HANDS ON LAB - VMWARE

VIRTUAL MACHINES
PROTECTION TO AZURE
(ENHANCED)

[COMPANY NAME] [Company address]

JANUARY 2015
As Fabric admins of Contoso, you have decided to enable protection for various applications of
your datacenters. You are the owner of a datacenter running some non-virtualized workloads
(Physical machines) and a large part virtualized using the Hyper-V and VMware stacks. Since you
have SLAs for different applications, you plan to protect them differently.

Key Components in VMware to Azure (Enhanced)

Protection using ASR

Those familiar with the in-market VMware to Azure solution will be aware of the complexity
involved in configuring and maintain multiple infrastructure components such as the
Configuration Server on an IaaS VM, Master Target on an Azure IaaS VM and on-premises
Process Server.
This process has been greatly simplified in the Enhanced VMware to Azure solution. You now
only need to have a single on-premises server to get started and all the infrastructure
components can run on the same server. The process of installing the various components are
also greatly simplified via one single unified installer. The installer has two modes

Configuration Server + Process Server : Install both components on the same server and
get started
Process Server: Install additional Process servers and register them with the
Configuration Server as you scale
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In the diagram depicted above the Green server acts as the Configuration Server + Process
Server. Additionally any Process server deployment can also double up as a Master Target server
used for failback of failed over VMs running in Azure as long as these units are deployed as
virtualized servers on the ESXi host to which you are failing back.
You no longer need to run a standalone Master Target server in Azure in order to hold replicated
data. Replicated data is now directly written to replica disks created on Azure blob storage by
the ASR Protection service (fully PaaS). The elimination of the requirement to run any sort of
Infrastructure components in the customers Azure subscription greatly brings down the Total
Cost of ownership of the solution while at the same time simplifying manageability.
The individual software components perform the following function:CONFIGURATION SERVER = This software component is responsible for all control plane activity
and acts as the intermediary between ASR and on-premises servers. The Configuration server
component communicates to ASR through the DR Provider that is installed along with this
component
PROCESS SERVER = This software component receives replicated data in realtime from the
machines being protected. It then performs data optimization such as caching, compression
before sending the data to the ASR protection service. This component talks to the ASR
Protection Service through the MARS agent which is installed along with this component
.

ASR-V2A (VMware & Physical to Azure) Protect an

application using a Protection Group
The objective of this lab is to familiarize you with the steps required to configure ASR DR
Protection to Azure for an application that is running across multiple machines using the
Protection group construct in ASR. You will end the exercise by creating a Protection group and
adding virtual machines into it for replication to azure.

Before you begin

Ensure you have received the credentials to an Azure subscription (Azure Pass) to use
for this Lab. Validate that you are able to log in to the Azure management portal
(https://manage.windowsazure.com) using the credentials provided to you.
Each participant will be provided with a dedicated virtual environment, that comprises
of one VMware ESXi host with 1 CentOS virtual machine on it (This is the VM that you
will protect and recover in Azure). Each participant also get a machine
(ConfigurationServer) on which he will install the Configuration server and Process
Server componens.
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Step 1: Prepare your virtual infrastructure

Using a web browser open the lab link provided to you. This will setup the virtual
infrastructure that you will use as part of this lab

Step 2: Create Site Recovery vault.

Log into the ConfigurationServer machine using the credentials provided

(Administrator/Password~1). To login click the commands button and select
Ctrl+Alt+Del. Enter the credentials to login

Once logged in, open Internet exporer by clicking on the Internet explore icon pinned to
the taskbar. On the browser open https://manage.windowsazure.com and login using
the Azure account provided to you for this lab

On the Azure management portal first create an Azure storage account youll use to
protect servers to. Select New->Data Services->Storage->Quick create. Specify a name
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for the storage account (for eg: holstore1), select Central-US as the location and georedundant as the Storage replication type.

(optional) create an Azure virtual network that you want to failover your protected
virtual machine to. Select New->Network Services -> Virtual Network -> Quick create.
Specify a name for the network (for eg: holnetwork), choose an address space, select
Central US as the location and None as the DNS server. Optionally you can create a
second network to connect to for Test failover

Create a Site Recovery vault. Select New->Data Services->Recovery Services ->Site

Recovery vault->Quick create. Pick a name for your vault (for eg: HOL) and select Central
US as the location

Navigate to the recovery vault you just created. To do this select the recovery services

extension by clicking on the

services vault you just created.

icon on the left pane and select the recovery

From the dropdown on the vault quickstart page select Between an on-premises site
with VMware/Physical servers and Azure

Click on the Download a registration key link under Step 1. This will generate a
registration key file that you can save to a convenient location on the
ConfigurationServer machine. Youll need this later to install the Configuration Server +
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Process Server. The installer for the on-premises components has already been
downloaded and placed on your desktop.

