HP StorageWorks B-series Remote Replication Solution

To protect data and processes from major regional disasters like earthquakes, fires or large-scale power outages, your organization needs remote replication of data to a secondary site outside the “circle of disaster.”

Replicating data represents the most effective insurance against system downtime and data loss. The HP StorageWorks B-series Remote Replication solution is a unique integration of hardware, software, network architectures and services that provides an optimized infrastructure platform for business continuity to:

• Minimize risk
• Increase solution availability
• Lower costs

The B-series Remote Replication Solution integrates the following elements:

• HP StorageWorks enterprise storage array systems, including HP StorageWorks XP Disk Arrays and HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Arrays
• Data replication array-based software
• B-series switches and directors
• B-series multi-protocol routers
• Network architectures and best practices
• Optional HP services

Factoring in your scalability, availability, distance, cost and throughput requirements, the architecture of the B-series Remote Replication Solution is defined by these three interrelated elements:

Fabric Architecture

Three main topologies can be implemented with various director/switch combinations depending on the size of the SAN and the availability level required:

• Two fabric architecture—used for the low-end of the spectrum with lower throughput and server connectivity levels, specifically smaller SANs
• Five fabric architecture—used when larger scalability is required, and for I/O write intensive situations
• Six fabric architecture—used when the highest availability level is required

By using directors and the virtual fabric capabilities, the physical configuration can be reduced to fewer elements to drive additional simplification and ease of maintenance

SAN extension technology

The choice is largely a function of the distance requirements. Multiple alternatives are supported:

• Native Fibre Channel—This choice is based on direct extension using long wave small form pluggable (SFPs). Distance support is dependant on the sfp range, but is usually below 30-50 KM.
• Native Fibre Channel with Wave Length Multiplexing (WDM)—Data replication utilizing WDM (either DWDM or CWDM) through an existing optical metropolitan area network (MAN), which can handle multiple protocols
• Extension over FCIP: Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) is a primary technology for data replication over the IP WAN. The biggest advantage of an FCIP solution is the removal of distance as a limitation. The overall cost of an FCIP solution is also lower, making FCIP-based replication a competitive solution, typically over longer distances.

MP-Router configuration

For the specific case of extension over FCIP, two Router/FCIP extension models are available in the B-series:

• HP 400 MPR—providing the flexibility and affordability of a standalone device
• MP-Router Blade—offered as an option for the SAN Director to provide SAN extension with the  high availability attributes of the director platform

The two router models can be implemented in symmetric or asymmetric (mixed router types) configurations depending on cost and availability targets.