Tag: recovery

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Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator v.5: Verifica dei componenti

Il presente articolo illustra come configurare il menù di amministrazione del Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator (VDrO).

Prima di procedere alla fase di amministrazione, è indispensabile aver già etichettato le risorse che dovranno far parte dei piani di Disaster Recovery.

La classificazione è stata illustrata nel precedente articolo, disponibile cliccando sul seguente link: VDrO – VOne – Tagging.

Nota 1: Per accedere al menù di amministrazione, selezionate la voce denominata “Administration” (vedi immagine 1)

Immagine 1

La configurazione del menù di amministrazione si divide in tre principali aree:

Nella prima sono impostate:

  • Il nome del VDrO Server e il contact name (immagine 2).
  • le connessioni verso i Veeam Backup & Replication Server (VBR) (immagine 3)
  • le connessioni verso i vCenter (immagine 4)
  • la connessione opzionale verso gli storage (immagine 5) (fate riferimento al presente articolo per scoprire i dettagli)

Immagine 2

Immagine 3

Immagine 4

Immagine 5

La seconda area identifica attraverso il tagging le risorse da aggiungere ai piani di DR:

  • La recovery location (immagine 6)
  • Nella recovery location i datastore ove i filesystem delle VM resiederanno (immagine 7)
  • Il mapping delle reti (immagine 8)
  • Il remapping degli indirizzi IP (immagine 9)

Nota 2: Le operazioni sopra descritte sono possibili se e solo se tutte le risorse necessarie sono state etichettate.

Nota 3: Il remapping automatico degli indirizzi IP in caso di avvio di un piano di DR è disponibile solo per le VM Windows.

Immagine 6

Immagine 7

Immagine 8

Immagine 9

Nella terza area sono identificate:

  • La profilazione degli utenti. In parole semplici il VDrO permette di creare utenti in grado di amministrare solo degli specifici workload che sono chiamati “scopes” (immagine 10).
  • L’assegnazione dei DataLab agli  “scopes”. Ricordo che i DataLab permettono di  verificare che il piano di DR sia utilizzabile (immagine 11).

Immagine 10

Immagine 11

L’ultima configurazione permette di legare il gruppo di VM replicate o salvate tramite backup (dette VM Groups) agli scopes degli utenti.

Ad esempio, l’immagine 12 riporta che il VM Group “B&R Job – Replication VAO Win 10” è assegnato (included) ad entrambi gli scopes Admin e Linux.

Immagine 10

Nel prossimo ed ultimo articolo scopriremo come creare e verificare un piano di DR.

A presto

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Veeam Dr Orchestrator v.5: VONE – Tagging

Oggi illustreremo come indicare al Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator quali risorse utilizzare per avviare un piano di Disaster Recovery.

Prima di leggere il presente articolo, vi suggeriamo di leggere l’articolo precedente (cliccando qui) che vi permette di verificare lo stato del Server VDrO.

Lo strumento principe dell’etichettatura delle risorse è Veeam One che ricordiamo viene di default installato contestualmente con il Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator v.5.

La procedura è molto semplice:

Dopo essersi collegati via RDP al VDrO Server selezionate sul desktop la voce Veeam One Client (Vedi figura 1)

Figura 1

Dopo aver selezionato la voce Business View (in basso a sinistra), le risorse da etichettare sono:

  1. I Cluster: attraverso tale voce sono identificate le risorse vCenter di Disaster Recovery e di produzione (Figura 2)
  2. I DataStores: attraverso tale voce sono identificate le aree disco ove risiederanno le VM una volta accese (Figura 3)
  3. Le Virtual Machines: attraverso tale voce sono identificate le VM che garantiscono la continuità di servizio in caso di Disastro (Figura 4 e 5).

Figura 2

Figura 3

Figura 4

Figura 5

Nota 1: I job di replica sono stati configurati sul VBR embedded del server VDrO (vedi figura 6)

Figura 6

Nota 2: L’operazione di etichettatura (tagging) è trattata in un precedente post disponibile al seguente link:

https://lnx.gable.it/home-page/veeam-availability-orchestrator-v-3-0-dr-from-replicas/

Per oggi è tutto, a presto!

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VDrO v.4 – Run a DR plan

This is the last article about how to integrate the Continuous Data Protection (CDP)  technology (available from VBR v.11) and VDrO v.4 (former VAO).

In this part, we are going to see what happens when an orchestration plan is launched.

