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Starting with PowerStoreOS 3.0, asynchronous file replication is available. Asynchronous replication can be used to protect against a storage system outage by creating a copy of data to a remote system. Replication is a software feature that synchronizes data to a remote system within the same site or to a different location. Replicating data helps to provide data redundancy and safeguards against storage system failures at the main production site. Having a remote disaster recovery (DR) site protects against system and site-wide outages. It also provides a remote location that can resume production and minimize downtime due to a disaster. The PowerStore platform offers many data-protection solutions that can meet disaster recovery needs in various environments.
The asynchronous replication for PowerStore is designed to have minimal impact on host I/O latency. Host writes are acknowledged when they are saved to the local storage resource, and no additional writes are needed for change tracking. Because write operations are not immediately replicated to a destination resource, all writes are tracked on the source. This data is replicated during the next synchronization. With protection policies, asynchronous replication uses the concept of a recovery point objective (RPO). The RPO, measured in units of time, is the acceptable amount of data that may be lost due to an outage. This delta of time also affects the amount of data that must be replicated during the next synchronization. It also reflects the amount of potential data loss in a disaster scenario.
For more information about file asynchronous replication, see the Dell PowerStore: Replication Technologies white paper.