Why VM Replication Is Your Lifeline when Disaster Strikes

Nathan SchmidtServices Account Manager,Strategic Solutions

VM Replication is Your Lifeline When Disaster Strikes

April 18, 2023

2RACKSPACE® HOSTING | WWW.RACKSPACE.COM

Agenda

•Our Top 5 Myths about Disaster Recovery (DR)

•Disaster Recovery Overview

•Most Common Problems with Replication

•How VM Replication Solves Those Problems

•Q&A Session

http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/private/managed_virtualization/vm_replication/


My company isn’t located in a typical disaster-prone area like hurricane-happy Florida.

Top 5 Myths About DR #1

“Blown Away,” © 2004 Vincent F, vincentfung.ca, used under CC by 2.0 license


“70% of reported DC outages are directly attributable to human error.”Source: Uptime Institute, Data Center Site Infrastructure Tier Standard: Operational Sustainability, 2010

Food for thought:

My company isn’t located in a typical disaster-prone area like hurricane-happy Florida.


“Blown Away,” © 2004 Vincent F, vincentfung.ca, used under CC by 2.0 license


Top 5 Myths About DR

Disaster hasn’t happened before…

no need to worry, right?

Uh…right guys???

“Palindrome Day 12,” © 2010 Daniel Stockman, evocateur, used under CC BY-SA 2.0 license

#2



I backup my data, that should suffice.

6

#3

“Broken hard drive?” © 2009 Matthew, purplemattfish, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license




7

Example Schedule for Data Backups

FALSE

Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat.

Full Backup

Differential

Incremental Incremental Incremental Incremental Incremental

#3



8

Example Schedule for Data Backups

DC Outage

Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat.

Full Backup

Differential

Incremental Incremental Incremental Incremental Incremental


FALSE#3


“Less than half of SMBs back up their data weekly or

more frequently, and only 23% backup daily.

41% of the SMBs surveyed said that putting together a

Disaster Recovery plan never occurred to them.”


9

Source: Symantec 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey


FALSE#3


I’ve tested my plan once, so I can safely say

that 60% of the time, we’ll failover every time.


“Thumbs up!,” © 2011 Kristian Niemi, kressen, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license



I don’t need a DR plan. My company can weather the

storm or survive whatever disruption may lie ahead.

#5



Factoid: “93% of companies that

lost their data for 10 days or

more filed for bankruptcy within

one year of the disaster, and 50%

filed for bankruptcy

immediately”

Source: National Archives and Records Administration in Washington

I don’t need a DR plan. My company can weather the

storm or survive whatever disruption may lie ahead.

“caution zombies ahead,” © 2009 enrevanche, used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license

#5


What We’ve Heard from our Customers

• Many firms think that a backup of their data is enough

• Goal of a backup is to enable data restoration

• A DR plan helps quickly restore operations

“I know I need DR, but

I’m not really sure what

that should be.”


What is Disaster Recovery?

DR is a holistic strategy for restoring IT systems that

powers business ops

• Includes: process, policies, people, technology

“Can’t Fail Cafe,” © 2006 Thomas Hawk, used under CC BY-NC 2.0 license


Building the DR Framework

Basic Concept Concern

DC Level Primary DC Outage

App Level App Configuration

Info Level Critical Data


How to Make DR a Goal for 2013

“I’ve tried to socialize the need for a

DR plan, but it isn’t considered a

priority by senior leadership.”

“How do I convince my boss that the

additional cost of resiliency tools are

justified?”


Knowing The Impact of Downtime

Show your boss that downtime equals dollars lost.

The average cost of downtime

for an SMB company is about

$42,000 per hour.Source: Gartner Research

“Burning Money,” © 2006 Purple Slog, purpleslog, used under CC BY 2.0 license


Two Metrics That Help Quantify Impact

RPO = Recovery Point Objective

• How old your data is once it’s been restored

Example: Necktorious, Inc.

• Retail store located in Hollywood with an ecomm site

• Selling scarves to the stars

• Goal: minimize customer transaction data loss

• Low RPO of 15 minutes

Über Cool

for School

“ultra super cool,” © 2006 Malingering used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license


RTO = Recovery Time Objective

• How long it takes until your users are able to continue

normal operations

Necktorious, Inc. Example Continued:

• Site downtime equals a loss of $10k+ per hour

• Ecomm platform on virtualized servers

• Replicates business-critical VMs every 4 hours

• Minimize RTO

Two Metrics That Help Quantify Impact

Pretty in Pashmina

“La mi inseparable Pashmina,” © 2008 Mareluna, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license



