Data Protection for Virtual Data Centers Book

Introduction

Chapter 1 What Kind of Protection Do You Need? 1

In the Beginning, There Were Disk and Tape 1

Overview of Availability Mechanisms 2

Storage Availability 3

Asynchronous Replication 7

Clustering 9

Application Built-in Availability 10

Decision Question: How Asynchronous? 11

Overview of Protection Mechanisms 12

Let's Talk Tape 12

Disk vs. Tape 14

Microsoft Improvements for Windows Backups 15

Summary 16

Chapter 2 Data Protection by the Numbers 19

The Technical Metrics: RPO and RTO 19

Recovery Point Objective 19

Recovery Time Objective 20

Putting RPO and RTO Together 21

Making RPO and RTO Real with SLAs 21

Business Metrics: RA and BIA 24

Risk Analysis (RA): The Science of Worrying 24

Business Impact Analysis (BIA): How Much Will It Cost? 26

Risk Mitigation: Fixing it in Advance 33

Protection or Productivity? 34

Availability 34

Protection 35

Total Cost of Ownership 36

Return on Investment 37

Calculating ROI 38

Which ROI Method is Most Accurate? 39

The Credibility Challenge of ROI 39

Turning IT Needs into Corporate Initiatives 41

Summary 42

Chapter 3 The Layers of Data Protection 43

What Data Looks Like from the Server's Perspective 43

Hardware-centric Protection 44

Storage Level 1 Protecting Against Spindle Failure 45

Storage Level 2 Protecting Against Array Failure 51

Storage Level 3 Protecting Against Storage Node Failure 52

Storage Level 4 Protecting Against SAN Fabric Failure 54

How Disk-Based Communication Works 55

Synchronous Replication in Storage 57

File-centric Protection 60

Application-Agnostic Replication 60

How Application-Agnostic Replication Works 60

Protection and Availability 63

When to Use Application-Agnostic Availability 65

Application-centric Protection 66

Where to Store Your Protected Data 67

Tape-Based Protection 67

Disk-Based Protection 67

Cloud-Based Protection 70

Use Each Media Type for What it Does Best 72

Summary 73

Chapter 4 Better Backups 75

Solving the Problem from the Inside Out 75

Supportability and Reliability in Legacy Backup Solutions 76

How Microsoft Addressed the Issue 77

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) 77

VSS Writer 78

VSS Requestor 78

VSS Provider 78

How VSS Backups Work 79

The Windows Server Backup Utility 82

Getting Started with WSB 83

Restoring with WSB 85

System Center Data Protection Manager 87

Why Did Microsoft Build a Backup Product? 87

How Does DPM Work? 90

Getting Started with DPM 2010 96

Configuring DPM 2010 Protection 102

Restoring Data with DPM 2010 116

Using DPM 2010 in Heterogeneous Environments 135

Disaster Recovery with DPM 2010 138

Summary 141

Chapter 5 File Services 143

File System Availability and Protection in Windows Server 143

What is the Distributed File System? 144

Distributed File System Namespace 144

Distributed File System Replication 145

DFS Terminology 146

Enabling DFS on Your Windows File Servers 147

Infrastructure Prerequisites 147

Installing DFS on Windows Server 2003 and 2003 R2 147

Installing DFS on Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 149

Getting Started with DFS-N 150

How a DFS Namespace Works 150

Configuring a DFS Namespace 153

Getting Started with DFS-R 160

Before DFS-R, There Was FRS 161

Key Concepts in DFS Replication 162

How DFS-R Works: Remote Differential Compression 162

How Initial Replication Works 164

Configuring DFS Replication 165

DFS Replication Options 171

Mixing DFS-R and DFS-N for Real-World Solutions 174

File Distribution 176

Branch Office Availability and Centralized Backup 177

Collaboration Between Branches 179

Migration and Growth 179

DFS Enhancements in Windows Server 2008 R2 180

Summary 181

Chapter 6 Windows Clustering 183

Overview of Clustering in Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 183

