Request for input: SRDF SRA Techbook for VMware SRM

As you may or may not be aware, I am the sole author of the SRDF Storage Replication Adapter for VMware Site Recovery Manager Techbook. The Techbook for those of you who haven’t used it or aren’t aware of EMC Techbooks is a implementation guide for SRDF with SRM. Best practices, how-to, hints, etc.

The SRDF SRA utilitizes two Symmetrix replication technologies; TimeFinder for local replication and Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF) for remote replication. Both of these are very sophisticated technologies that offer a wide variety of options. These configurations can be a simple or as complex as you want/need. From basic two site SRDF to advanced protection from three-site SRDF Star. Needless to say to cover all of the iterations of what the SRA supports the Techbook has some bulk. 400 pages and counting. So also suffice to say it is quite a challenge for me to maintain by myself at times. I love SRM and SRDF though so it is totally worth it 🙂

Anyways–the point of this post was to elicit some feedback on the book. I am currently updating the book to include:

  1. Clarifications on topics that people seem to stuck on often that aren’t as clear as they can be in the book
  2. New topics that are asked about a lot that are absent from the book or glossed over in it
  3. New features for an upcoming release (a lot of great stuff by the way that I know a lot of people want )
  4. Re-ordering of some of the sections to make it easier to understand/read/use

So my ask is does anyone have any suggestions? Have you used the techbook and wished it had something? Did something not make sense? Common sticking points it could clarify or highlight?

I keep a running notepad file in between releases of every customer/field question I get on SRDF with SRM and a tally of their occurrence. So I try to improve things each release based upon that. But that is only what I see…

Hit me up on twitter (@codyhosterman) if you have input! Thanks a lot!!

If your request doesn’t fit into 140 characters DM me for my contact info on Twitter or ECN.

2 Replies to “Request for input: SRDF SRA Techbook for VMware SRM”

  1. Dear Cody,
    First I would like to thank you for very informative guides on SRDF adapter for Symmetrix so far. They have been if great help during complex implementations of SRM projects among our customers.

    As for your request for input, it would be nice to have a separate section for best practices summary and gotcha’s…

    Kind regards,
    Eyal

    1. Thanks for the input Eyal!! Glad the book has helped you in the past.

      I am adding a installation/configuration “checklist” similar to the blog post i did a few weeks back and trying to make troubleshooting sections clearer. I will look into maybe doing a troubleshooting/gotcha appendix. Those things sound good, or something more/different?

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