I'm looking for a solution to the following:
Server A (Site A)
– Win 2008 R2
– approx 10TB (15TB max) of data
– well over 8 million files
Server B (Site B)
– Win 2008 R2
I want to assynchronously replicate Server A's volume to a volume on Server B for data redundancy. Something that I can say to my users, "go here for data" when/if Server A goes belly up due to machine problems, disaster, etc.
Windows 2008 R2 does have DFS, but microsoft does not apparently support this large of a dataset (or more accurately, more than 8 million files – according to the docs I could find).
I also looked at Veritas Volume Replication, but this seems almost too much as I would also require Veritas Volume Manager.
There are numerous "back-up" software which makes a 1-1 backup, which would be ok, but since it will be transfering over internet, I'd like something that has compression during transfer like DFS has.
Does anyone have any suggestions regarding this?
Best Answer
I've used Doubletake Move to move large datasets across the Internet. They use byte level replication, and keep track of changes to files. There is also a nice bandwidth throttling scheduler to use less during the day, and crank it up at night and on the weekend. It also recovers pretty well in the event of a connection break of some kind.
Now, I am assuming this is some sort of MSA attached to a physical machine, but in the event you are using a SAN, Check with your SAN vendor for async replication options.
Whatever replication you use, there are a couple things you want to think about:
If your rate of change is too high on the source side, and you don't have enough bandwidth to overcome it, you will never get a good replication.
Re-indexing databases, defrags, and bulk file moves/adds/deletes have all caused me headaches in the past.
Hopefully my past pain will help someone that reads this! :D