Yes, I wrote the word “see” because I created a short video showing the tasks that are automatically completed when a Disaster Recovery is occurring.

If you need more details about how to set up the environment, please read the previous articles.

Let me know if videos and youtube platform are a good way to expose technological valuable topics.

Thx for reading and watching and take care

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VDrO v.4 – Setup a Plan from CDP Replica

In this article, I’m going to show you how to set up an orchestration plan using as a source a CDP replica Job.

This article will not cover how to create and run a CDP replica job from VBR console. If you need a guide please refer to the official guide.

There are four main parts:

  1. Create a Business Category
  2. Setup the Environment
  3. Create an Orchestration Plan
  4. Launch the Orchestration Plan

The first and the second topics will be described in this article. The third and the fourth ones in the next articles.

A. To create a business category for CDP replica, just open the Veeam ONE interface from the VAO server (picture 1).

In this example, the business category is called Ubuntu-CDP , the resource group is called CDP-Linux (Picture 2).

Picture 1

Picture 2

B. After opening the VAO web interface it’s necessary to follow the next four steps.

1. Add a Role and Scope (picture 3).

In my example, the scope is named Linux-CDP.

The plan Author/Operator is VBR.

Picture 3

2. Add or modify the Recovery Location (picture 4).

In my example, the recovery location is Verderio and has the Cluster-Verderio as Compute resource (Picture 5).

Pictures 6 and 7 show how to remap the Networking and how to set up the changing IP address rules.

Picture 4

Picture 5

Picture 6

Picture 7

Note1: The Re-IP feature is available just for Windows VMs (please have a look at the official documentation to get all detail (user guide). For Linux VMs it’s necessary creating a custom script.

3. Reporting

Pictures 8, 9, and 10 show how to assign the Linux-CDP scope to your custom reports.

Picture 8

Picture 9

Picture 10

4. Assign the plan Components

Picture 11

Picture 12 shows how to add the VM group called Ubuntu-CDP to the scope Linux-CDP.

Picture 12

Picture 13 shows how to add a recovery location, i.e. Verderio.

Picture 13

Picture 14 shows how to add the plan steps to the orchestration plan (In my example I included all the plan steps).

Picture 14

The next article shows how to create an Orchestration Plan and run it.

Suggestion: If you can’t wait and want to do it immediately, just read the previous articles 🙂

See you soon and take care.

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Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestator v.4 – How to Upgrade

Also Veeam Availability Orchestrator, commonly called VAO, changed its name with this new release.

The new name is Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator (VDrO).

The main news of this version is the support of the technology of continuous data protection (CDP) introduced in VBR v.11.

Which are the main benefits allowed by this new feature?

  • New readiness checks now including RPO and SLA.
  • Recovery Point Object close to real-time.
  • Detailed reports to track and audit the Disaster Recovery plan of your company.

The next article will explain how to implement a DR plan using CDP.

Before doing the upgrade procedure please:

  1.  Perform backup of all existing databases (VAO, VBR, ONE)
  2. Make sure there is enough space for the upgrade of the Microsoft SQL Server configuration database
  3. Make sure there are no orchestration plans being tested or executed
  4. Make sure there are no orchestration plans scheduled to run during the upgrade.
  5. Read carefully the user guide.

Before proceeding please check that the VAO current version on the server is 3.0 (picture 1).

Picture 1

After downloading the ISO file from the Veeam website and mounting it (picture 2)

Picture 2

just select the “Setup” voice; the wizard immediately begins the upgrade (picture 3).

Picture 3

Please check that the previous version of VAO has been discovered. If so the upgrade button is available (picture 4).

Picture 4

The setup checks if Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable package is already installed.  If not it will automatically be deployed. This procedure requires the server reboot (pictures 5 and 6).

Picture 5

Picture 6

After reboot is completed, relaunch the setup.  The wizard will show which components will be automatically upgraded (picture 7).

picture 7

Now the wizard will ask for a valid license (picture 8) and will install the missing components (Pictures 9 and 10).

Picture 8

picture 9

picture 10

The next steps are about the Veeam Databases.
The wizard will ask to connect to them and update the VBR one if necessary (pictures 11 and 12).

Picture 11

Picture 12

The main point of the upgrade procedure is the certification step.
As shown in picture 13, the wizard will ask the VAO administrator which certificate to use. It can be a self-signed and autogenerated or an own certificate created from an external authority.
My suggestion is to ask your security specialist to know which is the best choice for your company.

