VDR replicate over slow WAN link using RSYNC

[aususer]

I'm a noobie with VDR - however am currently using Rsync between two NAS's to get corporate data and SQL logs over to our DR site.

I want to float an idea to the community: if I replicate (with rsync) the backups written to my production CIFS NAS over to our DR site's NAS - can we use this for restoration?

Current Config:

Production site has VDR on vSphere4 - saving data to our production CIFS/FTP NAS.

DR site is warm (eg.server running but no VM's running) and also has a DR CIFS/FTP NAS (of similar config).

Every 15 minutes any files saved in certain folders of the production NAS are replicated to the DR NAS.

I'd expect that the VDR config for the DR site would be seperate/different to that of the production site - and would need to be configured to point at the DR NAS -

but once done. can I tell it to restore the latest backup using it?

I expect that some type of refresh or re-index would probably have to occur on the DR VDR to learn what has/hasn't been backed up but cannot find any details how to go about this?

Secondly, if this is the case - can it be scheduled to automatically occur (daily?) so I can can be "sure" that the DR site is ready to start when needed?

Lastly, Even better would be any recent backup is automatically restored to DR when it appears - and essentially replicate my environment (but I will manually accept doing this for now.).

Note: I don't want to write directly from Production VDR to the DR NAS... Its logical to me to keep a local backup in production and a copy at DR.

Am I looking at VDR in the wrong way here?

Should I further investigate the ESXPress "replication' option instead?

As you can probably tell - I have VDR backing up data to the production NAS but haven't installed VDR at DR or enacted the RSYNC until I get your opinions and comments.

Mike

[gusverde]

Mike,

I have not tested that, but it should work. All the information needed for a restore is on the deduplicated store, so if your VDR appliance crashes, you can just reinstall it and point it to the deduplicated store and you can restore from there.

So, if you have a copy of the deduplicated store at the DR site you should be able to point the VDR to it and restore from there, and I think there is no reindexing needed.

As for automatically restoring to the DR site, I don't think that is possible yet.

I am thinking about setting it up the same way and would be interested in knowing if it works for you.

Thanks

Gus

[aususer]

Thanks for that response(s).. the more I think about it the more I believe it might work - I can tell a few people have looked at this - but not yet tried it... so we could be breaking new ground here (why do I always seem to be doing this!?! I must be a cash-tight!).. none the less it does seem like a great way to get a DR site replication to work!

At this stage I still need to establish exactly how much data/changes is being replicated (eg the difference between backups) obviously the more often I backup - the less the likely "changes" per backup. Hopefully it doesn't blow out my bandwidth budget.

I am still trying to get my head around the techinicalities of a "second configuration" of VDR.. The way I see it - I will need a second VDR appliance at VDR to RUN the restores... however I am having difficulties understanding how that would pick up a DIFFERENT "destinations" folder than the production site.. The only way I could see this is to have a completely seperate/different vCenter setup at DR - and treat it as a completly DIFFERENT site... (ie. manage it via vSphere Client for DR to do restores.... or... you cannot manage DR and Production with the one vCenter) - aside from windows licensing - that is no biggie... but just a concept I am grasping to understand.

I will fiddle some more and maybe we all meet in the middle..

[kdc]

We are also going to be RSYNC'ing our Datastore to a off site location soon. I will update this topic if we have any issues.

But it should work fine as the previous poster said. As long as you have the data store you can just point your VDR appliance in the DR and restore.

[ian4563]

As I understand it, you cannot backup or otherwise copy the dedupe store if it is "in use" by backup or integrity check and have a consistent, reliable copy. Since there is no way to schedule when the integrity check runs I don't think your idea is possible.