VNX Application Protection Suite Fundamentals

Welcome to VNX Application Protection Suite Fundamentals.
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VNX Application Protection Suite Fundamentals
This course covers an introduction of the VNX Application Protection Suite, its deployment
benefits, and its application on business environments. The course provides an overview of
the architecture, features, and functionality of each product that is part of the VNX
Application Protection Suite.
This module covers an overall introduction of the software solution packs that are offered for
VNX storage systems family, and focuses on the VNX Application Protection Suite, and its
component products.
The module also discusses the benefits of deploying the products of the VNX Application
Protection Suite, and how the use of the suite in IT environments can fulfill business
compliance and technical requirements.
These are all of the software suites available for the VNX series array. Each one of these
suites contains a unique set of solutions to improve efficiency by simplifying and automating
many storage tasks.
This training will focus on the Application Protection Suite. The Application Protection Suite
is used for protecting and repurposing application data by creating consistent local and
remote file and block replicas.
The Application Protection Suite is part of the Total Protection Pack and the Total Efficiency
Pack. The Total Efficiency pack contains all of the software suites while the Total Protection
Pack only contains the protections suites.
The Application Protection Suite simplifies and automates the creation and management of
application-consistent copies and proves customers can recover data to defined service
levels.
The Application Protection Suite includes Replication Manager, EMC AppSync, and Data
Protection Advisor for Block Replication.
Replication Manager is a data protection software that delivers point-and-click replica
management for instant restore back to production, creating a gold copy of production
data for instant restore should a corruption occur.
EMC AppSync is an application-level data protection management solution for Exchange, SQL
or VMware environments which targets the compliance with service level agreements (SLAs).
Data Protection Advisor for Block Replication is a solution that tracks all replicas on a
protected environment, and detects recoverability gaps, providing alerts and reports when a
recovery point objective (RPO) may be compromised.
This course covers in details all these software components that are included in the
Application Protection Suite.
The VNX Application Protection software Suite simplifies and automates the creation, management,
and use of point-in-time replicas (snapshots, clones, mirrors) of supported application data.
Replication Manager supports application consistent copies of VMware, Microsoft Exchange, SQL
Server, SharePoint, and Oracle, custom file systems, and more, for assured recovery.
AppSync supports application consistent copies of Microsoft Exchange 2010 & 2013, and SQL 2008
& 2012 databases.
User-assignable replication privileges provide five levels of access, ideal for both array managers and
application administrators to manage their own replicas.
The suite replication software integrates with other EMC replication technology for VNX such as
RecoverPoint, SnapView, SnapSure, Replicator, VNX Snapshots, and SAN Copy, to deliver enhanced
and simplified automation.
The suite provides visibility of the recovery points in the environment (local and remote snaps, clones
and real-time replication) and identification of issues that can be fixed.
AppSync uses monitoring, alerting and reporting for RPO violations and service plan failures.
- It generates reports that tell the customer whether the data is protected, recoverable, and
compliant with service level agreements (SLA).
Data Protection Advisor for Replication Analysis provides improved recovery confidence by
providing
- Identification of remote replication lag to set alerts based on defined thresholds

