Fibre Channel over IP solution overcomes latency inherent in long-distance replication.

Cisco IT maintains mission-critical production ERP databases in San Jose, California, and a disaster recovery and development site 3000 miles away in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. During failover, Cisco IT strives for the best possible recovery point objective (RPO), how current the database is when restored, and recovery time objective (RTO), how long it takes to bring the database online. Cisco IT conducted a pilot using Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) and EMC SRDF/A (Symmetrix Remote Site Data Facility/Asynchronous) to replicate logs and database volumes over the 3000-mile span.

This storage networking case study describes the challenges and tradeoffs of long-distance replication, business benefits, and the architecture Cisco IT employed for the pilot, including how the group:

  • Decided on FCIP and EMC SRDF/A over other solutions
  • Achieved sub-minute RPO over the 3000-mile distance
  • Reduced RTO from hours to minutes over the same distance

Read the SAN for Business Continuity Case Study