SRM architecture advice

[dilpz213]

Hi All,

I wanted to ask the experts here some advise about architecting an SRM environment for my company. We wish to run 2 seperate ESX 4.1 clusters (one in each of our 2 datacenters). Each cluster will consist of 2 hosts and be utilised in an Active/Active configuration so that critical VMs will be mirored to each datacenter.

The specific questions I were the following:

1, Each datacenter will have its own vCenter VM and SRM VM. Is it ok to run both of these as VMs and are there any disadvantages to doing this?

2, Is it advisable to have a seperate SQL server running on each cluster to house the SRM database or can we put both DBs on just one?

3, We have an SQL cluster at a remote site that has a redundant 45mb WAN connection to our site. Is there any disadvantage with hosting the SQL databases there rather than locally (we would obviously save on licences if we can do this so this would be a preferred option).

Please let me know your thoughts. Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Community -

1, Each datacenter will have its own vCenter VM and SRM VM. Is it ok to run both of these as VMs and are there any disadvantages to doing this?

There is no problem running these as VMs - no disadvantages

2, Is it advisable to have a seperate SQL server running on each cluster to house the SRM database or can we put both DBs on just one?

THey could both be placed on the same DB server but it is not recommended since you will now have a single point of failure in your DR solution

3, We have an SQL cluster at a remote site that has a redundant 45mb WAN connection to our site. Is there any disadvantage with hosting the SQL databases there rather than locally (we would obviously save on licences if we can do this so this would be a preferred option).

See my answer for 2 -

[dilpz]

Hi Guys,

I have just started work on this again after being pulled away to work on other things.

So far, I have decided to follow the advice of the board and implement 2 vCenter VMs. Each datacenter has its own vCenter server as well as its own SQL server VM. My plan is to install 1 SRM VM in each datacenter and run an active/active configuration where VMs from each datacenter are protected at both sites. Before I do this however I had a few other questions:

1, Do we put the vCenter and SQL servers at each site on protected LUNs or leave them unprotected? I ask this as I have heard that it can be difficult to restore a site database if it has also been failed over during an outage.

2, Is it best practice (in an active/active configuration) to put the SRM databases in the opposite datacenter to the site they are supposed to be protecting? e.g. if we had 2 datacenters (DC1 and DC2) is it best practice to but DC1's SRM DB on an SQL server in DC2 and vice versa to allow the DB to still be present if anything happened to the DC it was protecting?

Please let me know

Dilpz213

[mal_michael]

Hi,

1) You don't need to protect vCenter and SRM VMs to the remote site (but you do need proper backup on site). Usually you use SRM when major failure occures at the protected site. In this situation you failover VMs to the recovery site and don't really have an environment to manage at the protected site, which makes vCenter failover quite useless.

2) No, you should place each site's DB locally at the site vCenter manages / SRM protects. Otherwise, if one of the site fails, you won't be able to recover, since both vCenter and SRM cannot function without their DB.

Michael.