- Fast remediation of recovery gaps and failures
- Integrated reporting to enable customers to prove compliance with protection policies
The VNX Application Protection Suite provides solutions that enable IT professionals to seamlessly
address multiple use cases.
Listed here is a generic view of the use cases for the Application Protection Suite.
Business continuity provides operational recovery that coexist with disaster recovery features.
Observe that tiered application recovery time objective (RTO) and Recovery point objective (RPOs)
service level agreements are met, while ensuring best practices are used for application-consistent
replicas.
Data protection : Easily create replicas for backup acceleration to offload production environments
and virtually eliminate backup windows, ensure SLA-driven application protection in physical and
virtualized environments, perform easy instant restore from most recent backup or replica, and the
ability to remote copy.
Data repurposing : Create copies of production data for development, test, simulation, and
reporting, software upgrades and Quality Assurance (QA) applications, Data warehouse queries, or
other non-production activities.
Auditing : Completion of an analysis of the environment in a reduced time. Data losses (due to
outages) can be avoided with the identification of gaps before a failure occurs. Systems can then
recover as designed, limiting down time and the associated impact to the business. The achievement
of service level agreement (SLA) can be reported to the customer automatically. Also, redundant or
unused replicas as well as orphaned volumes, can be identified and the storage capacity consumed
can be reclaimed.
Disaster Recovery Testing: Reduce time and effort spent with periodic disaster recovery tests by
automatically finding gaps, thus eliminating related costs.
Information lifecycle management: Moves copies of less frequently accessed production data to
lower-cost storage.
This module covered an overall introduction of the software solution packs that are offered
for VNX storage systems family, with the focus on the VNX Application Protection Suite, and
its component products.
The module also discussed the benefits of deploying the products of the VNX Application
Protection Suite, and how the use of the suite in IT environments can fulfill business
compliance and technical requirements.
This module covers an overview of the Replication Manager solution, its architecture and
components, with focus on its application in environments that involve supported databases
stored in VNX arrays.
The module will also explain Replication Manager key features and functionality, and provide
a brief description of the operations that involve the management of the replicas.
Replication Manager provides the automation and application awareness for EMC point-intime replication technology in physical and virtual environments.
Replication Manager is designed to manage and automate snaps, clones, and Continuous
Data Protection (CDP) replicas for EMCs point-in-time replication products on VNX storage
systems and Symmetrix VMAX storage arrays.
It provides a point-and-click management for SnapView, MirrorView, SAN Copy, SnapSure,
and Replicator, as well as the TimeFinder family and RecoverPoint.
Replication Manager is part of the Application Protection Suite for both VNX and VNXe
Arrays.
Replication Manager manage replicas from the context of the application by placing them in
a known state prior to taking a replica; essentially creating consistency for supported
Microsoft, Oracle, and DB2 UDB applications.
Replication Manager auto-discovers the environment (application host, associated storage,
and underlying replication technology) and maps applications on the host to the underlying
storage infrastructure to ensure it knows the location of the production database prior to
taking a replica.
The Replication Manager Administrator, who can perform all the functions within Replication
Manager, has the ability to delegate replication tasks to others within the organization
through various user roles with varying degrees of privileges. This eliminates the need of
scripting activities thereby improving the efficiency of the Replication Manager administrator.
A single management console with wizards for ease of use provides quick visualization of all
replicas and eliminates the need for error-prone scripting.
VNX Application Protection Suite Fundamentals 10
A typical Replication Manager environment is made up of three major components:

The Replication Manager Server is a windows-based software that can be installed on physical as
well as VMware ESX Server Windows guest operating systems. It controls replication jobs and
stores data about each replica. The Replication Manager Server software has two distinct
components:
The Replication Manager Server controls and coordinates replication and recovery activities
for all the storage corresponding to its registered agents and their application sets. The
Replication Manager Server also handles all requests from the console.
The Replication Manager Database is an embedded data repository that stores data about
application sets, jobs, and replicas (these components are defined on the next slide).
A Replication Manager Agent runs on each of the hosts that participates in the replication
process, including hosts that manage production data and mount hosts. Production servers can
run Windows, UNIX, and Linux operating systems on physical or virtualized hosts. The Replication
Manager Agent software has three distinct components:
The Replication Manager Agent software waits for incoming connections from the
Replication Manager Server, and then coordinates all operations on the agent.
Storage Services software manages the storage relationships between the agent and the
storage array where the replica resides.
Application Agents for each supported information interface; each agent is separate,
executable, and dynamically loaded with Replication Manager at runtime. There are various
flavors of the agent component, depending on the application being replicated. The following
agents are available: Oracle, SAP, DB2 UDB (Universal Database), Exchange, SQL server, and
Sharepoint .
The Replication Manager Console is a GUI component that is installed on any Windows or Solaris
workstation or laptop with a TCP/IP connection to the Replication Manager Server.
Replication Manager common terms and its definitions are listed here. Please take a moment
to pause and read through them all.
Replication Manager operations include job configuration and replica-related operations.

Before a replication job can be run, the customer must define an application set to be
replicated. Optionally, a storage pool can be created to define the free storage used to hold
the replica.
Next, the customer set the permissions level with access control lists (ACLs).
Then the customer can create a job.
The next step is to run the job to create the replica. Replicas can be scheduled or run on
demand.
After the replica is created the customer can perform any of the tasks listed in the
Operations panel in the slide.
Additionally the additional configurations can be performed to enhance the replica process:
E-mail Job Notification: Email notification can be configured for a job, with the email
address for the person responsible. By default, job notification is for every run of the job
but notifications can be set to be sent on failures only. Note: The email service depends on
the Windows Internet Information Services being setup correctly on the Replication
Manager Server.
Pre-replication scripts: Scripts can be used to run on the production host before
Replication Manager creates the replica. This script is used to prepare the application(s) on
the production host for replication processing.
Post replication scripts: Scripts can be used to run on the production host after Replication
Manager has finished creating the replica. This script is typically used to perform tasks that
return the production applications to normal processing.
Replication Manager security standards are in accordance with EMCs security policy. The
Replication Manager Administrator login is used to define logins and passwords for each user
and assign Replication Manager roles. Replication Manager has a mandatory password
change for the Administrator password at first login.
The level of privileges each user has is defined by the roles they are assigned to. Although
some objects such as hosts, and storage are shared, users own the objects they create, such
as application sets, tasks, replicas and schedules.
When installing Replication Manager Agent software the administrator has the option to set
either the Secure Client mode or Standard Client mode (which is the default). The Standard
Client mode does not require a user to specify a username and password to perform secure
operations. The Secure Client mode requires the user to enter valid user credentials in order
to perform operations such as pre/post replication scripts, mount scripts, or backup scripts.
Replication Manager Administrators can also set security options for the Replication
Manager Server, which allows them to audit their operations by logging certain Replication
Manager activities to the Windows Application Event log.
Replication Manager allows the Replication Manager Administrator to assign replication

