SteelFusion is an appliance-based IT-infrastructure for remote offices. SteelFusion eliminates the need for physical servers, storage and backup infrastructure at remote offices by consolidating them into the data centers. Virtual servers located at the data centers are projected to the branch offices, enabling the branch office users access to servers and data with LAN-like performance.

SteelFusion uses VMware to project virtual servers and data to the branch office. Robust VMware infrastructure usually consists of fiber channel block-based storage such as EMC VNX. The advantage of using EMC VNX or any robust storage platform is its data protection features such as redundancy and snapshots.

In order to protect data via the use of EMC VNX array-based snapshot, and so that data can be backed up and restored using 3rd party backup software, the following items must be followed:

1. When configuring storage and LUNs, use Raid Group instead of Storage Pools. Storage Pools snapshots do not integrate well with Steelfusion for now.

2. Create Reserve LUNs to be used for snapshots.

3. When adding the VNX storage array information to Steelfusion Core appliance, make sure to select ‘Type: EMC CLARiON’, not EMC VNX.

For more information, consult the Riverbed documentation.