Protecting Your Data with Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage

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Della O’Brien’
10 years ago
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1 S T O R A G E Protectin Your Data with Windows Server 2012 R2 Storae A Look at the Key Features Desined to Protect Your Data H avin an effective disaster recovery and data protection plan in place is vital to keepin your oranization s data safe. For data protection of core operatin system and applications, Windows Server 2012 R2 uses a layered approach that incorporates the new Resilient File System (ReFS) and NTFS check disk (CHKDSK) utility. Both ReFS and CHKDSK have been enineered to provide the hihest level of availability.

2 Other layers include disk-level protection and fault tolerance (implemented throuh hih availability and resilient storae spaces) and workload and datacenter protection and availability (implemented throuh System Center 2012 SP1 Data Protection Manaer, Windows Azure Backup, StorSimple, and Hyper-V Replica). Information on each of the different layers Windows Server 2012 R2 employs to protect and recover data when a disaster strikes are detailed below. Protectin File Systems And Directories Windows Server 2012 introduced an enineered file system, ReFS, meant to maintain compatibility with the popular NTFS file system and support a new eneration of storae technoloies and scenarios (Fiure 1). It tarets maximizin data availability, scalin efficiently to very lare data sets across diverse workloads, and uaranteein data interity by means of resiliency to corruption. By utilizin an interated storae stack comprisin ReFS and Storae Spaces, you can deploy the most cost-effective platform for available and scalable data access usin commodity storae. CHKDSK in Windows Server 2012 R2 has been improved to run in seconds versus minutes or hours. Scannin of volumes is now done online, dramatically reducin the time that volume is offline for repairs (Fiure 1). With ReFS, even if there is a bad area on the disk, ReFS volumes will stay online while repairs are made to the affected areas of the volume. CHKDSK on NTFS now only runs aainst the affected areas of an NTFS volume, which similarly keeps the volume online, even if there are errors. Fiure 1. Features of ReFS and CHKDSK. STORAGE 2

3 At a Glance: ReFS Maintains the hihest levels of system availability Provides a full end-to-end resilient architecture Uses the Copy on Write method to update files thereby avoidin corruptions caused durin disk power outae Offers Checksums on all metadata Windows Azure Backup Windows Azure Backup Service is a cloud-based storae service manaed by Microsoft (Fiure 2). To transfer data between servers runnin Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Azure Backup, you can use either the Windows Azure Backup Service Aent or the Online Backup cmdlets for Windows PowerShell. Windows Azure Backup Service offers a low-cost backup and recovery solution for small businesses, departmental backups, and remote office backups that lack a local backup infrastructure. It is not meant to be a replacement for enterprise-level backup solutions such as System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manaer (DPM). Fiure 2. Windows Azure backup. STORAGE 3

4 At a Glance: Windows Azure Backup Cloud-based storae service for online backups Windows PowerShell instrumented Simple, reliable Disaster Recovery solution for applications and data Supports System Center 2012 R2 DPM Fiure 3. System Center 2012 DPM. System Center 2012 R2 DPM System Center 2012 R2 DPM enables disk-based and tape-based data protection and recovery for servers such as SQL Server, Exchane Server, SharePoint, virtual servers, file servers, and support for Windows desktops and laptops (Fiure 3). It can also centrally manae system state and Bare Metal Recovery (BMR). New features include offsite replication and backup on Windows Azure Cloud Services and applications. Hyper-V Replica Windows Server 2012 introduced Hyper-V Replica as a built-in feature that provides asynchronous replication of virtual machines (VMs) for the purposes of business continuity and disaster recovery. In the event of failures (e.., power failure, fire or natural disaster) at the primary site, the administrator can manually failover the production VMs to the Hyper-V server at the recovery site (Fiure 4). Durin failover, the VMs recover to a consistent point-in-time within minutes. The VMs runnin in the recovery site are accessible to the rest of the network in near real-time. Once the primary site comes back, the administrators can manually convert the VMs to the Hyper-V server at the primary site. STORAGE 4

5 Fiure 4. Secure replication of VMs from different systems and clusters to a remote site over a WAN. At a Glance: Hyper-V Replica Synchronous virtual machine replication to recovery site with point-in-time recovery Three-site roup available with Primary, Recovery, and DR sites Failure recovery in minutes Closely interated with System Center 2012 R2 VMM and Failover Clusterin to support live mirations Hyper-V Recovery Manaer Hyper-V Recovery Manaer is a new cloud-scale disaster recovery solution for Hyper-V (Fiure 5, pae 6). It extends Hyper-V Replica, addin an emphasis on simplicity and consistency of the user experience across clouds. Hyper-V Recovery Manaer is built on the foundation of Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center VMM 2012 SP1 and Windows Azure. At no time does Windows Azure ever connect to your internal network. This solution is part of the new Microsoft Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) architecture. STORAGE 5

6 Fiure 5. The major components of Hyper-V Recovery Manaer. At a Glance: Recovery Manaer Cloud-scale DR Solution Builds on Hyper-V Replica System Center 2012 R2 VMM and Windows Azure Orchestration For more information on the Windows Server 2012 R2 layered approach to disaster recovery and data protection, o to Windows Server 2012 R2 Storae - Technical Scenarios and Solutions ( A/94A D6-47AD-B209-79D6E2758A24/Windows_ Server_2012_R2_Storae_White_Paper.pdf). STORAGE 6

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