Itzikr's Blog

Hi, we have just released AppSync 3.0, if you are new to AppSync, I encourage you to first read about it here

https://volumes.blog/2014/12/19/protecting-your-vms-with-emc-appsync-xtremio-snapshots/

and here, https://volumes.blog/2016/03/31/emc-appsync-2-2-sp3-is-out-another-must-upgrade-for-xtremio-customers/

in a nutshell, Appsync is our (Integrated) Copy Data Management (iCDM), IDC & Gartner predict that the bulk of data is coming from copies of the data itself and AppSync is our glue to manage it at the array level, traditionally, snapshots are always associated with degraded performance either at the array controllers level or at the volume level, even the majority of the modern All Flash Arrays can’t sustain a large numbers of snapshots because of architecture deficiencies.

This is not the case with XtremIO so the “glue” here is very important. So, what’s new with 3.0

VPLEX SUPPORT

Yep, It’s finally here, many customer requests came for this one as many customers are leveraging XtremIO + VPLEX for either a true Active/Active datacenter(s) topology or for the VPLEX availability features, Appsync now fully support VPLEX, here are the modes of supported operations

You need to be on the following versions for it to work:

VPLEX firmware version 5.4.1.03 – 5.5.1.1
XtremIO firmware version 4.0.1, 4.0.2, and 4.0.4

Configuring a service plan requires selecting:
– Preferred cluster selection (metro only)
• Cluster 1 is chosen by default
– And array preferences (when R1)
• Required selection
• VPLEX distributed virtual volume has storage devices on two clusters
• The leg to be protected is determined by the cluster that is selected in the service plan storage options

VPLEX – APPSYNC MOUNT OPTIONS
Mount as VPLEX Virtual Volumes
– The provisioned virtual volumes are added to the storage
view of the mount host
– Teared down during unmount
Mount as native array volumes
– The mount host must be zoned to the native array where the snapshot is created

VPLEX – APPSYNC MOUNT TO ESX CLUSTER

When mount host is part of an ESX Cluster, target
LUNS are presented to all nodes of the cluster

• Clear this option if you do not want to perform an
ESX cluster mount

RESTORE CONSIDERATIONS WITH VPLEX

The VPLEX production virtual volume layout must be the same as it was when the copy was created
• R1 and distributed devices are restored on one leg of the mirror for which the copy was created
– Other leg will be rebuilt and synchronized after restore is complete
– User has option to wait or run in background
• AppSync does not support restore of volumes protected by RecoverPoint

APPSYNC – VPLEX LIMITATIONS

Support XtremIO backend only
• Support Bronze service plan only (local copies)
• VPLEX virtual volumes must be mapped 1:1 to an array volume
• Concatenated devices (RAID-C) are not supported
• Nested devices are not supported
• Exchange is not supported
• Tolerant of non-XtremIO array on second leg only

SERVICEABILITY AND WORKFLOW ENHANCEMENTS

You can now perform consistency check only on log files of Exchange database copy in DAG environment

below you can see a demo of AppSync 3.0 / VPLEX / XtremIO working as one.

UNMOUNT CALLOUT SCRIPTS

Provides scripting opportunity during the Unmount previous copy and Unmount copy phases
• Supported on all operating systems in addition to AIX
• The unmount callout scripts are placed in a predefined location with a predefined name
• The scripts are run with the user credentials used to register the host

REPURPOSING ENHANCEMENTS

Enhanced scheduling ability to repurpose and refresh a copy, including ability to
schedule repurposing jobs for 2nd Gen copies
• Ability to view and edit the values of various fields in the repurpose workflow
• Centralized view of all database repurposed copies

VMWARE SERVICEABILITY ENHANCEMENTS

New VMware Service Plan options
– Create VM snapshots for selected VMs only – ignoring newly added VMs
– Can now “Exclude VMs”

APPSYNC 3.0 – SQL ENHANCEMENTS

Supports taking a cluster copy and mounting into an alternate cluster, attaching/recovering databases as clustered resources if an alternate cluster SQL Server instance is selected during recovery
• Restoring back as a cluster or non-clustered resource
• SQL Server databases hosted on mount points are not supported – Mount to “Default Path” is not supported due to Microsoft restrictions.

SQL NON-VDI COPIES

Similar to crash consistent, but still utilizing Microsoft VSS on the file system (does not integrate with SQL)
• Mount with attaching the database (recovery) on target host is not supported for non-VDI copies – all other SQL recovery options are not supported
• Restoring as a file system is supported – reattaching and recovering the database is a manual process

here’s a demo about the NON-VDI integration