tasks to others within the organization through various user roles with varying degrees of
privileges:
Operator: Has limited privileges to execute existing jobs to which the user has been
given access, schedule those jobs, and view properties associated with application
sets to which they have been given access.
Power User: Has all privileges of the Operator role, as well as privileges to configure
new application sets and jobs.
Database Administrator: Has all privileges of the Power User role, but also has the
rights necessary to restore a replica created by a job to which they have access.
Power Database Administrator: Has all the privileges of the Database Administrator
role, but also has rights necessary to configure storage pools.
EMC Replication Manager Administrator: Can perform every function available

within Replication Manager, such as register new hosts, add and modify users,
include and exclude storage, and access all components without restrictions.
Replication Manager offers flexibility for creating replication jobs. Within Replication
Manager, it is possible to create specialized replication jobs that will run only after another
job or use the replica created by one job as the source for another replication job.
This slide introduces the Copy Job feature.
A Copy job allows a specified job to use a replica created by another job as its source. The
copy job cannot run unless its source replica was created successfully.
This slide introduces the Link Job feature.

A Link job allows a specified job to start as soon as another job has finished. The Replication
Manager wizard provides the ability to choose the application set and then the job
associated with that application set. This allows the selection of any job to link to the current
job. If the first job fails, the second job of a linked set still runs.
Note: If the job been linked to a second source job is already a linked copy job it cannot be
linked to another job.
This slide introduces the Linked/Copy Job feature.

A Linked/Copy job combines linking and copying so that one job runs, creates a replica, and
then a second job starts as soon as the first job completes. The second job uses the replica
created by the first job as its source.
The Replication Manager Server DR feature allows an administrator to bring a Replication

Manager Server online on a secondary failover host when the primary host becomes
unavailable due to any failure which prevents the use of the original RM Server or its internal
database. Unlike the Microsoft Cluster DR solution, which uses a shared disk, this DR option
has disks that are local and not shared to the hosts participating. It uses the Replication
Manager Solid databases replication feature to forward any writes from the primary RM
Server to the secondary RM Server.
When the failover occurs the internal database of the secondary RM server is promoted from
read-only to read/write. Once the primary RM server becomes available again, its internal
database is changed to read-only state, and synchronized with the internal database on the
secondary RM server. After the synchronization, it is possible to failback to the original host.
The disaster recovery feature is supported for all storage and application environments
except those in which the production servers are running Oracle databases.
Replication Manager supports Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 and SP2.
The typical use cases of Replication Managers support for SharePoint are:
Non-invasive backup: The creation of replicas of large SharePoint farms with hundreds of
gigabytes to terabytes of data with minimum impact to the production. These replicas can
then be used for restoring content databases or for making offline backups.
Disaster recovery: Replication Manager quiesces all relevant components of the farm in
an application-consistent manner so that the replica can be used for a full farm restore.
Replication Manager supports the replication of SharePoint farms residing on one or more
VNX storage arrays using SnapView clones and snaps, as well as SAN Copy (VNX to VNX)
replication technology.
The SharePoint writer tells Replication Manager about all the hosts within the farm with
content to replicate. Replication Manager then coordinates the process to create a replica of
the SharePoint farm and will mount as well as restore the SharePoint content databases.
Replication Manager supports full farm restore and content database restores for SharePoint
2007. For SharePoint 2010, restore is supported at the content database level.
In this scenario, Replication Manager, is used to quickly and easily replicate and recover
critical business data of a Microsoft SQL 2012 Business Intelligence (BI) solution stored on
EMC infrastructure. Business Intelligence (BI) technologies provide historical, current, and
predictive views of business operations and help the organizations with decisions.
The Application servers are deployed on virtual machines in the virtualized environment and
used for enterprise-class data warehousing.
The VMware ESXi hosts and their associated virtual machines are protected with vSphere
High Availability and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) clusters.
The VNX storage array services two SQL server instances and a small SharePoint Farm in a
virtualized environment running SQL server 2012 with Decision Support System (DSS)
workloads. A Decision Support System (DSS) supports business or organization decisionmaking activities.
EMC Replication Manager with EMC SnapView snap technology for SQL Server 2012 Data
Warehousing environments is used to protect the MS SQL from logical database
corruption. Replication Manager initiates application-consistent snapshots of the MS SQL
data on the VNX storage array.
In this scenario, Replication Manager, which is installed on a virtual machine, is used to

