PVE Ceph & replication with zfs on DRP

[shafeeks]

Hello,
We have a test lab at the office for a 3 nodes HA PVE cluster with Ceph storage backend. This setup is working great without any problems. Windows machines are running perfectly.

We would like to have a DRP solution with the actual setup. We have a standalone PVE server in a datacenter where we would like to activate the replication feature of Proxmox by using zfs. A vpn will be established between the office test lab cluster to to the remote standalone server in order to allow the replication of the VMs at a particular time between office cluster and standalone pve server on datacenter.

The idea is to have a running PVE server with the VMs running as DRP site. In case of total hardawre failure at office cluster, some users can still have their data on the datacenter.

Is it possible to have a a mixed environment with VMs running on Ceph and replication with ZFS? How can we achieved this setup?

Your recommendations / help will be high appreciated.
Thanks
Best Regards

Shafeek

 

[Alwin]

The replication needs VMs on zfs to work. Also depending on the changes written to disk, the sync will take a long time (may never finish).
https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#chapter_pvesr

I guess, you are better off with a backup -> copy backup to remote -> restore procedure, then trying to use the replication feature. Or sync data inside your VMs to the remote location.

 

[shafeeks]

Thanks Alwin.

The idea first was to do backups and rsync the backups to remote site. But the size of the backups can be huge. Copying 100Gb backups is not obvious. The idea of syncing data on VMs requires the VM on the remote site to be running. This will caused conflicts since both VMs will be connected by VPN. Thats why I was thinking of ZFS replication where we can make use of the delta sync option but unfortunately not possible as it requires VMs running on ZFS on both sides.

So I will try the possibility for backup/restore solution.

Shafeek

 

[Alwin]

Your VMs don't need to be running on the remote side. If you just can mount the disk, then you still be able to do the sync. For a backup, it greatly depends on how much compression can help and if you need to go through the vzdump. As you have your images in ceph, you can script a sync with ceph tools (if conversion of snaps is possible or needed, never tried). http://ceph.com/geen-categorie/incremental-snapshots-with-rbd/

 

[shafeeks]

Thanks Alwin.

I will give this a try.

BTW: I got this on the forum : https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/incremental-backups-ceph.30393/

Shafeek