Scale Out with Network Load Balancing 183

Scale Up with Failover Clustering 185

Failover Clustering Terms and Concepts 185

The Anatomy of a Failover Cluster 186

Building Your First Cluster 187

Start with Shared Storage 187

Creating Your Virtual Hands-on Environment 191

Getting Started with MSCS in Windows Server 2008 193

How Failover Clustering Works 203

The Cluster Heartbeat 203

When Failover Occurs 203

Quorum Models 204

Witness Disk (Only) 205

Node and Disk Majority 205

Node and File Share Majority 206

Node Majority 206

What Changes with the Third Node and Beyond 208

Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering 210

What's New in Failover Clustering (Windows Server 2008 R2) 211

Building Your Second Cluster Using Windows Server 2008 R2 in Hyper-V 212

Migrating to Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clusters 213

Summary 219

Chapter 7 Microsoft Exchange 221

Exchange within Microsoft Cluster Services 221

Single Copy Clusters 221

Getting Started with SCCs 222

Failover Behavior 223

Challenges with SCC 224

Exchange 2007 Continuous Replication 227

How Does Continuous Replication Work? 227

Seeding a Database 228

Local Continuous Replication (LCR) 228

Cluster Continuous Replication 232

Standby Continuous Replication 244

Exchange 2010 Database Availability 250

Database Availability Group 250

Getting Started with DAG 255

Data Protection Considerations with DAG 262

Summary 265

Chapter 8 Microsoft SQL Server 267

SQL Server Built-in Resiliency 267

SQL Terminology 267

Clustering or Mirroring? 268

SQL Failover Clustering 269

Preparing to Cluster SQL Server 269

Task 1 Installing SQL Server onto the First Clustered Node 272

Task 2 Installing SQL Server onto the Second Clustered Node 276

What Happens When a Database Changes Nodes? 278

Should You Cluster SQL Server? 280

SQL Database Mirroring 281

Starting the Mirror Session 282

How Mirroring Works 283

Task 3 Preparing the Database Mirror 287

Task 4 Getting Started with Database Mirroring 291

SQL Database Failover 292

Can I Get a Witness? 293

Task 5 Adding a Witness to the Mirroring Configuration 294

SQL Quorum 295

Automatic Failover 297

Manual Failover 298

Other Recovery Methods 300

Forcing Service 300

Client Connectivity 301

SQL Log Shipping and Replication 302

Introducing SQL Log Shipping 303

Task 6 Getting Started with SQL Log Shipping 303

Introducing SQL Replication 307

Which SQL Server HA Solution Should You Choose? 307

Backing Up SQL Server 309

The Most Important Rule in Backing Up SQL Server 309

The Other Most Important Rule in SQL Server Backups 310

Restoring Databases with DPM 2010 311

Summary 315

Chapter 9 Virtualization 317

Virtualization Changes Everything 317

Protecting Virtual Machines 317

Challenges in Virtual Machine Protection 318

VSS-Based Backups of Virtual Machines 319

Host-Based vs. Guest-Based Backups 323

Restoring Virtual Machines 326

Availability of Virtual Machines 327

How Live Migration Works 329

Defining Clustered Shared Volumes 330

Requirements for LM and CSV 332

Getting Started with CSV 333

Backing Up CSV Configurations 342

How Virtualization Makes Data Protection and Availability Better 343

Disaster Recovery Staging 344

Legacy Options for Physical BC/DR sites 344

Using Virtualization for Physical Server Business Continuity 345

Using Virtualization for Virtual Server Business Continuity 349

Bare Metal Recovery 349

Server Rollback 350

Summary 352

Chapter 10 Management and Deployment 353

Well-Managed Systems for Higher Uptime 353

Large Enterprise Deployment and Manageability 354

Introducing Microsoft Systems Management 354

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 and R3 355

Configuration Manager Site System Roles 356

The Configuration Manager Console 358

Asset Identification and Agent Installation 359

Centralized Software Deployment 362

Securing Resources with Software Update Management 368

Identifying Desired State Compliance 373

Deploying Operating Systems 376

Preventing Unsecure System Access 382

Virtualization Management 383

Overview of VMM 2008 R2 384

Key Features of VMM 2008 R2 387

Intelligent Placement for VMs 388

Integration with Operations Manager 389

Midsized Management: Physical and Virtual 398

Introducing SCE 2010 399

Getting Started with SCE 2010 399

Summary 409

Chapter 11 Monitoring Systems 411

The Need for Monitoring 411

Challenges in Monitoring 412

Enterprise End-to-End Monitoring 413

Introducing Operations Manager 2007 R2 415

Getting Started with Operations Manager 418

Monitoring the Health and Performance of Key Workloads 428

Monitoring Data Protection Manager 429

Monitoring Distributed File Services 429

Monitoring Windows Failover Clustering 430

Monitoring Exchange Replication 431

Monitoring SQL Mirroring 431

Monitoring Virtualization 432

Monitoring in Midsized Organizations Using System Center Essentials 434

Introducing SCE 2010 434

Discovering Midsized Resources 435

Monitoring Midsized Environments 436

Knowledge Applied to Midsized Scenarios 438

Virtualization Monitored in Midsized Datacenters 440

Summary 441

Chapter 12 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery 443

What Makes BC and DR So Special? 443

Real Business Continuity Planning 443

Regulatory Compliance 446

The Real Reason to Do Disaster Recovery 462

Get Your Data Out of the Building 463

Don't Cry "I Wasn't Ready Yet" 464

Tactical DR vs. Strategic Disaster Preparedness 465

BC = DR + HA 465

Multiple Datacenters 466

Branch Offices' BCDR 468

Branch Offices for DR 470

Hosted Providers 470

Service Providers 471

BC/DR Solution Alternatives 472

Application- or Workload-Specific Features 472

Application-Agnostic Replication and Failover 473

Using Virtualization to Achieve Business Continuity 474

Challenges with Traditional Disaster Recovery Staging 474

Disaster Recovery Staging, Virtually 475

Restoring Your Infrastructure within Hyper-V 478

Additional Notes on Virtualized BC/DR Sites 481

Planning for BC/DR to Get Better Backups and Availability 482

Summary 483

Where BC/DR is today 483

Where BC/DR is heading 483

Appendix Links and Resources 485

Microsoft Software 485

Topical Resources 485

Chapter 4 Data Protection Manager 486

Chapters 4, 5, and 6: Windows Server 486

Chapter 7 Exchange 487

Chapter 8 SQL Server 488

Chapter 9 Virtualization 488

Chapters 10 and 11 System Center 488

Chapter 12 BC and DR 489

The Author 490

Index 491