SIOS SANless clusters High-availability Machine Learning monitoring
SIOS DataKeeper Cluster Edition eliminated bandwidth issues, improved data protection, and significantly reduced downtime in a critical on-premises SQL Server healthcare network environment.
The company saw substantial improvement in both recovery point and recovery time objectives and reduced the cost of bandwidth. The company now uses SIOS DataKeeper to protect their important SQL Server in more than 18 cluster nodes.
Azure continues to improve their services. Just in the past week they have announced their new “G-Series” VMs, some of the most powerful VMs offered by any cloud provide. Check out the details here…
http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/01/08/largest-vm-in-the-cloud/
Also, if you have been considering using Azure Disaster Recovery as I describe here, you will be happy to know that you can get a 6 month trial of ExpressRoute for FREE! ExpressRoute will help you connect your on-premise datacenter into Azure with a fast secure connection. Check out the announcement here…
http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/01/12/azure-data-center-migration-just-got-easier/
Reproduced with permission from https://clusteringformeremortals.com/2015/01/15/new-azure-announcements-azure-for-disaster-recovery-and-very-large-vms-azure/
The guys over at the High Availability & Disaster Recovery Virtual Chapter of @SQLPASS invited me to present on Windows Server 10. I discussed Cloud Witness, Storage Replica and Rolling Cluster OS Upgrades. In case you missed the presentation, you can view the recording here.
Reproduced with permission from https://clusteringformeremortals.com/2015/01/13/what-every-sql-server-dba-needs-to-know-about-windows-server-10-sqlpass/
Yesterday evening Pacific Standard Time, Azure storage services experienced a service interruption across the United States, Europe and parts of Asia, which impacted multiple cloud services in these regions.
As part of a performance update to Azure Storage, an issue was discovered that resulted in reduced capacity across services utilizing Azure Storage, including Virtual Machines, Visual Studio Online, Websites, Search and other Microsoft services.
Read the whole report on the Azure blog. http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/11/19/update-on-azure-storage-service-interruption/
So what does this outage mean to those thinking about a cloud deployment? Global “interruptions” of this magnitude certainly cannot occur on any regular basis for any cloud provider. Especially if it intends to remain in the cloud business, whether they are Microsoft, Amazon, Google or other. However, as a cloud architect or person responsible for a cloud deployment, you have a responsibility to your customer to have a “Plan B” in your back pocket. Time to plan for disaster recovery in case the worst case scenario actually happens.
Plan B involves having a documented procedure for recovering data and services in an alternate location in the event of a wide spread outage that impacts a cloud provider’s ability to deliver their service. This plan is important even if you had a highly resilient cloud deployment designed to keep running even in the event of localized outages within a region, availability zone or fault domain.
At a high level you should be concerned about three things: Data Recovery, Application Recovery, and Client Access. There are many ways to address these concerns, some more automated than others. Some with a better Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) than others.
It was just last week that I blogged about how to create a multisite cluster that stretched between the AWS cloud and the Azure cloud. This type of configuration is just what is needed in the event of an outage of the magnitude that we just experienced yesterday in the Azure cloud.
Another alternative to the “cloud-to-cloud” replication model is utilizing your own datacenter as a disaster recovery site for cloud deployment. It is advantageous to have physical ownership of your data. But it would mean you are back in the business of managing a datacenter. This can negate some of the benefit of a pure cloud deployment.
If you are not ready to go full on cloud, make use of the cloud as a disaster recovery site. This is probably the easiest and most cost effective way to implement an offsite datacenter for disaster recover. Start taking advantage of what the cloud has to offer without fully committing to moving all workloads into the cloud.
The illustrations shown above make use of the host based replication solution called DataKeeper Cluster Edition to build multisite SQL Server clusters. However, DataKeeper can be used to keep any data in sync. Either between different cloud providers or in the hybrid cloud model.
Microsoft is not alone in dealing with cloud outages as outages have impacted Google, Microsoft, Amazon, DropBox and many others just this year alone. Having a “Plan B” in place is a must have anytime you are relying on any cloud service.
Reproduced with permission from https://clusteringformeremortals.com/2014/11/20/azure-storage-service-interruptiontime-for-plan-b/
Just today I received notice that ExpressRoute, a new Windows Azure Network option, was release in Preview. Essentially ExpressRoute will now allow you to lease a private connection to the Windows Azure Cloud through a limited number of network service providers and exchange providers. Speeds ranging from 10 Mbps through 10 Gbps are available through either an Exchange Provider or Network Service Provider.
Previously the only way to connect your on-premise site was to configure a site-to-site VPN to your virtual network. While this is a nice option, having a direct connection like ExpressRoute that bypasses the public network is going to allow for much less latency and a more reliable connection.
If you are trying to use data replication solutions like DataKeeper to replicate data into the Azure cloud for disaster recovery, or out of Azure to your private network for additional data protection, you will appreciate the various different link speeds available which will allow you to adjust capacity should your bandwidth needs change over time.
Even if you are not ready to move your whole production network to the clouds at this time, I believe using something like Windows Azure in lieu of maintaining a separate disaster recovery facility makes a lot of sense, especially now that robust direct connectivity options are available.
Reproduced with permission from https://clusteringformeremortals.com/2014/02/21/windows-azure-disaster-recovery-options-just-got-better-with-expressroute/