quickly and easily replicate and repurpose an Oracle Database on EMC infrastructure,
without any interference to the production environment. Replica databases are deployed on
virtual machines in the virtualized environment and can be used for test/dev purposes. In
this scenario replicas could be also used for quality assurance (QA), decision support, and
backup.
A standby database on the VNX array is used as the source for clone copies and the clone
copies are used for multiple, independent snap copies. All the clones and snaps are created
on the VNX storage array, and mounted to mount hosts in the virtual environment.
The solution described here uses the following Oracle components:

Oracle Real Application Clusters (or RAC) allows a more efficient management of data
using multiple database instances on different servers at the same time.
Oracle Data Guard is a feature of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition that ensures high
availability, protection and DR capabilities by providing one or more standby databases to
protect the production database from failures, disasters, errors, and corruption.
Oracle Hybrid Columnar Compression (or HCC) technology is a method for organizing data
within a database block. It achieves data compression benefits by using a combination of
both row and columnar methods for storing data.
In this scenario, Replication Manager, is used integrated with SAP BR (backup and recovery)
Tools solution to manage the online creation and mounting of replica volumes that can then
be used as a source for backup of SAP Application data.
In this solution, EMC Replication Manager creates snapshots of SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource
Planning) system production data within the VNX storage array, which allows administrators
to perform online backup operations without system downtime, and recovery operations
with minimal business disruption. Enterprise Resourcing Planning (ERP) systems are crossfunctional software modules that support the internal business processes of a company.
This solution uses EMC Networker with the Networker Module for SAP to automate the
online backup and recovery of the SAP Oracle database.
EMC Networker starts the online backup process with SAP BR Tools
SAP BRBACKUP calls EMC Replication Manager which uses VNX Snapsure to the create the
snapshots for the Oracle file systems
BRBACKUP then backup the snapshot file systems to the NL-SAS disks of the EMC VNX
This module covered an overview of the Replication Manager solution, its architecture and
The module also explained Replication Manager key features and functionality, and provided
a brief description of the operations that involve the management of the replicas.
This module covers an overview of the EMC AppSync solution, its architecture and
The module will also explain AppSync key features and functionality, and provide a brief
description of the operations that can be performed on the available management
interfaces.
EMC AppSync offers a simple, SLA-driven approach to protecting Microsoft and VMware
environments. It is designed to provide a better management of protection and replication for critical
applications and databases.
AppSync is recommended for mid-market companies who are considering to advance their ability to
offer assured self-service application protection for VNX Platforms. AppSync is supported by the VNX
Platforms and included with VNX Application Protection Suite, the VNX Total Protection Pack and the
VNX Total Efficiency Pack.
Simple to setup and use: The Unisphere-like interface and a lightweight deployment save time and
complexity in setting up array-based protection.
Tiered Service Plans: AppSync offers multiple, tiered service plans (Gold, Silver, Bronze) to manage
zero data loss with the leverage of RecoverPoint continuous and remote data protection, VNX
snapshots, VNX Replicator, and Snapsure technologies.
Self-service data protection: Application owners and virtualization teams can protect and restore
their own data, freeing time and resources for the storage administrator.
Data protection monitoring with RPO alerts: An application protection monitoring service allows the
verification of data before sending it off to disk or tape, and generates powerful RPO alerts if RPO
goals were exceeded, or if a replication job fails.
AppSync creates and manages application-consistent copies of Microsoft Exchange data and logs, SQL
Server databases, and of VMware datastores. EMC ItemPoint can be deployed to provide item level
granularity for Microsoft Exchange 2010 mailboxes.
Besides its major components (discussed on the next slide) AppSync has also a REST
(Representational state transfer) interface that allows application programmers to access information
controlled by AppSync.
Check the AppSync Support Matrix for updated information on supported versions of software and
platforms.
This diagram provides an overview of the AppSync solution architecture, showing the major
components and some of the supported replication technologies. AppSync components
include the AppSync server, the host plug-in software and the user interface.
AppSync Server: The AppSync server software resides on a supported Windows

system. It controls the service plans and stores data about each copy it creates. The
repository is stored in a PostgreSQL database on the AppSync server, which can be a
physical or virtual machine. Note: AppSync server must not be used as the Mount
Host because the server performance may be impacted by heavy I/O such as multiple
consistency checks on a large number of databases.
AppSync host plug-in: AppSync installs Lightweight plug-in software on the

