Using Windows 2003/2008 Mirroring with two RDM Drives?

[jslarouche]

Hey All,

Has anyone tried using Windows Mirrorring with RDM drives by chance that are from two different SAN arrays to reduce a single point of failure with using RDM drives? Is this support by VMWare? Bad idea? I understand that the OS is still a single point of failure in my mind.. Not sure if FT can help here. Thoughts anyone?

Here's an example:

Proof of Concept

[AndreTheGiant]

This is possible also without RDM disks.

But a VM could not be powered on if there is a missing disk...

Have you considered instead storage replication or VM scheduled replica?

Andre

[jslarouche]

Yes, we've looked at storage replication with our current arrays and the issue is we are trying to protect our DR datastores. Using CA is limited to Point to Point. Once it's protect you can shoot CA to another array which is why I'm asking the question..  We are now looking at trying Double-Take Mirroring software and also possibly Steeleye.. The business wants zero data loss on the DR V\M's so make things much more difficult now to solution. We've also tried vReplicator but there is risk of data loss since it uses snapshot schedule base synchronization. Do you have any other suggestions?

[AndreTheGiant]

Double Take could be a solution.

But consider also to have a solution at service level.

For example:

• DFS + replica for fileserver
  
• SQL Log shipping or mirroring (+ some logic in application level)
  
• Exchange DAG
  

Andre