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Deploy a Global-Active Device Cloud Quorum in a fraction of the time using a pre-configured Virtual Machine Image now available in the Azure marketplace

By Jonathan De La Torre posted 02-28-2022 13:48

  

Introduction

Are you still using a physical storage system located in a third physical site for your global-active device quorum? What if you could reduce the cost of global-active device and increase the availability of the quorum?

As cloud technologies continue to expand, it’s important that your business leverages cloud technologies to ensure high availability for your products. Although having a physical storage system serve as a quorum at a third site increases redundancy, using global-active device cloud quorum gives you access to more sites increasing the availability of your solution. Additionally, you no longer need to pay for maintenance and deployment of the third storage system because all computing resources are hosted in the cloud and you are only charged on-demand for hardware usage.

Global-Active Device Cloud Quorum

Global-active device cloud quorum is an Azure Virtual Machine Image available through the Azure Marketplace that streamlines the configuration of a virtual machine as an iSCSI target to serve as a quorum. Our solution leverages Azure global infrastructure to deploy a VM on the cloud that automatically configures itself upon launch requiring little user interaction for the VM setup. As a result, deployment is quick and easy, and it supports all Azure regions across the globe. Additionally, global-active device cloud quorum includes a simple- to-use user interface for making configuration changes to the quorum. The offering is free of charge for software usage and you only pay Microsoft Azure for on-demand for hardware usage.



Video Tutorial: https://hitachivantara.com/en-us/video/global-active-device-cloud-quorum-on-azure.html

The History of Quorum Disk

A quorum disk monitors global-active device (GAD) pair volumes and can be located in a third, external storage system or in an iSCSI-attached host server. The quorum disk acts as a heartbeat for the GAD pair, with both storage systems accessing the quorum disk to check on each other. A communication failure between systems results in a series of checks with the quorum disk to identify the problem for the system unable to receive host updates.



Supporting Cluster Post to Include: [Overview of global-active device - Hitachi Vantara Knowledge]

Terms to Know 

Quorum Disk: A storage system or iSCSI-attached host server used to monitor GAD pair volumes.

Global-Active Device (GAD): A synchronous data replication solution that creates and maintains remote copies of data volumes.

High Availability: The ability of a system to ensure a high level of uptime performance for an extended period.

The Pros and Cons of Global-Active Device Cloud Quorum

Pros:

  • Reduces the cost of global-active device by removing the cost of purchase and maintenance of a third physical storage system
  • Provides a High Availability solution by using state-of-the-art Microsoft Azure data centers
  • Supports regions in the US, Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, and South America
  • Streamlines configuration and setup requiring minimal user interaction
  • Manages the quorum through a simple user interface
  • Includes no cost software
  • Requires only on-demand costs for hardware used in the cloud
  • Ensures 99.9% availability for each Azure region

Learn how to deploy a virtual machine In the Microsoft Azure cloud and configure it to be an iSCSI target by viewing our Global-Active Device Cloud Quorum in Azure Implementation Guide here: Global-Active Device Cloud Quorum in Azure Implementation Guide

Tips and Reminders

Tip#1: When inputting text into the user data field make sure to follow the following format:

#!/bin/bash

/home/ec2-user/quorum_setup/quorum_setup.sh [IQN#1] [IQN#2]

**Note: Specify the shebang on the first line followed by enter. On the second line, enter the name of the path followed by a space and the IQN number. The delimiter for specifying IQN is a space.

Resources

Link to document library: Global Active Device Cloud Quorum Documentation Library – Hitachi Vantara Knowledge

Conclusion

Using global-active device cloud quorum, it’s very simple to transition to a cloud architecture for your GAD quorum and ensure your business is protected with a high-availability solution that uses state of the art data centers across many regions all over the globe.

Visit the Azure Marketplace to view global-active device cloud quorum our new cloud offering that removes the need for a third physical storage system and streamlines the configuration upon launch: Microsoft Azure Marketplace
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Comments

05-02-2022 03:47

Excellent

04-25-2022 08:22

Nice Read

04-18-2022 12:13

Thanks for the good writeup.