IP partnership requirements

Edit online

When you create and manage IP partnerships, consider the following requirements and constraints:

  • You can create IP partnerships between systems.
  • A system can be part of up to three IP partnerships and only one of the remote systems can be at Spectrum Virtualize software level below 8.4.2.0.
  • You can create IP partnerships between systems that are in the same layer. In other words, systems in the IP partnership must be at the storage layer or both systems must be at the replication layer.
  • Each IP partnership can be mapped to two portsets, one for each WAN link between systems. For a partnership with a single link, a single portset can be defined in the Portset Link 1 field on the Create Partnership page. You can also use the -link1 attribute in the mkippartnership command for partnerships with a single link. For a partnership with dual links, a second portset must be defined in the Portset Link 2 field. Use the -link2 attribute to specify the second portset for a dual link configuration.
  • Portsets are groupings of logical addresses that are associated with the specific traffic types. The system supports both Fibre Channel and IP portsets for host attachment, IP portsets for backend storage connectivity, and IP replication traffic. The system supports a maximum of 72 portsets.
  • You cannot use link-local addressing.
  • If you use IPv4 addressing, the management IP addresses on both systems must be IPv4-compliant, and these addresses must have connectivity with each other.
  • If you use IPv6 addressing, the management IP addresses on both systems must be IPv6-compliant, and these addresses must have connectivity with each other.
  • You must configure all links between the production and recovery site with either IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.
  • You can configure ports from at most two I/O groups from each system for an IP partnership.
  • If your system supports Ethernet ports of several speeds , only one of those speeds can be used to configure all of the remote copy links between the local and remote site.
    Note: You can use 25 Gbps Ethernet ports to establish an IP partnership between systems. However, 25 Gbps Ethernet ports do not provide an additional performance advantage over IP partnerships that are established using 10 Gbps Ethernet ports.
  • A system can have simultaneous partnerships over Fibre Channel and IP but with separate systems.
  • iSCSI hosts can access volumes over IP ports that are participating in an IP partnership; however, this access might result in an impact on performance.
  • VLAN tagging of the IP addresses configured for remote copy is supported.
  • IP partnerships do not support Network Address Translation (NAT) traversal. Most NAT implementations change the IP address and ports of the IP packets when the packets traverse the NAT or a network firewall. IP replication does not work with transport protocols that change the IP header source and destination IP addresses and their associated port numbers.
  • If you configure two intersite WAN links, you must assign each WAN link to separate portset, one for each link.
  • If you have one intersite link, you must configure one remote-copy port group for that link.
  • No more than two intersite links are supported.
  • If you have one remote-copy port group, then configure one port from each node in one I/O group in that remote-copy port group.
  • For systems with more than one I/O group, ports from a second I/O group can be added to the remote-copy port group.
  • If you have two remote-copy port groups and one I/O group, then on each system, configure one port from one node in the first remote-copy port group. Then, configure a port from the other node in the second remote-copy port group.
  • For systems with more than one I/O group, ports from a second I/O group can be added to each of the two remote-copy port groups.
  • Only one port in a node can be configured in an IP partnership.
  • If you connect systems by directly attaching them without switches, you must have only two direct-attach links. Both direct-attach links must be on the same I/O group. You should use two port groups, where a port group contains only the two ports that are directly linked.
  • Data compression is supported for IPv4 or IPv6 partnerships. To enable data compression, both systems in an IP partnership must be running a software level that supports IP partnership compression.
  • To fully enable compression in an IP partnership, each system must enable compression. When compression is enabled on the local system, by using the mkippartnership or chpartnership commands, data sent to the remote system is compressed. To send compressed data to the local system, the remote system in the IP partnership must also enable compression.