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Continuous Availability forCritical SharePoint Environments

Arthur CafieroSr. Systems Engineer

SharePoint User GroupJuly 8th, 2010

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About Neverfail

• Neverfail: An Established, Global, Software CompanyCompany Founded in 1993Provides Continuous Availability for Windows Based Applications4,000+ Customers, across 40 countries

SMB to Global Enterprise (Across most Industry Verticals)Extensive Reseller CoverageOffices in US, UK, Dubai, Germany, Netherlands & Australia >400% Growth Over Last 3 yearsStrategic Partners

- Microsoft, VMware, Cisco, Research In Motion- OEM agreements: VMware (vCenter Server Heartbeat) Cisco, Honeywell

Technology Alliances- Microsoft SQL Server “Always On”- Recommended Solutions for SharePoint & ClusterProtector- Recommended Solution by RIM

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SharePoint: A Mission Critical Platform

• SharePoint use is driving the growth of content management environments

• SOX, HIPPA and LEDES have also driven the need for comprehensive content management

• SharePoint is becoming the de facto standard for content management environments

• Because SharePoint has become mission critical, 24X7 availability has become a priority

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Why do Applications Fail?

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The State Of The Market

Data Recovery Point Business Recovery Time

Seconds

Minutes

Hours

Days

Tape Disk Snapshot CDP Snapshot Disk TapeSeconds

Minutes

Hours

Days

Seconds

Minutes

Hours

Days

Eliminating The Availability GapThrough Integration and Automation

Hours

Mostly Manual, Recovery-Based StrategyRTO/RPO is the language

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The Ecosystem - Data Into Information

DATA

HARDWARE & OS

NETWORK CONNECTIVITY

APPLICATIONSUSERS

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RecoveryCentric

AvailabilityCentric

The Market Evolution of Continuous Availability

Backup & RestoreFile, Block, Full, Incremental, On-site, Off-site

Disaster RecoverySnapshot, Asynchronous Replication, CDP, Manual

FailoverDataCentric

ClusteringActive/Passive, Active/Active, Multi-node,

Fault Tolerance, High Availability

ApplicationCentric

Continuous AvailabilityNo User or Application Downtime, Local and Remote

Availability, Business and Application-Awareness

BusinessCentric

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SharePoint Farm

MS ClusteringDatabase Mirroring

Business-Centric Management & Protection

Load Balancing

?????

Traditionally, servers of like functionality are grouped together for availability &

protection, leading to multiple, standalone availability

solutions and incomplete protection for the Business

Application

Neverfail takes a Business-Centric approach and manages and

protects the complete SharePoint 2010 Farm

Database Server Database Server

Application Server Application Server

Web Server Web Server

Com

plet

e P

rote

ctio

n fo

r B

usin

ess

App

licat

ions

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SQL Search Index

SharePointFront-End

NFSecond network

Data Center

NF

Typical Neverfail for SharePoint Implementation

NF

“Shared nothing” environment ensures continuous availabilityPassive servers can be placed in a remote DR facilityCan also be configured for Passive servers in a LAN and Tertiary servers over a WANServers can be Physical or Virtual

Production serversSQLNF Passive

Search Index(NF Passive)

SharePointFront-End(NF Passive)

NF NFNF

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SharePoint 2010 Support

SharePoint 2010 EditionsFoundation

Standard & Enterprise

SharePoint Application Services

Out-of-box support Web Server Extensions Microsoft Office Web Apps

Microsoft Search Server Express 2010

Microsoft Project Server 2010

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Neverfail for SharePoint 2010

Simplify Administration TasksAuto deploy components installed on Active to the Passive Server

Web parts

Templates

Web Server Extensions etc

Warn when SP service packs differ between Active and Passive

Services Level reporting of response times on SharePoint Sites

Business Application Failover

Co-ordinated failover with loss of a single server

Site failover with loss of complete site

Site maintenance

Provide health checks to ensure that Exchange is available and can be contacted from the SharePoint

Server 

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Summary

• 80% of unplanned downtime is caused by people, process or the application itself

• Reducing RTO is key• Monitoring the APPLICATION is as important as the

hardware and data• Managing the “application farm” provides the best

protection from extended downtime or degraded performance

• There is a need for BOTH local and remote protection using physical and/or virtual environments

• The goal..