Customer’s Data Center

VM Replication

Database Replication

Host-Based Replication

Remote Data Replication

Remote Data Replication

Virtual Servers

DB Servers

Servers

Virtual Servers

DB Servers

Servers

RAX Data Center RAX Data Center

MBU Infrastructure MBU Infrastructure

Managed Backup

Managed Backup

Resiliency Solutions Across the Portfolio

RAX Cloud

Cloud Files

Cloud Backup

Array-Based Storage Replication

SAN SAN

DNS Failover (Neustar)

Network Network

RAX Solution

Partner Solution

Global Load Balancer

22

20


VM Replication – Quick Overview

• Helps protects and recover

business-critical VMs when

disaster strikes

• Offers geographic

redundancy by replicating

VMs between Rackspace

DCs


Solving Real-World Problems

VM Replication solution was designed by working closely

with our beta customer, Virtual, Inc.

- Russell Kuhl, V.P. of Technology at Virtual

“We had the opportunity to provide feedback on the early-stage replication product and talk through the options that best met our customer’s needs.

I felt that Rackspace listened carefully to our feedback and even anticipated how we intended to use and implement the solution.”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFmn2hYkv-w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFmn2hYkv-w


Common Hurdles with Replication Tools

Cost

Complexity

Failover

Testing


Host-Based vs. Guest-Based

Host-Based Replication

• Occurs at the hypervisor layer

• Replication process controlled by VA

• Replicated VMs are inactive

Guest-Based Replication

• Occurs at the VM layer

• Replication process controlled by VMs

• Replicated VMs in target DC are active

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing


Vacation Home Analogy

Main house Summer home

Guest-based is like always paying two electrical bills.

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing

“Christmas day,” © 2005 Jocelyn Durston, jawcey, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license

“Havana-Beach-House-Byron-Bay-8,” © 2011 Catherin Hugues, Loud Cow, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license


VM Replication is Host-Based

It’s Cost-Effective.

• Replicated VMs in the target site remain off

• Only pay for the replicated VMs when they are powered on after failover

• Replicated VMs are powered down once you failback to the source site

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing


Infrastructure Costs

Redundant infrastructure represents a significant cost.

• Repurpose redundant hypervisor in secondary DC (e.g. test/dev environment)

• Downsize the server footprint in the target site to accommodate just critical VMs

• Consider using less powerful servers, if degraded performance is acceptable

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing


Vacation Home Analogy: Part 2

4-Bedroom Main House

Infrastructure footprint is like your house.

Beach Bungalow

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing

“garage,” © 2009 Kathleen Leavitt Cragun, kathleenleavitt, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license “Beach bungalow,” © 2007 Steve L Martin, <SLiM>, used under CC BY 2.0 license


Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing

VM Replication Allows Different Hardware

It reduces the hardware costs related to redundancy.

• No need to replicate entire source environment – simply select specific VMs

• Heterogeneous storage options are available for target site (e.g. dSAN to local)

• While replicated VMs are powered down, repurpose redundant server


Lack of Expertise & Assistance

Companies may not have the expertise or manpower, or both.

• What do I need?

• Who’s going to design it?

• Who’s going to manage and monitor it?

• Who’s going to assist with the failover?

• Who’s going to “push the button” for failover?

• Who owns the overall DR strategy?

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing

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Levels of Responsibility

33

DR Plan Failover Runbook

“Pushing the Failover Button”

Failover Process

Replication App. (VA)

Virtual Machine Layer

Guest OS Layer

Hypervisor Layer

Server Hardware

DC & Network

Customer

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing

Rackspace


Rackspace Fanatical Support is the Key

• Replication team is

available to design,

monitor & manage

• Virtualization team has

VCP-certified architects

available

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES,NETWORK SECURITY, BACKUP,

STORAGE, VIRTUALIZATION, DATABASE ADMINISTRATORS,

CORPORATE SECURITY

DATA CENTEROPERATIONS

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

ARCHITECTURESUPPORT

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT


Failover Testing

Companies don’t test their failover plan enough.

• Some replication services charge per test – expensive

• The failover/failback process can be risky in

production

• The risk requires extensive planning around every test

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing


VM 2

VM 1

Hypervisor 1

Host 1

Rackspace DC 1

VM 2

Hypervisor 2

Host 2

Rackspace DC 2

(Powered Off)

VM 2 Snapshot

VM Replication - Testing via Snapshot

3617

No disruption to replication during test

Replication Continues

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing


VM Replication Simplifies Failover Testing

Failover testing that’s fast, free, and frequent.

• No charge for failover testing

• It’s quick to setup and doesn’t require planning

• Testing is done in a sandbox environment

Cost

Complexity

Failover Testing


Rackspace VM Replication

For more information on VM Replication,

please call us at 1-877-934-0409.


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