With the release of the Windows Server Technical Preview, we’ve unveiled a new feature, Storage Replica. Today we released a step-by-step guide to match.
Storage Replica enables storage-agnostic, block-level, synchronous replication between clusters or servers for disaster recovery, as well as stretching of a failover cluster for high availability. Synchronous replication enables mirroring of data in physical sites with crash-consistent volumes ensuring zero data loss at the file system level. Asynchronous replication allows site extension beyond metropolitan ranges with the possibility of data loss.
To help you get familiar with Storage Replica, we have a downloadable guide to provide you with step-by-step instructions for evaluating the Stretch Cluster and the Server-to-Server scenarios. These are both designed for Disaster Recovery and provide “over the river” synchronous metro replication.
Windows Server Technical Preview implements the following features in Storage Replica:
Feature | Notes |
Type | Host-based |
Synchronous | Yes |
Asynchronous | Yes (server to server only) |
Storage hardware agnostic | Yes |
Replication unit | Volume (Partition) |
Windows Server Stretch Cluster creation | Yes |
Write order consistency across volumes | Yes |
Transport | SMB3 |
Network | TCP/IP or RDMA |
RDMA | iWARP, InfiniBand |
Replication network port firewall requirements | Single IANA port (TCP 445 or 5445) |
Multipath/Multichannel | Yes (SMB3) |
Kerberos support | Yes |
Over the wire encryption and signing | Yes (SMB3) |
Per-volume failovers allowed | Yes |
Dedup & BitLocker volume support | Yes |
Management UI in-box | Windows PowerShell, Failover Cluster Manager |
This is an early pre-release build. Many of the features and scenarios are still in development, the experiences are still evolving. At this stage, Windows Server Technical Preview and Storage Replica are not intended for production environments, only for introductory evaluation.
Download the guide:
- Windows Server Technical Preview Storage Replica Guide - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=514902
Download Windows Server Technical Preview evaluations:
- TechNet Evaluation Center (US): http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-vnext-technical-preview
- TechNet Evaluation Center (worldwide): http://technet.microsoft.com/evalcenter/dn781243
- MSDN subscribers: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/
For feedback:
- TechNet Forums: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/home?forum=WinServerPreview
Thanks for your evaluation and feedback, it is always appreciated. Much more varied content and news to come as the release cycle evolves.
- Ned “robot lawyer” Pyle