Keep users seamlessly connected to the application, regardless of the failure or failover

location

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Questions? 

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Virtualization

Flexible Deployment Scenarios

HA Deployment DR Deployment HA & DR DeploymentCP Deployment

Production Site

Compression & De-duplication

Disaster Recovery Site

Neverfail Channel

Flexible, P2P, P2V , V2P or V2V operation

Local and remote deployment

Shared nothing architecture

Specific Microsoft Cluster, Hyper-V and vSphere Options

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Neverfail Channel

STEP 1

Install second

server with second

network card

STEP 2

Run

SCOPE *

as a health check

*Server

Check

Optimization &

Performance

Evaluation

STEP 3

Run Setup to clone

the Windows O/S,

applications and

data

Active Passive

STEP 4

Start Neverfail

and sleep easy

at night

FAILOVER

Neverfail will

detect failure

and can

automatically

failover

SWITCHBACK

Fix failure and

Neverfail will re-

synchronize

primary and

switch back

DISASTER

RECOVERY

Move secondary to

offsite location for

full DR support

Neverfail Topologies – Failover/Failback (Detailed)

LAN

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Neverfail High Level Architecture

Email Files Remote UsersCollaborationWebDatabaseNeverfail Admin Custom Apps

Neverfail - Continuous Availability Director

DataReplication

CDP RollbackApplication Settings

Registry Settings

MonitoringServer

NetworkApplication

Performance

ContinuityDetect & Correct

FailoverFailback

Auto or manual

Application-Aware Management Framework (AMF)

WANSmartAccelerationCompression

De-DuplicationLink Down Buffering

ScopeCollect & Analyze

Proactive ReliabilityHealth Check

System OptimizationCapacity Planning

Application Plug-in ModulesMS Exchange MS File Server RIM BESMS SQL MS Mobile Custom…MS SharePoint Lotus Domino Any App…MS IIS Right Fax Any Data…

3rd Party AdaptorsMSCSWSFC

VMware HA/FTHyper-V

User Transparent Failover/Failback, Application-Aware, CDP, Replication

Physical / Clustered Systems Virtual Systems CloudDisaster Recovery

New!

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SQL Search Index

SharePointFront-End

NFSecond network

Data Center

NF

Step 1: Reduce TCO for HA servers

NF

SQL (NF Passive)

SharePoint Front-End(NF Passive)

Search Index(NF Passive)

Virtual Host

NF

NF

NF

HA servers

Consolidating all passive servers onto one or more host servers using virtualization reduces deployment and management costs for High AvailabilityImmediate BC protection including planned maintenance

Production servers

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Search Index(NF Passive)

NF

Data Center

NF

Step 2: P2V Migration with no Downtime

NF

SQL (NF Passive)

Virtual Host

NF

NF

NF

Reduce the risk of P2V migration by using Neverfail to switch applications (in this case SharePoint) from physical to virtual without end user interruptionCan switch back with a single click or can set application rules to happen automatically if failure

Second network

SQL SharePointFront-End

SQL (NF Passive)

SharePoint Front-End(NF Passive)

Search Index

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SQL (NF Active)

Search Index(NF Passive)

SharePointFront-End(NF Passive)

NF

Data Center

NF

Step 3: Validate ability to run multiple apps on a Virtual Host

NF

SQL (NF Passive)

SharePoint Front-End

Search Index

Virtual Host

NF

NF

NF

Test the ability to run multiple critical applications on single host with virtualizationMore effective workload testing without downtime, emergency switchback available

Second network

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Data Center

Step 4: Move to full V2V with load balancing

SQL

SharePoint Front-End(NF Passive)

Search Index(NF Passive)

Virtual Host

NF

NF

NF

Having validated migration and multi VM support can now migrate all physical servers to virtual machinesNot only will virtualization allow optimum use of individual hosts, applications can now be load balanced to make optimum use of all hardwareNeverfail’s architecture means that all system components (hardware, network, applications) are fully protected against any failure

SQL (NF Passive)

SharePoint Front-End

Search Index

NF

NF

NF

Virtual Host

Second network