Create a replication group

Replication groups can be local to a VDC or can protect data by replicating data across sites.

Prerequisites

This operation requires the System Administrator role in ECS.

If you want the replication group to span multiple VDCs, you must ensure that the VDCs are federated (joined) to the primary VDC, and that storage pools have been created in the VDCs that will be included in the replication group.

NOTE: The geo-replicated data is encrypted using AES256 when sent from one node to another. However, ECS 3.7 do not use TLS for geo-replication. For enhanced security of traffic in transit, users must use VPN (or other such secure network channel) when enabling and using geo-replication.

Steps

In the ECS Portal, select Manage > Replication Group.
On the Replication Group Management page, click New Replication Group.

On the New Replication Group page, in the Name field, type a name (for example, ReplicationGroup1).

NOTE:

A replication group can only contain HDD storage pools or EXF900 storage pools.
Click Drive Technology to list the storage pools of the same drive technology.

Optionally, in the Replicate to All Sites field, click On for this replication group. You can only turn this setting on when you create the replication group; you cannot turn it off later.

For a Passive configuration, leave this setting Off.

Option	Description
Replicate to All Sites Off	The replication group uses default replication. With default replication, data is stored at the primary site and a full copy is stored at a secondary site chosen from the sites within the replication group. The secondary copy is protected by triple-mirroring and erasure coding. This process provides data durability with storage efficiency.
Replicate to All Sites On	The replication group makes a full readable copy of all objects to all sites (VDCs) within the replication group. Having full readable copies of objects on all VDCs in the replication group provides data durability and improves local performance at all sites at the cost of storage efficiency.

In the Geo Replication Type field, click Active or Passive. Active is the default ECS configuration. You cannot change this setting after you create the replication group.
Passive is available only when you have three or more sites.

Passive cannot be selected if Replicate to All Sites is On.

For more information on Active and Passive data protection schemes, see Configurations for availability, durability, and resilience
Click Add VDC to add storage pools from VDCs to the replication group.
The steps to add storage pools to a replication group depends on whether you have a single VDC, an Active, or Passive environment.
To add storage pools to an Active (or to a single site) configuration, use the steps below.
1. From the Virtual Data Center list, select the VDC that will provide a storage pool for the replication group.
2. From the Storage Pool list, select the storage pool that belongs to the selected VDC.
3. To include other sites in the replication group, click Add VDC.
4. Repeat these steps for each storage pool that you want to add to the replication group.
To add storage pools for a Passive configuration, complete the following steps.
1. In the Target VDC for Replication Virtual Data Center list, select the VDC that you want to add as the replication target.
  If you have a Hosted VDC that is hosted off-premise by a third-party data center (a backup site), it is automatically selected as the replication target.
2. In the Target VDC for Replication Storage Pool list, select the storage pool that belongs to the selected VDC.
3. In each of the two Source VDC for Replication Virtual Data Center lists, select the VDC that you want to add as the active site.
4. In each of the two Source VDC for Replication Storage Pool lists, select the storage pool that belongs to each selected VDC. These storage pools will provide storage at the two active sites.
Click Save.

Next steps

After you create the replication group, you can monitor the copying of user data and metadata to the new VDC that you added to the replication group on the Monitor > Geo Replication > Geo Bootstrap Processing tab. When all the user data and metadata is successfully replicated to the new VDC, the Bootstrap State is Done and the Bootstrap Progress (%) is 100.