production and mount hosts . AppSync pushes the plug-in software from the AppSync
server to a host that is added as a resource. The plug-in can also be manually installed
on the host, in environments that prevents the AppSync server from accessing a
hosts.
AppSync User Interface: The AppSync console is a web-based interface that shares
the same look and feel as the EMC Unisphere interface. Supported browsers are
Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox. Flash and Java Runtime Environment are
required. Note: Service providers might make their own interface through EMCs REST
full API.
EMC AppSync common terms and its definitions are listed here. Please take a moment to
pause and read through them all.
The AppSync operational process begins by categorizing and determining the RPO of
applications and defining a protection strategy for the application including the costs
associated with each category.
Next step is to select and deploy the appropriate technology and infrastructure within the
AppSync framework that leverages the goals of the service level agreements. The selected
protection technologies will align with the tiered service plans. This process involves the
installation of the AppSync server on the supported host and the AppSync host plug-in on
each of the Application servers. And adding the storage where application data resides to the
configuration.
Then begin to align the best-fit strategy the customer application protection goals to predefined AppSync service plan. Within AppSync we are able to subscribe application objects
to a service plan to begin data protection.
AppSync will discover the application objects on the respective servers.
Protection is started immediately for the object or scheduled.
A local or remote copy will be generated depending on the selected Tiered Service Plan.
The SLAs are monitored and alerts triggered when RPOs are not met.
The copies can be mounted, restored or repurposed and validated.
Additionally you can configure email alerts to an assigned e-mail address, and run pre-copy
and post-copy scripts.
AppSync can be configured to have multiple users. You can create users that are local to
AppSync, and optionally add users through an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
server which handles the authentication and authorization. Before users from an Active
Directory can be added, the Administrator must configure the AppSync server to access an
LDAP directory server and accept the certificate.
Each user can be assigned one or more roles that correspond to their responsibilities and
requirements. These roles are accumulative, not hierarchical.
Logged level of operations and events can be defined in the AppSync server as well as the log
file size.
The PostGreSQL database on the AppSync server can be protected by using a cold backup
procedure followed by a cold restore.
Roles determine the operations that a user can perform. The initial admin account has all
these roles.
These user roles are: security administrator, resource administrator, service plan
administrator, and data administrator.
Please take a moment to review these roles.
Security Administrator: Manage users that can login into AppSync.
Resource Administrator: Manage hosts, storage systems, VMware vCenter servers, and
RecoverPoint Sites.
Service Plan Administrator: Manage Service Plans.

Data Administrator: Manages the protection and recovery of data.
Database Availability Group (DAG) is a component of Exchange which provides automatic
database-level recovery from failures.
AppSync comes with pre-defined service plans to meet common SLAs for tiered standards or
classifications for Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), with
balancing business requirements and cost.
By default, Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and VMware VMFS datastores are protected
using three plans: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. These plans utilize block replication technologies
such as VNX Snapshots and RecoverPoint. Service plans run on a schedule but can be also
run on demand.
The service plans act as templates which can be modified to create new service plans with
more refined attributes.
These tiered service plans can be mapped to the best-fit protection technology. The
AppSync service plans can be supported by VNX Advanced Snapshot point-in-time copies or
RecoverPoints continuous data protection either locally, remotely or both with multiple
recovery points to restore applications to a specific point in time with unlimited snapshots
and protection from logical corruption or disaster recovery.
In addition, each service plan follows a specific workflow e process containing various phases
(e.g. discover, copy, mount, validate, unmount) and allows considerable room for various
custom stages and scripts as part of the plan.
AppSync automates the underlying complexity and coordination of implementation of

service plans. The phases and polices of a service plan for protection, repurposing, and
recovery can intuitively be constructed with AppSync management wizards.
Objects can be assigned to existing service plan or a service plan created from a template to
better align with the RPO demands for a certain object.
A service plan can be scheduled or run on-demand, and the recurrence defined.
AppSync is application aware by synchronizing application protection with the dynamic

movement of applications and data within virtual environments. Protection method is
mapped with the associated application according to the chosen service plan.
For example, with application awareness for Exchange 2013 Database Availability Groups
(DAG) AppSync discovers the active node and can replicate the active or passive database.
Based on the AppSync Service plan settings, copies can then be mounted to Mount hosts to
run consistency checks.
AppSync will automatically quiesce the application.
Resource administrators can enable self-service service plans for application owners to
protect, restore, and repurpose their production data with any granularity and without
involving IT departments or through administrative processes.
Application owners login to AppSync and see only their service plans.
The application owners have the Data Administrator role and can perform any of the
following operations:
Configure Exchange on a host
Discover Exchange databases on a host
Configure SQL Server on a host

