Microsoft Azure AZ-800 — Section 19: Configure Windows Server storage Part 2

146. Configure and manage Storage Replica

So the next feature I want to explain in Windows Server is a concept called storage replica, stored replicas and eight feature that allows us to have replication between our different servers so, I can have a whole entire volume on, let’s say, NYC DC one, and I can have that replicated over to NYC Server one by utilizing this thing called stored for up those two approaches to this one is known as synchronous replication, which is only going to be used if you have a really good connection. Synchronous replication makes it where when somebody changes a volume like they add data or remove data or change data on a certain volume on your first server, it will immediately get replicated to the second server, so there’s no wait time there. The other type of replication we have is called asynchronous replication. Asynchronous replication, as if you have slower connections, maybe like a corporate headquarters to a site or something in the LAN connections a bit slow with asynchronous replication. Replication can occur during a certain delay, so a change could happen in corporate and it could be a delay and replicate down to the site.

So you’re not going to get if there was for disaster recovery purposes, asynchronous replication, you’re not always going to have a perfectly up to date copy of the volume in that other location, whereas with synchronous replication, you would.

OK, so to start with, in order to implement this, we need to go ahead and get the feature installed on our two servers.

So here we are on NYC DC one. We’re just going to go to server manager, manage ADM’s and features. We’re going to click next till we get to the features screen.

OK, and once we do that, we’re just going to scroll down and you will see storage replicates.

So, we’re going to go ahead and turn that on. Click Add Features, click next and install. It’s also going to want to reboot, but we’re going to go out and jump over to Server NYSE Server one now.

So here we are on NYSE Server one and we’re going to go ahead and go to. The tools menu, there are server management menu, their ad roles and features next, next, next. And to the feature screen and scroll down and we’ll just install storage replicas through this as well. All right.

So here it is. I’m going to go ahead and add features. Click next and install. All right, so, I’m going to go ahead and pause recording. I’m also going to let this reboot, so, I’m going to pause recording LOL. It’s happening now. After letting the servers rebooted, I wanted to jump into Hyper-V Manager here to look at these two virtual machines.

So, I’ve got the NYC, DC one and Server one, and I need to actually add a couple of virtual hard drives that can be used. You’re going to need a hard drive that’s going to be replica replicated, and you’re also going to need a hard drive for logs because it is going to be using transaction logs to do this.

So here I am on in my CDK1. I’m just going to right click and go to settings and I’m going to go down here to my I am my scuzzy controller and I’m going to click hard drive when I click Add and I’m just going to right here. What’s this virtual hard disk? I’m just going to click new brings up the little wizard. I’m going to do dynamically expanding. All right, and I’m just going to call this replica. All right. And we’ll click next. It’s going to set this to like. We’ll just do 30 gigs. All right. From there. Click next and then finish. All right.

So, it’s attaching that other drive, and I’m going to create another drive now.

So add. All right, and new, bring this up dynamically expanding. I’m just going to call this logs. All right, so next, we’ll just do 30 gigs for that and then finish. All right, and I’m going to do the exact same thing on the other machine, so this going to go over here server one.

OK. Hard drive. Add new. Next item, an expanding.

OK, we’ll call this replica. All right. And I’m going to put a different name for it. Server one.

OK. Next. Thirty. Gigs next and finish. And. New hard drive, new. Next, dynamically expanding logs server one. Next. Thirty gigs next. And finish.

OK, so, we created our two hard drives for each server, and so now we’re ready to jump back into our virtual machines.

OK, so here I am back on in ICDC one, and I’m just going to hold server manager up and go down here to file and storage services. We’re going to click on disk and you can see that our two new disk are showing up.

So, I’m just going to right click that and I say, bring online. And we did the same thing for this other Cheryl, to this other hardware. All right.

OK, so at that point, we now officially got the two drives online and we’re now ready to start creating volumes.

So, I’m going go right down here to where it says volumes. Click Task New volume brings up the new volume wizard.

OK, so, we’ll do desk one here. Click next, says Ari. The distances we brought online and initialize with GPT. That’s fine. We’ll click.

OK, do you want to read the full 30 gigs? Yes.

So click next. What? What drive letter do you want to give it? All right, I’m just going to give it the letter R for replica, and you know, you can give it any driver you want. I just like to do it that way. And then at that point, I’m going to click next. All right, I’m going to do NTFS, though you could use our office and the volume label is going to be called Réplica. All right. That’s fine. I’m going to go and click next and click Create.

So the next step will be to do the same exact thing on the other drive, except we’re going to do logs. All right.

So, we’ll go right over here if we look at our other drive this drive here, which currently says unknown, we’re going to click to create volume next. Next, go and bring it on line 30 gigs. That’s fine. And I’m going to put an L for this drive letter. All right. And from there, we’ll click next, and I’m just going to call this logs. All right. Then we’ll click next and we’ll click Create. We’re going through the exact same thing over on server one, so here we are over on server one. All right. We’re just going to go down here to file and storage services. All right. Choose our disks, and we should have our two disk showing up here.

OK, so there they are, which you can right click and bring them online.

OK, you wouldn’t do that bring online. Go to one, create a new volume next. All right. Go ahead and initialize the GPT partition Table next. We’re going to set that to our is a replica, so same thing we did on on NYC DC one click next. All right. And the volume label is going to be replica. Click Create.

So again, same same exact process, just doing it on NYC server one.

OK.

So let that finish and close, and we’re going to do the same thing with law, so, we’ll go here, create a new volume, bring up the wizard, initialize it 30 gigs, drive letters going to be ill. Click next. All right. Volume level is logs, click next and create we’ve now officially gone through and created our two drives on both servers and got those officially set up, so, we open up File Explorer. We should even be able to see those. There’s the L and there’s the R. All right.

