Understanding Virtual Witness

The Virtual Witness feature supports a third party that the two storage systems consult when they lose connectivity with each other, that is, their SRDF links go out of service.

When SRDF links go out of service, the Witness helps to determine, for each SRDF/Metro Session, which of the storage systems should remain active (volumes continue to be read and write to hosts) and which goes inactive (volumes not accessible).

For additional information about vWitness, see the Dell SRDF/Metro vWitness Configuration Guide.

The following vWitness tasks can be performed from Unisphere.

  • Adding a Virtual Witness
  • Viewing Virtual Witness instances
  • Viewing Virtual Witness instance details
  • Enabling a Virtual Witness
  • Disabling a Virtual Witness
  • Removing a Virtual Witness