SRM User Guide: Discovering Replicated Devices with the FlashArray SRA

Replicated Devices

Once SRM array managers have been configured, SRM can use the FlashArray SRA (VMFS or RDMs) or the FlashArray VASA provider (vVols) to discover all of the replicated devices on the identified FlashArray replication pairs. While specific array manager configuration dictates whether or not a given device will be discovered, FlashArray volumes generally are supported to be discovered by the SRA or VASA Provider if they are protected in one of the following ways:

• VMFS, RDMs or vVols: In a FlashArray protection group that is not in a pod. The FlashArray protection group must have one or more connected FlashArray replication targets in it. (SRA 1.0+)
• VMFS or RDMs: In a FlashArray protection group that is in a pod (stretched or unstretched). The FlashArray protection group must have one or more connected FlashArray replication targets in it and failover is to the target of the protection group. (SRA 3.1+)
• VMFS or RDMs: In a FlashArray pod that is enabled for ActiveDR (SRA 4.0+)
• VMFS only: In a stretched pod. This is supported in "stretched" storage integration of the SRM, but does require SRM enterprise licenses (SRA 2.0+). An array manager must be setup appropriately for this configuration to be discovered. Failover is between the two arrays hosting the pod.

  The following replication options are not currently supported for SRM-controlled failover:

• The volume is only in a FlashArray protection group with only an object-based target (Amazon S3, Azure Blob)
• The volume is only in a FlashArray protection group with only a NFS-based target

  If a volume is in a valid replication state, it will be returned to SRM by the FlashArray SRA or VASA provider. This means that all valid replicated volumes will be returned to SRM - whether or not they are in use by the VMware environment.

  Below is a screenshot of a list of replicated devices from an array pair:

  

  The above list is returned to SRM and then SRM looks to see if it is in a supported mode. The following list are the requirements:

• iSCSI or Fibre Channel
• VMFS version 5 or 6
• Raw Device Mapping (RDM - this is not supported for stretched storage)
• In use in the connected vCenters (if the volume is used by a vCenter not connected to this SRM pair it is considered not in-use)

Note that Virtual Volume-based VMs and their storage are not listed in the discovered devices table.

If a discovered device is shown in the above table but the Datastore column is not populated (it is blank), the device cannot be controlled by SRM.