So, we’re we’re in good shape.

OK, so the next step is we’re going to run a test to make sure that everything is going to work. And I’m going to warn you guys that unfortunately, my little lab environment, I don’t have enough memory. You’re supposed to have on top of what you have for your operating system, you’re supposed to have two extra gigs. And unfortunately, with my little lab environment, I’ve kind of pushed my server to its limit as far as how much memory I can support. But if you got some extra memory on your lab environment, you will be able to run this command and not get it any problem.

OK. But I want to show it to you. Mostly, this also what the exam, if you’re taking the exam, this what the exam is going to want you to know as well.

So you’re still going to learn all the concepts, but if you’ve got enough memory in your own environment, go ahead and give it a shot.

OK.

So, I’m going to jump back over to NYC DC one. I’m going to right click on Start, go to PowerShell, and the command I’m going to run is going to let me generate a report to make sure that everything is good.

OK? And again, I won’t be able to do this because I will get an error due to not have enough memory. But I’m going to click on. I’m going to type test dash, S.R. Topology -source computer name. All right, and it will be NYC -DC one. That’s my source computer, and then I’m going to do source volume name that’s going to be our colon and then source log volume name that’s going to be El Colon. And then we’re going to do -Destination Computer name, which is going to be NYC -SVR one. And then that will be the destination volume name, which is going to be our colon on the destination and then destination log volume name is ILCOIN.

So same thing on the other machine.

OK. And then you’ve got the duration in minutes.

So that’s going to be the replication interval. I’m going to go ahead and set. It would be like five minutes you could set and then slash our -results path and you do need to create a little folder.

So like if you open up File Explorer, you can create a little folder called results if you want. I created one called results, and so, I’m just going to see colon slash results. All right, at that point, you would be able to hit Enter and you should generate a report, but only if you’ve got enough memory.

OK, if you don’t, you’re going to get an error. All right. But that is how you’re going to generate report. It’ll generate a little HTML report that’ll get stored and results in. You build open that up.

OK, so once that goes through, if it passed successfully, you are now ready to create the partnership the stores are to partnerships.

So there’s another PowerShell command that’s going to be used to do that. And this what it looks like.

So, it’s new -s our partnership.

OK, Dash.

Source computer that’s going to be in, y’see, -and DC one stash source R.G. name.

So that’s going to be the partnership name, and I’m just going to call this S.R. one.

OK. And that’ll be this partnership name. This going to be stored for up with the server one, basically. And then I’m going to do -source volume now, and that’s going to be the R colon, right? And then the source log volume. All right. Just like the other command. That’ll be L Colon, right? And then -destination computer name that’s going to be in, y’see, -SVR one, right? And then -Destination R.G. name will be SRT to. That’s going to be our stored replica server, too. And then -destination volume name is going to be our colon. Same thing in the destination. Log volume is going to be elkhorn. And there you go. That is the command that you got to type. All right. And of course, that is going to configure, you know, it’s going to actually set up your partnership. Between your different machines. All right.

So partnership then is created. And at that point, we’ve officially got this setup.

OK, so the next thing would be, of course, to start storing data on if this the primary server in NYC server to our server, one is our secondary. I can go here to Réplicand I can actually start creating files and folders and things like that on this hard drive.

OK, but don’t get too excited because usually immediately what everybody wants to do is, you know, jump right over to that other server and start looking at the data.

So let me show you what happens when you do that. You jump over to NYC Server one, OK, and you click on Réplica. You’re going to get an error. That’s because this the secondary and you can’t write to the secondary right now. You actually can only write to that primary.

Now, the goal of the secondary here is to act as if it is a replica.

So, if something happens to your primary, you can make the secondary the primate primary and you got all your data.

OK.

So let me show you now how we would go about doing that. We’ve got our data we created. I just created on the replica drive of NYC D.C. one, which is the primary. I has created a folder called datand a little text file with some data in it.

OK? We’re going to jump over to NYC Server one now. Here we are on NYC Server one again as of right now. If we try clicking on replica, it tells us it’s not ready.

So here’s what we’re going to do and right click the Start button. We’re going to go to PowerShell. All right, and we are going to run the following PowerShell command set -as our partnership. The new source computer name in this going to be in, y’see, server one because it is taking over the partnership. And then the source R.G. name for that will be the SRT, which was the server up Goto. Then we’re going to do destination computer name. All right. Which, of course, this going to be the, you know, the destination is going to be the computer we’re taking it from, right? All right.

So like NYC, D.C. one? All right. And then destination, our name is going to be the S.R. one.

So, we’re going to go ahead now and hit Enter. All right, Susan, are you sure? I’m going to go ahead and hit yes to that. And it’s now officially taken over.

Now I should be able to open up File Explorer and I should be able to click on replica. And there’s the folder and there’s the file in the folder and there is the little scramble up data I wrote in there.

So you can see that NYC Server one did take over as the primary. And if we jump back over to NYC, DC one and we open up, we try to open up the replica we should get that same device is not ready message that were for the secondary.

So, we’ve officially got this configured.

Now let me do I do want to warn you that I have experienced an issue where when you run that second PowerShell command that command, I just ran a moment ago. You may experience a problem where the hard drive is still saying it’s not ready, just reboot the server. And that should solve that problem, OK? I think it might have something to do with not have enough memory in the virtual machine. But anyway, if you reboot, the machine should be up and going. But that is everything.

Now you understand the steps for setting up a storage replica.