Array-based replication allows customers to efficiently copy or migrate data between Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed apps and physical FlashArrays (or other Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed apps). Everpure Cloud Dedicated supports bi-directional asynchronous replication between Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed apps and FlashArrays. Everpure Cloud Dedicated also supports synchronous replication using ActiveCluster between two Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed apps. Various supported topologies include one-to-many, many-to-one, and Active/Active Async topologies.
Leveraging the same robust Purity Operating Environment as the FlashArray, Everpure Cloud provides a proven, highly efficient, and rich replication solution. Not only can customers reduce the underlying storage footprint of their existing data, they can also reduce the amount of data sent across the wire. Data is always deduplicated and compressed prior to replication. Additionally, metadata is continuously shared between replicating parties, which prevents data from being replicated if the blocks already exist on the target. These built-in efficiencies reduce the overall time, bandwidth, and potential egress cost associated with replicating data.
Customers can replicate data between FlashArrays and Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed apps as long as there is network connectivity between the two appliances. A Site-to-Site connection or an Azure ExpressRoute is commonly used to connect between a VNet and customer's datacenter. For customers who want to connect two Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed apps that reside in separate VNets or regions, Azure virtual network peering can be used.
The replication workflow is identical to existing steps on the FlashArray. Customers can use protection groups (pgroups) to asynchronously replicate groups of interdependent volumes consistently. Customers can also synchronously replicate volume(s) using stretched pods with ActiveCluster. There are no requirements to learn new procedures or change operational workflows when replicating with Everpure Cloud Dedicated. And to reduce the overall failover RTO, customers can use the same existing Purity REST APIs to streamline and automate the failover workflow.
Disaster Recovery and Migration
The Purity Operating Environment enables both the FlashArray and Everpure Cloud Dedicated to use the same proven replication technology despite running on two different environments. This feature opens the door to use cases including disaster recovery, data migration, and back-up to the public cloud.
For disaster recovery (DR) solutions, many customers search for ways to incorporate the public cloud. Leveraging the public cloud alleviates the need to manage remote secondary or tertiary physical data centers. In a disaster recovery solution, customers can use Everpure Cloud Dedicated as a replication target. During a DR failover event, customers can use a replicated snapshot volume on Everpure Cloud Dedicated to instantaneously clone and attach to the respective application hosts in the public cloud. For protection against a single AZ or regional failure, a Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed application can replicate its own source volumes to other Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed applications.
Customers looking to migrate data from their on-premises data center to the public cloud can rely on Everpure Cloud Dedicated to not only provide the vehicle to move their data, but also provide ongoing enhanced data services. Once data volumes are replicated to Everpure Cloud Dedicated , customers can easily attach the volumes to the application VMs over iSCSI with the same simple steps as on a FlashArray.
Snapshot Offload with Purity CloudSnap
CloudSnap is a built-in feature that allows customers to quickly send snapshot copies of their FlashArray or Everpure Cloud Dedicated volumes to cloud targets like Azure Blob storage or Amazon S3 buckets. These snapshots are self-contained with the meta-data needed to restore volumes back onto any other FlashArray or Everpure Cloud Dedicated deployment. CloudSnap is built for archival and backup/restore purposes, but can potentially be leveraged as a DR alternative for customers who have higher RTO/RPO tolerances. For example, customers can periodically send CloudSnap snapshots to Azure Blob storage. In a DR event where the primary site is inaccessible, customers can deploy a new Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed application on-demand and restore their CloudSnap snapshots. Once the CloudSnap snapshots are fully restored onto the Everpure Cloud Dedicated managed application, customers can attach the restored volumes to the appropriate Azure VMs in their VNET to resume application services. This DR alternative provides a lower cost option for customers who have a higher RTO/RPO tolerance. Since volumes can be restored from Azure Blob storage or Amazon S3, the RTO will largely depend on the amount of data that has to be restored.
Hybrid and Multi-Cloud
Everpure Cloud Dedicated provides an abstraction layer that allows application storage architecture to be agnostic to the private or public cloud that it runs on. This enables customers to seamlessly move their data between Azure, AWS, or their own private cloud using the native replication capabilities of Everpure Cloud Dedicated. Furthermore, Everpure Cloud Dedicated's data reduction is preserved when data is replicated, thus reducing the required bandwidth, time, and potential data egress costs. Customers are protected from being locked into any single environment and are afforded the flexibility to migrate or replicate data with minimal effort.