What is recoverpoint?

EMC RecoverPoint replication provides the continuous data protection you need to recover any application, on any storage array, in any location, to any point in time.

Optimize your RTO and RPO targets by ensuring instant access to data for disaster recovery, operational recovery, and testing. Use RecoverPoint to extend VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) beyond snapshots.

Choose the RecoverPoint Appliance (RPA) for highest performance, or install RecoverPoint Virtual Edition for VNX with the virtual RPA (vRPA) for up to 33% lower cost. Use your network more efficiently with policy-based bandwidth reduction that reduces reducing bandwidth consumption by as much as 90%. WAN optimization improves communication robustness, so that data replication can tolerate 50% longer round-trip time (RTT) and up to 5% higher packet loss.

And you can combine RecoverPoint (version 4.1 and higher) with EMC VPLEX Metro (not included) to create a MetroPoint topology. The MetroPoint topology is the industry’s first multi-site, high availability solution with continuous disaster recovery. You can keep your business running through simultaneous failures at multiple sites.

EMC RecoverPoint protects storage arrays LUNs and provides concurrent local and multiple remote data replication copies with continuous data protection for any PiT Recovery. It supports EMC VMAX 10K, 20K, 40K, VNX, VNXe3200, VNX-F, VPLEX, XtremIO and 3rd party arrays via VPLEX. Integrated with VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), it extends the protection capabilities with RecoverPoint SRA and VSI for any point in time recovery. It is also application agnostic.

RecoverPoint delivers benefits including the ability to:

RecoverPoint uses a journal-based implementation to hold the PiT information of all changes made to the protected data. Its replication policy supports a short RPO via journal technology that delivers DVR like roll back in time capability to a selected PiT for recovery just seconds before data corruption occurred, reversing the error.

With RecoverPoint technology, data is protected by Consistency Group (CG), preserving order consistency across the volumes contained within it. A journal, consisting of dedicated journal volumes, is assigned to each CG copy to maintain the PiT roll back capability otherwise known as a protection window. RecoverPoint is designed to ensure recovery consistency for one application or inter-dependent applications using a single CG or using separate CGs as part of a Group Set.

RecoverPoint delivers remote data replication over WAN, at lower costs when replicating asynchronously. Its built-in WAN optimization consists of advanced bandwidth reduction algorithms such as write-folding, deduplication and compression that reduce WAN bandwidth consumption up to 90%. WAN optimization also ensures replication robustness with an improved resiliency that sustains 50% longer Round Trip Time (RTT) and higher packet loss to fully utilize the available lag optimization which prioritizes among asyn CGs on the same RPA that competes for WAN resources.

The multi-site support of RecoverPoint in a 1:4 fan-out configuration provides multiple replications of production data to different target devices or sites for additional data protection or to support isolated software development test. A 4:1 fan-in configuration enables a centralized DR site implementation for branch office protection. Also, multi-site along with splitter sharing allows for more fan-in and fan-out topologies.

RecoverPoint supports concurrent local and remote replications over any distance, sync or async. It makes data loss reversible and outages transparent so that organizations can achieve the required RPO and RTO goals. Architecturally it consists of an EMC Unisphere management GUI, a physical RecoverPoint Appliance (pRPA) or a Virtual RecoverPoint Appliance (vRPA *VNX relevant only), and the write-splitter embedded in the supported EMC storage arrays. With EMC XtremIO, the data replication is a splitter-less implementation achieved by leveraging the highly efficient array-based snapshot technology native to the XtremIO platform.

Snap Based Replication

The Snap and Replicate feature, an alternative to synchronous or asynchronous replication, is enabled by leveraging the intelligent array-based snapshot capability available in EMC VNX and XtremIO platforms. It enhances asynchronous replication with a user defined interval for replication. For EMC XtremIO, a low latency and high performance all flash array, a minimum of 60 seconds RPO is required.

Heterogeneous EMC Array Type Support

RecoverPoint protects storage arrays LUNs allowing data replication of mixed EMC array types, in that the target array can be different from the source array type. This heterogeneous array support allows production environments using high performance XtremIO arrays to be protected with a more economical storage array platform at the remote site, helping to maintain data protection and keep the DR budget under control.

Metropoint Topology

With the introduction of MetroPoint topology, EMC raises the bar by delivering the industry’s first and only solution for 3 datacenter availability and disaster recovery that can sustain 2 site failures. MetroPoint topology is enabled by combining the best of EMC VPLEX Metro, an activeactive multi-site infrastructure, and RecoverPoint, for continuous data replication to the remote 3rd site. Comprehensive data protection continues even under the complete failure of one of the Metro region sites. The simultaneous protection of the Metro region by a distant 3rd site using RecoverPoint provides any PiT recovery from operational and disaster outages.

