SHIFT-WIKI - Sjoerd Hooft's InFormation Technology
This WIKI is my personal documentation blog. Please enjoy it and feel free to reach out through blue sky if you have a question, remark, improvement or observation. See below for the latest additions, or use the search or tags to browse for content.
AIX NIM Client Installation
Summary: ALthough AIX is by now on version 7.3 I find these old pages so fascinating I decided to keep them. On this page I'll show you how to install an AIX server as a NIM client. This page is for AIX 5.3 and AIX 6.1.
Date: Between 2010-2013
Refactor: 21 December 2024: Checked formatting.
SRM 5.1: Where is RW Clone Located
Summary: How to check where the RW clone during a VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.1 test is located.
Date: Around 2010
Refactor: 21 April 2025: Checked links and formatting.
During implementation of SRM we had the question where the RW clone that gets created during a SRM test is located. It should be in the aggregate containing the volume, because that's also where the snapshot is located. However, we decided to check.
Note: This is with the NetApp SRA, other storage vendors might use different replication techniques resulting in different architecture.
After performing a SRM test we could see the following information.
SRM Alarms
Summary: How to configure alarms in VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.1.
Date: Around 2010
Refactor: 21 April 2025: Checked links and formatting.
Site Recovery Manager has the option to enable alarms, and have the alarms send to an email inbox. This is very fortunate because if something goes wrong you really want to be aware of what is happening. There are a lot of alarms that can be triggered, including and not limited to:
- Licensing issues
- Recovery Plans
- Permissions
- VM Protection status
- Protection Groups
And many more. I tried to count them and came up to 90 alarms (SRM 5.1). As far as I know it's not possible to create custom alarms, but I can't think of any alarm that is not available.
Alarms at my company are configured to send an email (although other options are available) and for email configuration the SMTP settings from vCenter are used. To check or configure these settings start the vSphere Client → Go to Administration → vCenter Server Settings → Mail.
Also note:
- that alarms are disabled by default, so after configuring do not forget to enable them.
- that alarms are configured per site, in bidirectional configurations you'll have to configure alarms on both sites.
Site Recovery Manager 5.1
Summary: How to install, configure and test VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.1.
Date: Around 2010
Refactor: 21 April 2025: Checked links and formatting.
This page is about VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 5.1. Installation, configuration and testing will be discussed. This implementation will use Array Based Replication on a IBM N-Series 6060, which actually is a NetApp FAS3160, so we'll use the N-Series Storage Replication Adapter (SRA). We already have a replication between our sites but this uses an old naming convention and is also not compliant with our performance policies. Therefore these will also change. We already prepared our environment for implementing Site Recovery Manager so both of our sites have a vCenter, and they are in Linked Mode (which is not a requirement but is a nice to have). The database is a Microsoft MSSQL 2008 R2 Server which is already installed by my DBA on a separate server.
The preparations are discussed in:
VMware preparations:
Note: The vCenter 5.1 report is based on vCenter 5.1 GA. The installed version is upgraded to 5.1.0b (release date 2012-12-20).
NetApp preparations:
Note: The terms IBM N-Series and NetApp will probably both be used in this page. I'm used of talking about NetApps, but the software I'm using is the rebranded one from IBM. This is obviously for support reasons.