Discover SQL Server instances on a host
Subscribe data to a service plan
Remove some or all data from a subscription
Specify override settings for subscribed data
Select DAG member server and copy for protection
Create a copy on demand
Run a Service plan
Mount a copy
Restore a copy
It is possible to create and manage copies of VMware datastores with the EMC VSI for
VMware vSphere: AppSync Management plug-in.
Virtual server administrators would launch the product through VMware vCenter using
EMCs AppSync add-on to the Virtual Storage Integrator. The VSI plug-in can be used to
perform some functions and it is not intended to replace the AppSync GUI.
The client plug-in provides VMware vSphere datastore with the following capabilities:
Configure service plans
Mount, unmount, and restore a datastore copy
Setting Virtual Machine consistency in the service plan

Setting the port specification when registering different version of AppSync server
credentials for VSI
With the release of the version 1.5, AppSync provides native management of VMware
Datacenter protection. The VSI AM plug-in is still available but not required. If VMware
administrators want to use it in conjunction with AppSync 1.5, the version 5.5 of the VSI AM
is needed.
The plug-in is available as a separate download from the AppSync Online Support page at
support.EMC.com.
AppSync uses monitoring, alerting and reporting for RPO violations and service plan
failures. AppSync records the last time a good copy of the application was made.
If AppSync identifies a failure during one of the processes, it will display a fault condition in
the health dashboard and also send an email alert that shows this failure.
AppSync generates reports that tell the customer whether the data is protected, recoverable,
and compliant with service level agreements.
The reports included with AppSync work without modification.
AppSync can export reports to comma-separated value format.
Alerts and reports can be easily viewed at the top level of the AppSync dashboard.
Alerts can be sent in e-mail.
This diagram depicts a high-level configuration of a deployed and validated Microsoft Exchange 2010
solution on VMware vSphere virtualization platform and EMC VNX OE (Operating Environment) for
Block storage configuration.
The VMware ESXi hosts and their associated virtual machines are protected with vSphere High
Availability and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) clusters.
EMC AppSync with VNX Snapshots technology is used to protect Exchange from logical database
corruption. AppSync initiates application-consistent snapshots of Exchange data on the VNX
storage array. AppSync discovers the active node and can replicate the active or passive database.
Optionally EMC ItemPoint for Microsoft Exchange Server software can be deployed to provide
Application owners quick data recovery with item-level granularity.
NOTE: AppSync supports the protection of both Microsoft Exchange 2010 and 2013 applications,
however ItemPoint is only supported on Exchange 2010 environments.
The solution described in this slide is comprised of some Exchange components:
Client Access Server (CAS) is a distinct server role that accepts connections to the Exchange 2010
server from different clients: Outlook Web App, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync client applications,
POP3 IMAP4 connections. It must be installed in every Exchange organization and every Active
Directory site that has Mailbox servers installed.
Database Availability Group (DAG) is an Exchange 2010 base component that provides high
availability and site resilience. A DAG can contain up to 16 Mailbox servers that hosts a set of
databases and provides automatic database-level recovery from failures that affect individual
databases. Mailbox servers in a DAG monitor each other for failures.
Exchange Load Generator (LoadGen) is a simulation tool to measure the impact of MAPI, OWA,
IMAP, POP and SMTP clients on Exchange servers. The tool is run on client computers to simulate
the delivery of multiple messaging requests to Exchange servers, thereby causing a mail load. It is
a useful tool for administrators who are sizing servers and validating a deployment plan.
This diagram depicts a high-level scenario of a production site with a SQL server and EMC
VNX array configured to provide storage volumes to the application server databases.
The production data is been protected locally for QA and testing, and the remote replicas
used for disaster recovery.
EMC AppSync with RecoverPoint technology is used to protect the production
databases from logical corruption.
AppSync initiates the replication of the volumes locally using RecoverPoint/CDP, and uses
the local replica as the source for a remote replication using RecoverPoint/CRR.
Based on the AppSync Service plan settings, copies can then be mounted to the Mount
hosts.
This diagram depicts a high-level scenario of a VMware vSphere virtualized environment with
EMC VNX storage arrays configured to provide NFS datastores to VMware vSphere ESXi hosts.
The VMware ESXi hosts and their associated virtual machines are protected with vSphere
High Availability and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) clusters.
EMC AppSync with VNX Replicator technology is used to protect the VMware vSphere NFS
datastores from logical corruption. AppSync initiates the replication of the files systems to
the remote VNX storage array using VNX Replicator. Based on the AppSync Service plan
settings, copies can then be mounted to the Mount hosts.
Replication Manager is currently the best way to provide application protection for
enterprise EMC environments especially for support of Oracle, DB2 and SAP applications.
With a mid-range enterprise focus AppSync is different from Replication Manager in that it
uses the concept of protection policies which are designed to meet specific service level
requirements. The protection policies are fully customizable and can be applied to the
customer production data with a single click.
As a result, AppSync is easy to use for applications administrators as well as storage
administrators, because the user does not have to be knowledgeable in data replication
technology.
And both products can coexist together.
Solutions Enabler is a software kit that provides special command set to access
Symmetrix/VNX storage.
In some cases, a combination of AppSync and Replication Manager is required in order to

