vStor Partnerships

The vStor Partnerships feature lets you connect two vStor instances to facilitate the transfer and synchronization of snapshots. Once a partnership is established, you can configure a replication relationship between a source volume on one partner and a target volume on the other. Volume replication is crucial for efficient data management, ensuring data redundancy and continuity across different storage environments.

Partnerships are established at the vStor user level, meaning there can be several partnerships between any two vStor instances, provided that any user on vStor A is in partnership with no more than one user on vStor B. Partnerships are symmetrical, allowing volumes from vStor A to replicate to vStor B and vice versa.

User-level partnerships enhance the possibilities resulting from vStor user roles. For example, each standard user can have different pool permissions and therefore be able to replicate only volumes from permitted pools.

See also. For more information about vStor users, go to Managing vStor User Accounts.

Creating a Partnership Using vStor Web Interface

Restrictions. It is impossible to add a vStor partner using credentials for a remote user enrolled in multifactor authentication. Instead, use credentials of a user not enrolled in MFA or use API keys. For more information, see Using vStor API Keys with Catalogic DPX.

To create a new vStor partnership:

1. Select Replication from the sidebar.

2. Click the Add new button in the Partnerships section to open the Add New Partnership dialog.

3. Enter the address of your remote partner vStor and the credentials of the user you want to establish the partnership with.

4. Click Save.

Advanced Options

The Advanced Options section allows you to configure an alternate IP address for the partner to communicate with the local vStor. You can also specify alternate ports for SSH communication.

Creating a New Replication Relationship Using vStor Web Interface

Once a vStor partnership is established, you can create a replication relationship between volumes on partner vStors. To create a replication relationship:

1. Select Replication from the sidebar.

2. Click the Add new button in the Replication Relationships section to open the Add New Relationship dialog.

3. Select the volume you want to replicate and the replication partner. Select a Replication Relationship Priority for the relationship, which determines the sequence of replication tasks when they coincide. You can also switch on the Protect Replicated Volumes toggle to enable deletion protection on the replicated volumes on the target system. This prevents accidental or unauthorized deletion of replicated data. For details, see Replication Deletion Protection.
4. Click Add.

See also. Replication deletion protection requires MFA to be enabled on the source vStor system. There is no MFA check on the replication target. For details, see Using Multifactor Authentication (MFA).

Advanced Options

The Advanced Options section allows you to specify a custom name for the volume replica. If no name is specified, the original volume name will be used. You can also select the target pool where the volume replica will be created and stored. If no pool is specified, the first available pool will be used.

The Reuse toggle applies when a replication relationship has been established and deleted, and you want to reestablish it. If the volume replica still exists on the remote vStor, it can be reused for replication without the need to create a new one.

Scheduling a Replication using vStor Web Interface

To schedule the replication of any of your unscheduled relationships, follow the procedure below.

Note that only one schedule per replication relationship is allowed.

1. Click the Add new button in the Schedules section.

2. Select an unscheduled relationship from a dropdown menu. Choose schedule type and select schedule details.

3. Click Save.

See also. The time of replications depends on your vStor instance’s NTP Settings.

Creating a New Partnership Using vStor CLI

To create a new partnership using vStor CLI, use the following command and specify the address, username, and the password of the remote server:

vstor partner add --remote_addr <remote_server> --remote_user <remote_username> --remote_pass <remote_password>

Tip. To edit an existing partnership, use the add command again.

For other commands and more sophisticated parameters, use the --helpflag at any level, e.g:

vstor partner --help vstor partner add --help

Creating a New Replication Relationship Using vStor CLI

To create a new replication relationship using vStor CLI, use the following command and specify source and partner volumes:

vstor relationship create --vol_id <source_volume> --partner_id <partner_volume> 

Tip. For other commands and more sophisticated parameters, use the --helpflag at any level, e.g:

vstor relationship --help vstor relationship create --help

Scheduling a Replication Using vStor Web Interface

To create a new replication relationship using vStor CLI, use the following command and specify the ID of the relationship and the type of schedule (interval, weekly, monthly):

vstor schedule create --rel_id <relationship_id> --schedule_type <type>

Specify additional parameters in the same request depending on the schedule type as shown below:

Schedule type	Required parameters
interval	--interval <minutes>
weekly	--weekdays <comma-separated list of days (1-7)>
	--time <HH:MM>
montlhy	--months <comma-separated list of months (1-12)>
	--monthdays <comma-separated list of days of month (1-31)>
	--time <HH:MM>

Tip. For other commands and more sophisticated parameters, use the --helpflag at any level, e.g:

vstor schedule --help vstor schedule create --help

See also. For more details on best practices for backup storage, see Data Backup: Best Practices.