Pure Storage® recently released Purity 6, the latest version of the FlashArray™ operating environment. The latest version ushers in new possibilities for disaster recovery and data migration to SAP environments. The introduction of ActiveDR™, an innovative technology for seamless continuous replication, delivers near-zero recovery point objectives (RPO). SAP HANA benefits from this new global disaster-recovery (DR) solution with no impact to key performance indicators (KPIs) while providing fast and simple failover, failback, and DR test capabilities.
SAP landscapes—especially those based on SAP HANA—provide business-critical services, such as enterprise resource management (ERP), business intelligence, and customer relationship management. To protect the day-to-day operations of these services, SAP offers a range of possibilities to preserve the application-business function in the event of a disaster:
- SAP HANA scale-out standby host: If a host fails, the instance will fail over its services to another host.
- SAP HANA system replication: Database data will continuously replicate from a primary to secondary SAP HANA system.
- SAP HANA storage replication: The storage vendor of the SAP HANA storage volumes performs the replication. This method enables you to use the unique capabilities in the storage array to provide availability to the application level.
In this post, we’ll take a quick look at FlashArray’s three complementary replication technologies for business resiliency. From there, we’ll dig into two new DR and data migration use cases ActiveDR enables with SAP HANA. I’ll end with a demo video.
FlashArray Replication Technology
Pure’s suite of features for business continuity and DR replication include:
- ActiveCluster™: Perform synchronous replication of one or more volumes between two FlashArray systems with the added benefit that you can read and write to both arrays simultaneously. ActiveCluster delivers business continuity with the transparent and automatic failover of storage for zero RPO and no data loss during a failover.
- Asynchronous replication: Periodically replicate volume snapshots at regular intervals. Combine it with ActiveCluster to create active-active asynchronous replication for both a zero-RPO and zero-RTO scenario.
- ActiveDR™: Continuously replicating data between two FlashArrays, ActiveDR provides streamlined DR workflows and protects data between two separate sites. You can use this near-synchronous replication at virtually any distance to build business resiliency and respond quickly to outages. You can even utilize it for migration between sites to minimize downtime.
In each replication scenario, configuration and management is simple. This ensures that you can focus on core business objectives without having to dive into complex storage operations. ActiveDR continuous replication on FlashArray occurs as efficiently as possible by sending unique data during the initial baseline or resync operations, compressing on the wire to send the data, and storing the data using FlashArray’s space-efficient technologies.
ActiveDR continuous replication offers more than just snapshot creation at regular intervals before data movement can occur. In addition, it doesn’t require the double-commit acknowledgment that synchronous replication uses, so there’s no need to wait for the transaction commit from the secondary array before sending the confirmation to the host application. As a result, it’s a great solution for situations when you:
- Require an RPO as close to zero as possible
- Need to protect your data in the same site or across geographically distant locations
- Want a simple and controlled failover
ActiveDR is also advantageous for migration use cases where you don’t need synchronous replication.
SAP HANA Migration or Failover Scenarios
Let’s look at two use cases powered by ActiveDR.
1. Storage Mobility
In this scenario, we’re migrating the SAP HANA instance between two FlashArray//X systems. We use the same compute and change only the storage. This scenario mainly applies to systems in the same location.
2. Storage and Compute Mobility
In this scenario, we’re not only migrating the instance between FlashArray//X devices at local and remote sites, but we’re also changing the compute to which the instance is attached. This scenario applies to systems in separate locations.
See How it Works
In the demonstration below, I’ve showcased how to migrate (or fail over in a disaster scenario) an SAP HANA system from a source system to a target one.
To use the functionality of ActiveDR with an SAP HANA deployment, you’ll need only two FlashArrays that are both running Purity 6.0. There are no additional license costs. And if you already have FlashArray, it just takes a simple, non-disruptive upgrade to get this feature. (FlashArray//M and //X are available now)
More Resources
Here are more resources on ActiveDR and Pure’s portfolio of modern data protection solutions.
Find these on purestorage.com:
