REMOTE REPLICATION

Rashi Kanungo
Digvijay Singh Rajawat
Shivani Vashi
Backup

• Backup refers to the copying of physical or virtual files or databases to a secondary

location for preservation in case of equipment failure or catastrophe. The process of
backing up data is pivotal to a successful disaster recovery plan.
• Backups capture and synchronize a point-in-time snapshot that is then used to return data
to its previous state.
• Backup and recovery testing examines an organization's practices and technologies for
data security and data replication. The goal is to ensure rapid and reliable data retrieval
should the need arise. The process of retrieving backed-up data files is known as file
restoration.
Backup Purposes

• Disaster Recovery
• The backup copies are used for restoring data at an alternate site when the primary site
is incapacitated due to a disaster. 
• Based on recovery-point objective (RPO) and recovery-time objective (RTO)
requirements, organizations use different data protection strategies for disaster recovery. 
• Organizations with stringent RPO and RTO requirements use remote replication
technology to replicate data to a disaster recovery site.
• Operational Recovery
• Backups are used to restore data if data loss or logical corruption occurs during routine
processing. 
• The majority of restore requests in most organizations fall in this category. 
 • Archival
• Backups are also performed to
address archival requirements. 
• Traditional backups are used by small
and medium enterprises for long-term
Backup Purposes preservation of transaction records, e-
mail messages, and other business
records required for regulatory
compliance.
What is Remote
Replication
• Remote replication is the process of copying
production data to a device at a remote
location for data protection or disaster
recovery purposes.
• Remote replication is an essential part of data
protection, providing a backup in case the
primary site fails.
• Data is simply copied to other locations that
may be simple data storage servers or fully
capable secondary backup systems that kick in
if the primary system fails.
Modes of Remote Replication

Synchronous Asynchronou
Replication s Replication
Synchronous Replication

• Writes must be committed to the source and remote replica, i.e., the target, prior to
acknowledging "write complete" to the host.
• Additional writes on the source cannot occur until each preceding write has been
completed and acknowledged. 
• This ensures that data is always identical on the source and the replica.
• Further, writes are transmitted to the remote site exactly in the order in which they are
received at the source. 
• Therefore, write ordering is maintained.
• Synchronous remote replication provides zero or near-zero recovery-point objective (RPO)
whenever a source-site failure occurs.
Synchronous Replication
1. The host writes data to the source.
2. Data from the source is replicated to the target at
a remote site.
3. The target acknowledges back to the source.
4. The source acknowledges write complete to the
host.
Asynchronous Replication

• Asynchronous replication is a data storage backup technique where data is not

immediately backed up during or immediately after the primary storage acknowledges
write complete, but rather done over a period. 
• This method results in a system with good performance and lesser bandwidth
requirement, but the backups are not immediately available if something happens to the
primary storage.
Asynchronous
Replication
• The host writes data to the source.
• The write is immediately acknowledged to
the host. 
• Data is transmitted to the target at a remote
site later. 
• The target acknowledges back to the source
 • A storage area network (SAN) is a
dedicated, independent high-speed
network that interconnects and delivers
shared pools of storage devices to multiple
servers.
Storage Area • Each server can access shared storage as if
it were a drive directly attached to the
Network (SAN) server.
• A SAN is typically assembled with cabling,
host bus adapters, and SAN switches
attached to storage arrays and servers.
• Each switch and storage system on the
SAN must be interconnected.
Current scenario of SAN

