Dell Technologies AppSync 4.5 is now Available

CDM (Copy Data Management) is exploding, analysts predict that most of your data in the data center is derived from copies of your data and as such, we are continuing to invest in this field.

For the readers of my blog, you know that I’m a big fan of AppSync which allows you to copy/restore/repurpose your data with a direct integration to the Dell EMC storage products so now is a great time to explain about the 4.5 version of AppSync which we have just released. A previous post, that covered the 4.4 release, can be found, here

AppSync is a software that enables Integrated Copy Data Management (iCDM) with Dell EMC’s primary storage systems.

AppSync simplifies and automates the process of generating and consuming copies of production data. By abstracting the underlying storage and replication technologies, and through deep application integration, AppSync empowers application owners to satisfy copy demand for operational recovery and data repurposing on their own. In turn, storage administrators need only be concerned with initial setup and policy management, resulting in an agile, frictionless environment.

AppSync automatically discovers application databases, learns the database structure, and maps it through the Virtualization Layer to the underlying storage LUN. It then orchestrates all the activities required from copy creation and validation through mounting at the target host and launching or recovering the application. Supported workflows also include refresh, expire, and restore production.

Dell EMC AppSync simplifies and automates the process of generating and consuming copies of production data. AppSync enables application owners to satisfy copy demand for data repurposing, operational recovery and disaster recovery across multiple EMC arrays and applications with a single user interface.

AppSync 4.5 Features Overview

Deeper Platform Support
- Dell PowerStore
  - Enhanced file support

PowerStore File Support
- VMware datastores hosted on NFS file system
- VMware virtual disks on NFS file system
No Remote Support (Silver or Gold Service Plans)
No repurposing

Dell PowerMax
- Enhanced file & NVMe device support

NVMe expanded device support
- PowerMax with OS 5978.669.669+
- Previous releases only supported physical Linux hosts
- Support for datastores on NVMe devices & applications residing on vDisk carved from datastores on Linux virtual machines
- Support for VM restore of Linux VM on datastore created on NVMe devices
- Copy of production NVMe luns can be mounted to SCSI lun host or NVMe lun host
- Restrictions / Limitations
- Mix of SCSI and NVMe devices in same Service Plan is not supported
- Veritas volume manager / VxVM will not be supported
- VMware RDM devices will not be supported

PowerMax
File Support

Oracle standalone & RAC database can be hosted on NFS file systems
- Linux and AIX
Unix applications residing on virtual disks carved from NFS file datastores supported
Local repurpose workflow supported for Oracle, SAP HANA, and filesystems.

Not supported
- No Windows applications
- No remote copy support (Silver and Gold Service Plans/Repurposing)
- SAP HANA scale out configuration with combination of file (shared filesystem) and block (data and log location) devices is not supported

Dell PowerFlex

PowerFlex version 4.0 supported
- All current AppSync use cases supported with 4.0
- AppSync 4.4.x and lower not supported with 4.0

Application Integration

Containers: Support applications in Kubernetes

What is Kubernetes / K8s?
- Open-source container orchestration system

Requirements to use with AppSync
- Kubernetes service account and token
- Velero & AppSync plugin on all nodes of K8S cluster
  - Automatically pulled from docker hub (https://hub.docker.com/r/dellemc/appsync-velero)
  - Velero collects metadata of the namespace, used later to mount the copy and deploy the namespace
- PowerFlex with CSI driver
Supported use cases:
- Creation of local copies (protection and repurposing) of namespaces for PowerFlex volumes only

Volume or volume group snapshots

Kubernetes Service Plan storage options

Can specify preference of volume group snapshots

Volume group CRD must be installed on K8s cluster

Kubernetes cluster on RHEL or SLES 15
- Baremetal k8s & Red Hat openshift supported
Default application templates – MS SQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, PostgreSQL
- Create customized templates to support other configurations/databases

Copies can be mounted to original or alternate Kubernetes / K8s cluster

Not supported:
- AppSync restore use case

Application Integration Improvements – Container support – Kubernetes

Application Templates
- Allows AppSync to create application consistent copy of application running on pods inside of namespace
- Allows users to run application actions on a set of pods by specifying labels and order
  - Pre copy command for freezing
  - Post copy command to unfreeze
  - Post export command to perform recovery operations

2 types
- Built-in templates
- Custom templates

Create a copy of a Kubernetes cluster / namespace

Application Options

Running Service Plan and log output

Mounting a copy

Repurposing workflow

Advanced Settings for Kubernetes / K8s

CLI functionality for Kubernetes / K8s

Application Integration Improvements – Microsoft SQL – Services with GMSA account AppSync now supports SQL deployment with GMSA accounts
- No code change