MetroPoint topology helps organizations to achieve a new level of continuous availability and data protection that completely closes the RPO/RTO gap, which no other vendor in the industry can claim. MetroPoint topology deployment includes:

Kashya was founded in February, 2001, originally located in Ramat Gan, Israel.[2] Venture funding included Battery Ventures and Jerusalem Global Ventures.[3] In 2003, additional operations in San Jose, California were announced along with $12 million in funding and a first product.[4] Kashya was acquired by EMC Corporation on May 9, 2006, for $153 million.[5] EMC had already announced a product named RecoverPoint in October 2005, adapted from a product called Recovery One from Mendocino Software.[6] The Kashya product had been named KDX 5000.[7] The EMC RecoverPoint product based on Kashya technology was released in 2007, and version 3.0 released in 2008.[8][9]

RecoverPoint continuous data protection (CDP) tracks changes to data at a block level and journals these changes.[10] Every write is tracked and stored as a different snapshot. Alternatively, groups of writes can be aggregated according to configuration in order to reduce storage space and network traffic. The journal then allows rolling data to a previous "Point-In-Time" in order to view the drive contents as they were before a certain data corruption. CDP can journal each write individually, hence enabling any-point-in-time snapshots, or it can be configured to combine consecutive writes in order to reduce journal space and improve bandwidth. CDP works only over a storage area network - the RecoverPoint appliances need to be configured for the replica and the journal Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs).

RecoverPoint continuous remote replication (CRR) enables a replica in a remote site. For such a setup, RecoverPoint appliances clusters are required in both the local and remote sites. These 2 clusters communicate over either Fibre Channel (FC) or Internet Protocol. RecoverPoint applies data compression and data de-duplication in order to reduce wide area network traffic. As of RecoverPoint 3.4, only one remote site. CRR can be combined with CDP in order to provide concurrent local and remote (CLR) replication.

The consistency group (CG) term is used for grouping several LUNs together in order to ensure write-order consistency over several volumes. This is used for example with a database that stores its data and journal on different logical drives. These logical drives must be kept in-sync on the replica if data-consistency needs to be preserved. Other examples are multi-volume file systems such as ZFS or Windows' Dynamic Disks.[11]

Similar to other continuous data protection products, and unlike backup products, RecoverPoint needs to obtain a copy of every write in order to track data changes. EMC advertises RecoverPoint as heterogenous due to its support of multi-vendor server, network and storage arrays.[12]

Host-based write splitting is done using a device driver that is installed on the server accessing the storage volumes. The usage of a host-based splitter allows replication of selected non-EMC storage. Available fabric-based splitters are for Brocade Communications Systems SAN switches and for Cisco Systems SANTap. This requires the investment in additional switch blades. This configuration allows splitting from all operating systems regardless of their version, and is agnostic to the storage array vendor.

Storage array splitters are only supported on a subset of EMC storage products. This method allows write splitting from all operating systems, and does not require special SAN switching hardware. The RecoverPoint/SE is a slimmed-down version that only supports this type of splitter.

Each site requires installation of a cluster that is composed of 2-8 RecoverPoint appliances. The multiple appliances work together as a high availability cluster. Each appliance is connected via FC to the SAN, and must access both the server (SCSI initiator) and the storage (SCSI target). Each appliance must also be connected to an IP network for management. Replication takes place over either FC or standard Internet Protocol. One or more splitters would split traffic to both the storage and the appliances.

Besides integration with EMC products such as AppSync, ViPR, Replication Manager, Control Center and Unisphere, and the Clariion, VNX, Symmetrix and VPLEX storage arrays, RecoverPoint integrates with the following products: Integration with VMware vSphere, VMware Site Recovery Manager and Microsoft Hyper-V allows protection to be specified per virtual machine instead of per volumes that are available to the hypervisor. Integration with Microsoft Shadow Copy, Exchange and SQL Server and Oracle Database Server allows RecoverPoint to temporarily stop writes by the host in order to take consistent application-specific snapshots. Application programming interfaces and command-line interfaces allow customers to integrate with custom internal software.[10]

EMC RecoverPoint is appliance-based – which makes this solution highly scalable. RPA can be a physical appliance (RPA) or a virtualized RPA (vRPA).

RecoverPoint RPAs manage aspects of data protection and replication.

The virtual RPA is a purely software-based instance of the RPA appliance, and utilizes services on an existing ESX platform – vRPA requires no other hardware compontents beyond the ESX server cluster it is deployed on.

RPA (RecoverPoint Appliance) has dedicated Fibre Channel, WAN and LAN interfaces.

RecoverPoint Write Splitter is used to split (duplicate) the writes. A write is sent first to the RecoverPoint appliance and then a duplicate is sent to the primary storage volume. It is important to understand that Write Splitter is Array-Based. It means that you don’t have to actually connect RecoverPoint Appliance between host and a Storage Array – instead a host is communicating with Storage Array directly, not even our of a RecoverPoint instance. Write Splitter is already built-in to the EMC VNX, VMAX, VPLEX storage systems.

A cluster of two or more active RPAs is deployed at each RecoverPoint Site. This provides high-availability – if one one RPA in a cluster fails, RecoverPoint immediately switches over to remaining RPA(s) in the cluster. RecoverPoint Clustes is a logical entity – a group of 2 to 8 physical (or virtual) RPAs that work together to replicate and protect data. Important fact: the number of RPAs in an RPA cluster must be the same at all RPA clustes in a RecoverPoint System. What is RecoverPoint System? Keep reading 🙂

A RecoverPoint System is a logically single entity which replicates and protects data between all sites in one RecoverPoint installation. You can manage all RPAs through a floating cluster Management IP address. A system  is a set up to 5* interconnected RecoverPoint Clustes managed via a single RP management console. (*5 clusters for RecoverPoint/EX and RecoverPoint/CL licenses, RecoverPoint/SE supports up to 2 clusters).