Wednesday, May 3, 2023

NetApp SnapMirror Synchronous and Asynchronous

 

NetApp SnapMirror Synchronous and Asynchronous

When the replication is synchronous, the source host sends a write request to the source storage system, which is the source of the replication. Then, the source storage system sends a replication request, and it also sends the write to the destination storage system.

 

The target destination storage sends an acknowledgement back to the source storage, and the source storage sends the acknowledgement back to the client. With synchronous replication, the data is written to the source and target storages before an acknowledgement is sent back to the client. Therefore, you can't have too much delay in the data being written to both locations.

 

When you use asynchronous replication, the source host sends in a write request to its source storage system, and the source storage system immediately returns an acknowledgement to the client.

 

Then, based on a predetermined schedule that you decide, for example, once every 10 minutes, the source sends all of the data written to it in the previous 10 minutes to the target storage. The target storage then sends an acknowledgement back to the source storage system.

 

The asynchronous replication breaks it down into two separate operations. With synchronous, the write goes to both the source and the target storage before the acknowledgement returns. With asynchronous replication, the write comes into the source storage and immediately sends the acknowledgement back to the client.

 

Later on, on the schedule in a separate operation, all of the writes will be written to the target storage, and the target storage will return an acknowledgement.

 

With asynchronous replication, the source storage sends an acknowledgement immediately back to the client host system, so there's no time and distance limitation. The application will not time out in the source because the acknowledgement is sent back immediately.

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