Picture 13

Picture 14

Clicking on the install button it will complete the upgrade wizard as shown in pictures 15 & 16.

Picture 15

Picture 16

After upgrading please check the versions of VAO (4.0.0.2088), VBR (11.0.0.837), ONE (11.0.0.1379) now installed.

Just a note before ending the article: has already said, VAO (Veeam Availability Orchestrator) has changed its name to VDrO  (Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator).
The web pages of the product still show the old name. It will be updated in the next release.

That’s all for now guys. Take care

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VDrO-Baseline 1

August’s 2022 topic is VDrO (former VAO)

This topic needs an awfully long time to be rightly covered. For this reason, I wrote 5 articles.

The first two will explain the base concepts in front of technology. The others will cover how to set up VDrO for managing the Veeam Replica job, the Veeam Backup job, and the Netapp Storage Replica.

Here below all the direct links to the topic:

Baseline-2 – VBR-Replicas – Veeam Backup – Netapp integration

In these articles, I will not manage how to install VDO software; please refer to the deployment guide (VDrO Guides).

  1. VDrO – Baseline-1:

One of the common requirements of big companies is to automatically manage Disaster Recovery.

Let’s see the decisional process of the IT Manager

These are the VDrO answers.

Let’s move to the VDrO console:

The first steps after logging in (picture 1) is to click on the administrator tab (Yellow on picture 2) and check the license file installed (picture  3)

Picture 1

Picture 2

https://lnx.gable.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/VAO-login.jpgPicture 3

Now I’m going to describe the structure of the software components.

VDrO Server:  it shows where the VDrO Server has been installed (Picture 4)

Picture 4

The VDrO architecture is well-represented in picture 5 where three production sites replicate their data to a DR site.

Picture 5

Is it important to fill up the VDrO Server form? Yes, because VDrO creates automatically the DR- Plan documentation.

In my lab, I have just a production site and a  DR site.

VDrO AGENTS: to control the activities of the Backup Server located in production sites, VDrO installs his own agent. The installation task is performed directly from the VDrO console (Picture 6).

Picture 6

vCENTER SERVERS: in my scenario, there are two vCenters; the first one in production and the second in DR site (Picture 7).

(Picture 7)

STORAGE SYSTEM: the most important VDrO news is the integration with storage replication technology. This version supports just Netapp. Picture 8 shows how to add the Storages to VDrO.

Picture 8

The last VDrO article will deal with how to set up and use this great technology.

RECOVERY LOCATION: it’s the place where the DR will be performed (Picture 9). It can be different locations in respect to where VDrO is installed.

Picture 9

In the next rows and pictures, I’ll show which info VDrO needs to work at its best.

In particular, I’m talking about the resources present in the recovery location. In this example the computer resources (Picture 10) and storage resources (picture 11).

Picture 10

Picture 11

The next 10 rows are very important to fix in mind.

How the VDrO can understand which resources are available? In other words, how can I assign resources to my Failover Plan?

The answer is VDrO uses massively tagging to all resources present at the VMware level.

Tagging means that resources can be added to VDRO

But …. is it possible to tag the resources?

Yes, It’s possible because inside VDrO there is the Veeam ONE Business-View component that can be freely used to tag resources.

To have more details about tagging please refer to the VDrO-guide.

One of the most common requests from the customers is to create automatic documentation about failover for both testing and procedures.

VDrO has already templates (in different languages that you can personalize at will) that are automatically filled up from software when you test or perform the Disaster Recovery.

In the next two pictures, it is shown how to set up an e-mail subscription (Picture 12) and configure the report Detail level (Picture 13).

Just remember to subscribe to the report to the right scope.

(Picture 12)

(Picture 13)

The next option is the reason why I fell in love with VDrO (Picture 14).

(Picture 14)

As you can see there is a big choice with DR plan steps. What does it mean?

Let’s see it with an easy example:

My DR plan requires switching on the Domain Controller (VM1) and afterward the SQL Application (VM2).

I want also to be sure that

a. the original VMs are switched off before starting the DR plan

b.  when DR-plan is up and running, the SQL application has to answer port 1433.

What the VDrO can do for you?

With the pre-plan step, you can check the original VMs are switched off.

With a post-plan, you can check that the application answers correctly.

Another great point about plan steps is that you can choose if the actions have to be executed or skipped. In this way, it adds more flexibility to the solution.

(Picture 15)

Picture 16

It’s time to have a break. My next Article (VDrO – Baseline 2) will show scopes and plan components.