satisfy multiple use cases and applications.
AppSync and Replication Manager can use the same storage array, as long as they are
protecting different hosts, servers or virtual machines.
AppSync host plug-in and Replication Manager clients cannot be installed on the same
server.
Although AppSync supports Exchange 2013, at this time, AppSync can only restore individual
Exchange 2010 mailboxes and messages when EMC ItemPoint for MS Exchange is installed.
This module covered an overview of the EMC AppSync solution, its architecture and
The module also explained AppSync key features and functionality, and provided a brief
description of the operations that can be performed on the available management
interfaces.
This module covers an overview of the Data Protection Advisor (DPA) for Replication
solution, its architecture and components, with focus on its application in environments that
involve supported replicas of VNX storage volumes.
The module will also explain Data Protection Advisor key features and functionality, and the
operations that involve Replication Analysis.
EMC Data Protection Advisor (DPA) is a comprehensive monitoring, analytics, alerting and
reporting platform that supports a wide range of data protection products and infrastructure.
This cross-environment visibility enables both service providers and end users to monitor the
health of the infrastructure.
Data Protection Advisor collects data from across the infrastructure: databases, tape/VTL,
storage arrays, volume replicas, virtualization, IP and SAN switches, backup server and client
performance. DPA then correlates and analyzes these disparate data in order to present
actionable advice, alerting, and trending feedback about the customer backup and
replication infrastructure.
DPA is modular in its licensing. There are 3 components to it:
DPA for Backup

DPA for Resource Monitoring
DPA for Replication Analysis
The DPA for Replication Analysis is the component offered in the Application Protection Suite
and the component that will be discussed in this lesson. The backup component of the full
version of the DPA software does not initially come with the version in the Application
Protection Suite for VNX. Customers would need to upgrade for that functionality.
DPA for Replication tracks all snapshots, clones, and remote replicas . The Analysis engine
detects recoverability gaps, and alert the responsible user when recovery point objective
(RPO) may be compromised.
The diagram provides an overview of the complete Data Protection Advisor architecture,
showing all of the major components as well as the involved services and interfaces. The
Data Protection Advisor solution comprises of services that collect and stores configuration
and gathered data into a datastore, and interfaces to import and export information.
Data Protection Advisor supports heterogeneous backup environments with all major backup
applications, tape libraries, and backup-to-disk platforms.
Data Protection Advisor for Replication Analysis is available for VNX arrays using native
array based and/or RecoverPoint technologies replicating Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL
Server, Oracle and file system data running in multiple host operating environments:
Windows, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux.
Replication Analysis discovers file systems and the supported applications, mapping them to
physical storage devices and all the copies (recovery points) of primary data.
For more details, please refer to the Data Protection Advisor Compatibility Guide at
http://powerlink.emc.com.
The main components of DPA are the Application Server, the agents and the datastore, which
are explained in more details on the next slide.
NOTE: Observe in this diagram a host called DPA Connector. This is a special type of DPA
node acting as access point to the VNX arrays.
Data Protection Advisor components and its definitions are listed here. Please take a
moment to pause and read through them all.
The Application Server aka DPA server is an unified Application Server that runs all the
separate services found in previous versions of DPA, namely Controller, Reporter, Listener,
Publisher and Analysis Engine.
It also includes a web server from which the graphical user interface can be launched. The
Server component can run on either Solaris, Windows, or Linux.
The DPA Collection Agent gathers data from a supported application or device. Runs process
that gathers data from an application or device. A Collector component is automatically
installed on the DPA server when installing the Server component. The Collection Agent can
also be installed on other devices in the environment to provide enhanced data collection.
The DPA datastore is embedded in the product. It is a single datastore that consolidates the
information on the configuration of DPA itself, the data gathered by the Collection agents,
and recoverability analysis data.
DPA maintains information on all users that login to the application. Logging in requires a
username and a password (which is case sensitive).
When the product is first installed, four roles are created automatically: Administrator,
Engineer, Application Owner and User.
The DPA Administrator can create additional roles. Roles allow the DPA administrator to limit
functionality to different types of users.
By default, all passwords are stored in the DPA database in encrypted form.
User role is a way to limit the functionality and web console options granted to groups of
DPA users, by assigning only specific privileges. User role privileges, such as Create User and
Delete User, limit user roles. A user can edit his or her own profile to customize preferences
and web console appearance.
Data Protection Advisor user roles and its definitions are listed here. Please take a moment
to pause and read through them all.
Shown here is an example of an Oracle environment that helps to illustrate the application,
storage, and replica awareness within Data Protection Advisor. In order to determine if an
application is recoverable, Data Protection Advisor first needs to be application aware. Data
Protection Advisor automatically discovers application instances on the host and
understands how the application is logically constructed with data files, redo logs, and
archive logs.
DPA-Replication Analysis is aware of the application recovery logicthat is, interrelationships
between the application components. For example, redo logs are needed when a replication
is created when the Oracle is down. Redo logs are not needed when a replication is created
when the Oracle database is up, in which case archive logs may be needed, assuming the
database was placed in backup mode. Data Protection Advisor then understands how the
database is laid out on the primary storage array down to the logical volume and volume
group. Data Protection Advisor is aware of the data protection process as wellData
Protection Advisor tracks and maps each copy of the application LUNs.
Data Protection Advisor contains a sophisticated Analysis Engine that groups all the
information to form recovery points, which are a set of replica LUNs that can be used to
recover the application. A recovery point can consist of a single LUN as well as dozens or
hundreds of LUNs.
A primary capability of DPA is its ability to measure and prove data protection.
DPAs user interface and streamlined navigation enables rapid access to data protection
information. DPAs dashboards and comprehensive list of reports are available to providers
and end users, including administrators, management, etc. All have the ability to quickly
search on a key word to identify the report or reports they are looking for, as well as to
perform a categorical search based on the infrastructure components they wish to report on.
DPA provides customizable views based on access privileges or preferences. This includes
dashboard viewlet selection, layout, etc.
Viewing the most important, yet environment-wide, information on one screen enables
better operational decisions based on the broad data set.
Through the Replication Analysis section, a storage administrator can analyze and view the
status of recoverability, replication operations and the storage mapping for objects and
individual arrays, file systems, and applications. The options available through the Replication
Analysis area also show a graphical representation of recovery points and alerts in the data
protection environment.
The Process view shows the primary storage and all existing recovery points for a file system
or logical storage unit selected from the Service tree. Only one file system or logical unit can
be viewed at a time in the view.
Another tool for recoverability visualization is the Topology Renderer which creates a schema
of components displaying where and how data is replicated, from primary storage to local
and remote replicas. The schema is produced as a graphical report on which users can zoom
in and out, rearrange the components, and access drill-down menus based on component
type.
These views make it easier the identification of recovery gaps and failures, for fast
remediation, resulting in improved recoverability.
For a large environment, it may be easier to automate a detailed gaps report to be run on a
periodic basis. By doing so, an administrator can quickly identify replication gaps and resolve
them to ensure the customer is able to meet the required recovery service levels.
It is also possible to save or e-mail Data Protection Advisor reports in a variety of formats to
anyone who needs visibility into the environment.
Its an ideal way to show an audit trail of problem identification and resolution.
Here is a view of server-to-storage topology mapping showing local MirrorView replicas.

