What you should know about Windows replication technology

Storage replication is a new feature in Windows Server 2016 that leverages Windows Server's own block storage replication Technology

first of all, we have a rough account of the deployment requirements:

1. This feature currently exists only in Windows Server Datacenter version
2, need to install the Storage-replica,fs-fileserver two functions
3, the replication process using Kerberos for authentication, so need to enter the domain
4, the Copy node requires at least two disks, a piece of data disk, a log disk, and must be GPT format
5, data disk upper limit 10TB, log disk lower limit 8GB
6. Ports used during the copy process: 445, 5445, 5895
7, network requirements: As far as possible than 1Gbps, preferably 10Gbps (synchronous replication)

Let's talk about the features of this technology:

1. Using SMB3.1.1 Technology
2, support synchronous replication and asynchronous replication (default)
3, the copy will require the log disk and the data disk, the data is written to the log disk, and then commit the data disk
4, the storage of the underlying no requirements, can be any technology
5, the replication process has a primary and standby relationship, the main readable writable, the default is not read and write

For the above mentioned synchronous replication and asynchronous replication, we do a simple introduction

Synchronous replication

Asynchronous replication

Finally, let's start our functional test.

Server information

Server01

Server02

Enable replication
Any single machine, execute the following command
Invoke-command-computername Srv01,srv02-scriptblock{install-windowsfeature-name Storage-Replica,FS-FileServer- Includemanagementtools-restart}

New-srpartnership-sourcecomputername srv01-sourcergname rg01-sourcevolumename D:-SourceLogVolumeName E:- Destinationcomputername srv02-destinationrgname rg02-destinationvolumename D:-destinationlogvolumename E:- Logsizeinbytes 12gb-verbose

View replication status through PowerShell

Get-srpartnership

Get-srgroup

Where we want to note replicationstatus This value, the property is relicating the description is being copied, the initialblockcopy description is also in the initial replication, if the error word indicates that the replication cannot be performed at the current occurrence

We can view storage replication through Windows performance counters (block replication, disk space related, state changed from Initialblockcopy to Continuouslyreplicating)

We can also analyze the status of storage replication through Windows logs

Note: A 1241 warning alert in the log can be ignored, a block copy is completed before the replication group relationship is established, and the RPO becomes available after completion

It is important to note that after creating a replication relationship, the data disk follows the technology master node can read and write, the secondary node is not read and write characteristics

We need to implement:

Toggle the replication direction by switching, you can see that the file has been copied properly

If, in production, the primary node SRV01 suddenly goes down, the command fails, and the general practice is to disassociate the replication group:
Get-srpartnership | Remove-srpartnership-force (can execute this command at any node)

Interested students can experiment with them.

What you should know about Windows replication technology