How to start an XOA continuous replication image at the backup end?

pnunn

Hi Guys,
me again with some more probably simple questions.

I have some machines now being backed up by delta backup and full backup and can happily find them at the receiving end and have tested that I can start one of these images happily should the source end die. All good..

One machine I need to be a bit more current, so though I'd go with continuous replication. This is reported to be working fine, but I cannot for the love of looking, find the backups on the receiving end (I have an XOA running at both ends at the moment).

Should I be able to find them? If so where? Not sure how its useful if I can't by the way.

Thanks.

P.

olivierlambert

Backups are halted VMs on the destination, like any other regular VM.

pnunn

Thanks Oliver,

OK, I can see them as non running VM's on the pool that is creating the backups. How do I see them on the pool running in the other DC (which has access to the same shared storage). Guess I'm not explaining myself very well.

I have pollDC1 what is backing up to StorageDC2.

With deltabackups end other backups I can spin up the machines from poolDC1 on poolDC2 quite easily from the files. What I can't see at the moment is the stopped poolDC1 machines on the XOA at poolDC2. Can I get them to show up there.

What I'm trying to set up is the ability to start the poolDC1 backups on poolDC2 should DC1 go away for some reason.

Does that make sense?

P.

olivierlambert

The goal of CR is to eliminate the restore time. It means your replicated VM is ready to boot as soon you need it. You decide where to store those "ready to boot" VMs in your CR job, by selecting their destination SR.

Double check your target/destination SR is the one you expected (in other word, a SR running in DC2)

Those replicated VMs will be available in the pool hosting their target SR, that's pretty much it

pnunn

OK, thanks Oliver. Must have buggered it up then because there available in the DC1 pool not the DC2 pool. I'll have another go at setting them up.

Thanks.
Peter.

pnunn

OK, I think I see the problem. What I've done is attached the storage in DC2 as a SR on the DC1 pool. The pool is showing as DC1 not DC2 so I guess that's the problem.

How do I access the SR in DC2 from DC1 in not by attaching it as an SR on DC1? I guess that means I'm using XOA incorrectly. I did ask before if I should be using one XOA to rule them all but haven't worked out how I can do that yet with my config. I'll have to look at the networking and see if I can work out how to do that instead by the looks of things.

I guess if both XOA's can see both pools, then things should be OK.

I guess the other option is to just stick to delta backups (but make them more frequent). That would work. I'm not fussed about the time it takes to clone the VM if that is all the difference is.

Peter.

olivierlambert

You need one XOA, connected to both pools. It will stream the VM content (delta) from the source to the destination. You don't need any directly link between your SR in both DCs.

You DCs can be isolated with just one XOA connected to both, and it will work.