• The tremendous expansion of storage area networks created new technologies for SAN
management and administration. 
• Today, SAN administrators more than ever face the challenges of the fast-growing rates of
specific data repositories that require reliable data replication with failover and failback
network systems. 
• Migration of virtual machines “live”, without interruption of service is only possible if SAN
is available at 100% of the time. 
• Virtualized SANs increase return-on-investment (ROI) while providing effective solutions
for storage replication, disaster recovery and business continuity. 
RTO
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the duration of time and a service level within which a
business process must be restored after a disaster in order to avoid unacceptable
consequences associated with a break in continuity.
• The RTO metric determines how long you can be down until your systems are recovered.
• RTO can be minimized, and systems may achieve 100% availability If all remote storage
targets are kept synchronized at all times.
RPO
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the interval of time that might pass during a disruption
before the quantity of data lost during that period exceeds the Business Continuity Plan’s
maximum allowable threshold or "tolerance".
• RPO designates the variable amount of data that will be lost or will have to be re-entered
during network downtime.
• An RPO is enabled by setting the desired data backup frequency, such that there is always
a backup available that fits within the duration of time the loss tolerance allows for.
Synchronous Vs.
Asynchronous
• Most synchronous replication products write data to
primary storage and the replica simultaneously. On the
other hand, asynchronous replication products copy the
data to the replica after the data is already written to the
primary storage.
• RPO is zero for synchronous replication while in case of
asynchronous replication it may be small, depending on the
network performance and storage systems availability.
• Both of these processes have their pros and
cons. Synchronous replication requires higher investment
rates but provides zero recovery time. Distance limitations
practically do not exist for asynchronous replication.
 Campus
SAN-
Denver
Health
Deployment
Campus SAN- Denver Health Deployment

• Denver Health paired two technologies – virtualization of servers, using VMware’s ESX
High Availability and LeftHand Synchronous replication of remote storage 36 SAN/iQ Multi-
Site/Campus SAN. 
• According to David Boone, the Operations and Planning Manager of Denver Health, the
institution saved about $260,000 (running about 100 servers on 6 ESX machines) and
“users don’t notice when we’re testing”. 
• Denver Health implemented synchronous replication of storage via low latency Gigabit
Ethernet connection between two remote sites that are several blocks away with failover
and failback systems and with physical separation of storage clusters. 
• For Denver Health, simplicity of DR management, SAN reliability and scalability alone with
direct saving on hardware resulted from the integration of server and storage
virtualization. 
 Virtualization of Storage

• A virtual storage area network (SAN) is a software-based component that provides a

virtualized 'pool' of storage to multiple virtual machines (VMs) and applications.
• Server virtualization has rapidly advanced to the level where network storage systems must
be available at 100% of time and provide reliability, manageability and scalability. 
• For example - VMware’s Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3), Distributed Resource Scheduling
(DRS), High Availability (HA), Enhanced HA and Distributed Power Management (DMP).
These are some of the essential technologies provided by VI3. 
• Types: FC-based, IP-based, Ethernet-based.
SAN/iQ

• LeftHand SAN/iQ provides enterprise-class storage area network (SAN) services using
standard Ethernet technologies and infrastructure. SAN/iQ distributes virtualization
intelligence on storage modules across the network.
• Once the Primary Site is down, it automatically fails over a low-latency Ethernet
connection to the Recovery Site. After the operations of the Primary site are restored,
SAN/iQ acknowledges the response from the Primary site and fails the network storage
back from the Recovery Site.
• SAN/iQ provides highly scalable solutions while SAN management is simple with increase
in reliability. 
Limitations of With a successful deployment of virtualized IP SANs, remote
replication and disaster recovery become extremely
SAN/iQ based simplified and reliable.

synchronous  However, according to LefthandNetworks, there are certain

limitations for SAN/iQ-based synchronous replication
replication deployment:
1) low latency (2ms), 
2) high bandwidth,
3) distance up to 20 miles
 • Synchronous replication of storage has
progressed to the level where virtualized
SANs increase return-on-investment (ROI)
while providing effective solutions for
storage replication, disaster recovery and
business continuity.
• The biggest advantages of virtualization
Conclusion technology of storage are the effective use
of resources, availability, scalability and
manageability.
• IP SANs, specifically SAN/iQ, provide highly
scalable solutions while SAN management
is simple with increase in reliability.  
References • Timur Mirzoev, "Synchronous replication of remote
storage", Journal of Communication and Computer, ISSN
1548-7709, USA, Mar. 2009, Volume 6, No.3 (Serial No.52).
• Kazuo Goda, Masaru Kitsuregawa, "Power-aware Remote
Replication for Enterprise-level Disaster Recovery
Systems", Institute of Industrial Science, the University of
Tokyo, Japan{kgoda,kitsure}@tkl.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
• Katembo Kituta Ezechiel, Dr. Ruchi Agarwal, Dr. Baijnath
Kaushik, "Synchronous and Asynchronous
Replication", International Journal of Scientific Research in
Computer Science, Engineering and Information
Technology, 2017, Volume 2, Issue 7, ISSN : 2456-3307.