Industry Leading Data Replication Software: SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition
A highly optimized host-based replication solution for Windows Server 2003 and 2008 R2 multi-site clusters
Integration with Windows Server® 2008 R2 Failover Cluster (WSFC) and 2003 Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS)
New features of Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering such as cross subnet failover and use of high-latency networks make it easier for users to deploy geographically dispersed clusters. SteelEye DataKeeper unlocks the power of Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering, allowing administrators to take advantage of these great new features to support high availability and disaster recovery configurations.
SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition also supports Microsoft Cluster Server on Windows Server 2003.With these new features of WSFC making geographically dispersed clusters easier to implement and more robust, there is still one key ingredient that is needed in order to fully enable this feature – wide-area data replication. Microsoft is supporting 3rd party hardware and software vendors to bring this technology to WSFC.
SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition is one such solution and provides the optimal balance of ease of use, features and price-performance to facilitate geographically dispersed clusters for Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, Hyper-V and other critical applications.
The most basic configuration, shown to the right in Figure 1, consists of a two node Microsoft failover cluster, with one node in the primary data center and the second node in a different data center at the other side of a WAN link. SteelEye DataKeeper replicates the volume resource(s) defined on the primary server to the secondary server. The volume resource can be a local attached disk, or it can be an iSCSI or fiber channel SAN attached volume.
Changes that occur to the volume(s) on the disaster recovery server are tracked in the bitmap and are replicated back to the primary server once it becomes available again.
Key Benefits
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Host-Based, Volume Level Replication |
32 and 64-bit platform support |
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Synchronous and Asynchronous |
Physical-to-Virtual Virtual-to-Virtual |
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Replicates Hyper-V virtual machines in real-time |
MMC GUI with at-a-glance status |
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Protects Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint and Hyper-V applications |
CLI for programmatic control |
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Local and Remote Targets |
Integration with Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering and Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Cluster Services |
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WAN Optimized with 9 Compression Levels |
Supports Windows Server 2003/2008 |
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Per Mirror Bandwidth Throttles |
Supports mixed shared/replicated clusters allowing administrators to extend existing shared storage clusters for multi-site clusterconfigurations |
Use Case
One configuration scenario that is very interesting to administrators is the replication and recovery of Hyper-V VMs. SteelEye DataKeeper provides functionality to increase the availability of Hyper-V VMs by replicating the entire VM from one storage array to another. SteelEye DataKeeper’s support of Hyper-V can work standalone or in conjunction with Microsoft WSFC to provide a complete solution for disaster recovery, high availability and back-up for Hyper-V VMs.
SteelEye DataKeeper addresses the gaps of traditional back-up and restore of Hyper-V VMs by doing a continuous replication of a live running Hyper-V VM from your primary server to an alternate server located either locally in the same data center or across the WAN in your disaster recovery site.
In the event of a disaster, the replicated VM can be brought into service with minimal to no data loss, without the need to do any restoration from back-up media. This gives you one of the highest Recovery Point Objectives and Recovery Time Objectives available for Hyper-V recovery.
DataKeeper Standard Edition suits the disaster recovery needs of organizations that do not require “automatic” failover to the disaster recovery site.
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Figure 2 - Integration with Windows Server 2008 Failover Cluster and 2003 Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS)
SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition integrates seamlessly with WSFC to enable “shared-nothing” clusters and geographically dispersed clusters. DataKeeper replaces the shared physical disk resource with a DataKeeper replicated volume resource. In addition, SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition can extended existing shared storage clusters to one or more remote sites for automated disaster recovery as shown in Figure 2
Any application that can be clustered with WSFC can now be further protected by replacing the single point of failure of the shared Physical Disk resource with a DataKeeper volume resource. Regardless of whether it is Exchange, SQL, IIS, File/ Print, Hyper-V or any other WSFC protected application, DataKeeper Cluster Edition works seamlessly with WSFC to enhance the availability of that application.
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