50
includes the content from the last replication objective. Replication continues and new data from the source is stored in the background. So basically it's saying, hey, you are now going to see a point in time copy of the data mounted to your Windows, in this case our Windows VM, but data is still replicating in the background.
14:08
So I'm gonna go ahead and click promote. And that will just take a quick second. And it says promoting here over here on the left. I bet if I just refresh it will probably say promoted and it does. So now we see that on the flash ray 2, which is our DR side,
14:28
ADR target, the volume is promoted. So I'm gonna switch over to the Windows 2 hosts, so that's good you're going to see kind of the screen update and flash a little bit. OK, I am now on Windows 2, which in our scenario is our DR or disaster site, Windows hosts that's connected to the DR site Flash array,
14:57
and now that we've promoted the pod on on the DR site or Flash array 2, by going into disk management. On Windows 2 I'll see that the volume is there because it is presented and I just need to turn it online. I granted these are all Windows things, right? These are not pure storage things, but so the
15:17
volume's there. I need to online it. It should come up as the D drive just like what we saw on Windows 1. And if I now explore it. I should see my really important document, which I do, and then of course I should see my don't delete me information in there.
15:33
So this verifies that the replication is working and what I'll to also show that we've got both in a promoted state, I'm gonna switch back to Windows one on our production side. And that will just take a second here. And if I look at flash array one, and I go into production and I go into um protection, excuse me, and I go into active DR.
16:03
Notice that it says the source is also promoted. So like I said before, this means that this volume is still rewriteable so I can go in here and then I can do new and I'll do, you know, text document and let's say this is really important. Uh, document if I could type 2, and I can write to it and obviously not causing any impact to that point in time copy that Windows
16:30
2 has mounted. So that's kind of showing you that active DR is working and that's kind of a quick way that you could do a test and show that you're not going to impact your production workloads if you do a test on the DR side. But next, what if we actually want to do a true failover, and that's what I'm gonna show you
16:50
next. Now with the initial connections of the DR and the production flash arrays connected, we've shown you the kind of DR test. Let's simulate an actual DR failover or what you might experience in case of an actual event. So to kind of set the table back, I'm going to go into Flash array one.
17:14
And show you under protection active DR that the source pod is promoted, meaning it is active doing the read-write operations and then on flash array 2, which again in this scenario is our DR target or uh array under protection, I have active DR and notice that it's in that demoted state. So remember it's it's a read only.
17:39
scenario and the you can see the rep the direction of the replication going from source to target. So back on flash array one, the easiest way for me to simulate this is I'm actually just going to go ahead and disconnect the volume or the D drive that we've been working with on Windows one from within Pure storage to simulate like maybe the the host went down, the array, lost connectivity to it,
18:05
whatever kind of scenario you want, but that's going to be the easiest way for you to kind of simulate this both either in your, you know, within the test drive lab if you're following along or in your own environment. So to do that, we're gonna go into storage. And again on Flash ray one, we'll go into volumes.
18:23
And then we've got our Langer demo ADR source Windows all one, which is basically that volume in the pod. We'll click on that and then in this connected host section, you see where it says Windows one. So we're gonna go ahead and just click the X here to disconnect it.
18:38
So we're basically just pulling the drive out from underneath the windows in this case, and it's gonna say disconnecting the host will break the connection between the volume and the host. Are you sure you want to do this? And we do, so we click disconnect. And just to show what's going on in the background, I'm gonna launch disk management on
18:56
Windows 1 and this might take a minute or two because again this is a Windows thing because it's going out and it's it's scanning the drives and it remember to have this drive but now there's no connection to it. So that's why this is kind of like in a gray state because it's doing its re-scan and like, hey, there was a D drive and it's no longer here.
19:13
This is just showing that we have disconnected that drive. Now, with that being disconnected, the next thing we want to do is we want to go back into production and then go into active DR. And we want to go ahead and demote. This Pod from promoted to demoted because we don't want it to be read write accessible.
19:41
So protection active DR on the pod replica link, we wanna go ahead and on the far right here on the burger menu, we wanna say demote local pod. And it's gonna come up and say demoting a pod makes it read only. If this pod is a replica link target, its contents will be reverted to the latest RPO transferred from the source.
20:03
The current contents of the pod will be captured in an undo demote pod in the destroyed and undo pod panels until it's automatically eradicated. So basically it is telling us like, hey, you're going to break this link between what we thought was the promoted to kind of the DR or the other demoted side. But before we do that, we do wanna quiesque any data, so meaning like if the array,
20:26
the array is still up and running, if there was unreplicated data, we want that to kind of flush out or be completely transferred over before we demote it. So we do want to go ahead and do this in this scenario. Now if this was a real life scenario, maybe your actual site went down or the array went down. You would probably, you know, click on the skip
20:48
option because the the array was down, so there's going to be no way to kind of finalize that last replication or or flush any unwritten data, but in this case, we have the array still up and running, so we'll click QS, we'll go ahead and click demote. And you'll see here that on this side, the status says.
21:08
He asked. So that's kind of like, OK, I'm, I'm flushing out all of my data. So now we want to go ahead and go to Windows 2, which again in this scenario is our DR host or our DR workload. So we'll click Windows 2 from this drop down. And we see where we, you know, where we were playing with the uh the important data so we'll
21:29
minimize all this. Let's go ahead and go back into Flash array. We'll go into Flash array 2, because again, we're working with the DR site. So we'll log in. With our username and password.
21:52
And again, we're going to go into protection. Active DR And notice we know that the target again we were the target, we were in this demoted state because we were basically the read only from, you know, on this side, but notice the status is Qes. So now we're gonna go ahead and go over here and click on the far right on the burger menu
22:12
and we're now going to promote. This from the demoted status to you know to promoted so click on this and it's gonna say promoting a pod makes it rideable and includes the content from the latest RPO replication continues and new data from the source is stored in the background. So again this is where the QS comes because we are going to get the latest recovery point
22:32
because we're kind of in this holding pattern. Now this optional area gives you if you had multiple points in time, you could click the promote from and then select. A time, but since we only for us since we only have one point in time in this lab or in this demonstration, it doesn't matter if we do this or not because we only have the one copy,
22:50
but we'll just go ahead and Uh leave it checked, we'll click promote. And it's gonna say promoting here. And if I refresh, it'll probably say promoted, and it does. And again, we'll go back into disk management. And it's not really gonna look all that different.
23:14
We're going to see the drive, let's just do a re re-scan. But we know the data is there, we're gonna do an explore. We see the really important document. And this time, I can actually create on this side, I can create new, again, I can create another file, so I'm gonna say really important.
23:37
Document To and I created a folder this time, but as you can see, the replication is working. We've brought up the volume from the production side to the DR side and the pods are set up where it says the target is replicating to the source. You know, cause it's gonna reverse and we are in a promoted state, and that would be a test of doing a failover.
24:07
But with that, let's go ahead and wrap up with some closing comments. And it is truly that simple to set up and configure Active DR, but if you do have any additional questions or thoughts, reach out to your Pure Storage account team if you're an existing customer or your reseller of choice. And of course, to be sure to head over to pureStorage.com and Pure 360 for additional
24:29
white papers, data sheets, and demonstrations. Thank you.