This map provides a simple view of the layout of the application to volumes, to volume
groups/logical volumes, to arrays, and to replicas.
This intuitive view quickly shows where volumes may be oversubscribed, leading to potential
performance issues. Additionally, this view can be generated in tabular form and saved or emailed in multiple formats such as CSV, XLM, JPG, PDF, and HTML.
Data Protection Advisor provides additional monitoring, alerting, and reporting capabilities
for the RecoverPoint family (3.1 and higher) for continuous data protection (CDP),
continuous remote replication (CRR), and concurrent local and remote (CLR) replication
configurations.
In RecoverPoint/SE environments, Data Protection Advisor has expanded capabilities such as
checking for link state change, and WAN/SAN usage as well as the ability to monitor
configuration changes on active RecoverPoint appliances and the ability to measure and
charge back replication services to lines of business based on the size of data to name a few.
For RecoverPoint, some of the sample reports include Configuration of Consistency Groups,
Replication Lag Times, Transfer Speeds, and Chargeback. Service Level Agreement reports
include percent downtime, service level status, and service level agreement performance for
both local and remote replication.
This module covered an overview of the Data Protection Advisor (DPA) for Replication
solution, its architecture and components, with focus on its application in environments that
involve supported replicas of VNX storage volumes.
The module also explained Data Protection Advisor key features and functionality, and the
operations that involve Replication Analysis.
This course covered the Application Protection Suite products offered for the VNX family
series. The course described the benefits of deploying the VNX Application Protection Suite
solution, and how the products in the suite can fulfill the business requirements. The course
explained the architecture, features and functionality for each one of the products that are
part of the suite, as well as its common operations and management options.
This concludes the training.

VNX Application Protection Suite Fundamentals

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Welcome to VNX Application Protection Suite Fundamentals.

Revision Date: September 2013

Copyright 2013 EMC Corporation. Do not copy - All Rights Reserved.