Step3: Install Configuration server + Process Server and

complete registration to the vault

Youll first need to prepare your source environment by booting up the CentOS VMware
VM that acts as your source. Since this is a guest based solution your server must be
running in order for ASR to be able to protect it.
Using the vSphere client utility (shortcut on desktop) login your ESXi host (192.168.0.2)
using the credentials root/Password~1. Once logged in right click on CentOSVM1 VM
listing in the inventory and select Power On. The Powering on process will halt mid way
in order to conclude if this machine was moved or copied. Go to the summary tab of
CentOSVM1 and select I Copied It in order to proceed with powering on the VM.
Once the VM is powered on you can close the vSphere client and proceed with the rest
of the steps.

We can now get started with installing the Configuration Server + Process Server. A
shortcut to the unified installer is placed on the desktop of the ConfigurationServer
machine. Double click on the Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup shortcut
placed on the desktop (before installing the Configuration server + Process server
you are required to install VMware PowerCLI6.0 in order to automatically discover
VMs on your VMware virtualized infrastructure. In order to simplify this lab,
VMware powerCLI6.0 is pre-installed on your ConfigurationServer machine)
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Select Install the Configuration Server and Process Server and click next
Accept the MySQL Community Edition license terms and click next
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Commented [A1]: Ignore 60 day license expiration notice.

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Select Connect with existing proxy settings and click next

Click next once the pre-requisites check completes (Youll get one warning
relating to free space requirements. It is recommended that you have atleast
600GB of free space on the Process Server machine, however in this case since
youll only be protecting a single machine we have provisioned only 186GB of
free space. Ignore this warning and proceed). If you hit an error in the Global
time sync step of the prerequisities check, open date and time settings (Click on
the clock at the bottom right of the taskbar, and select Change date and time
settings from in the calendar that pops up), go to the Internet time tab, click
change settings, and set the internet time server to pool.ntp.org and hit update
now. Go back to the installer and click the re-run button to run the prerequisites
check again and the global time sync check should succeed this time.
Specify a MySQL root password and database password that meets the
password requirements and click next
In the environment details screen select Yes when asked if youll be protecting
VMware machines and click next (selecting Yes will check if vSphere CLI is
installed)
Leave the installation path to the default (C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft
Azure Site Recovery). Ignore the warning and proceed by clicking next.
Leave the network selection options as the defaults and proceed by clicking next
In the registration screen use the browse option to select the vault registration
key that you previously downloaded and click next.
Accept the summary and click install. Wait for installation to complete and click
finish.

Upon completion of the installation you might be prompted to restart the machine. This
is required in certain cases where the installer might be required to perform certain
optimizations on the machine that require a restart. If prompted to restart the machine,
click ok. Dont restart the Configuration server yet!!
Click Yes to copy the Configuration Server Connection Passphrase to the clipboard.
This will automatically bring up the accounts addition screen. We will now add two
accounts to the configuration server. One called VMwareServer which will be used to
discover VMs running on your ESXi host and one called Linux that will be used to enable
protection on your source VM
o VMwareServer
username:root password:Password~1
o Linux
username:root password:Password~1
You can also add accounts later using the cspsconfigtool (Located at <Installation
Path>\home\svsytems\bin\cspsconfigtool)

At this point restart the Configuration Server if you were prompted to do so earlier.
Login to the Configuration Server post the restart and open
http://manage.windowsazure.com on Internet explorer, and login using the provided
azure account. Navigate to the ASR vault you created in Step2

Step 4: Add vCenter server/ESXi host

Go back to the recovery services vault in your internet browser. Go to the Configuration
Server tab under the Servers page in the ASR vault. Highlight your configuration server
and click on the Add vCenter button at the bottom of the page. This will bring up a
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wizard that lets you add a vCenter or an ESXi host to your vault. You can then easily
select VMs managed by this vCenter server or running on this ESXi host for protection.
Provide the details of your ESXi host as follows
IP address: 192.168.0.2
Port : 443
Friendly name: Pick any name of your choice
Process Server: Select your Process server from the dropdown box. This is the same as
your Configuration Server (ConfigSrvr)
Account: VMwareServer (This is the account you added in the previous step)
NOTE: It may take some time (5-10 minutes) for the accounts to show up in the portal
dropdown. If you dont see any accounts listed on the poral cancel the operation and
retry after sometime. Alternatively, you can refresh your configuration server from the
servers page and retry

(Note: vCenter server/ESXi discovery is performed by the Process server using VMware
PowerCLI. VMware PowerCLI 6.0 has already been installed for you on your Process
server)
Wait for the Add vCenter job to complete

Step 5: Create a Protection Group.

Go to the Protected Items page under the vault and navigate to the Protection Groups
tab.
Click on Create New protection group to create a Protection Group
Pick a name of your choice(eg: HOLPG), leave the source as Configuration Server and
Target as Azure
Accept the defaults on the second screen of the wizard and click OK to create the
Protection Group

Wait for the completion of Create Protection Group Job. You can monitor the progress
of the job by selecting the appropriate Job from the Jobs page of the ASR vault.
This process will create 2 Protection Groups. One by the name you specified and one
with the string -Failback suffixed to the name you chose. The Failback protection
group is auto-created and used for failback. Dont perform any manual actions on the
Failback protection group.

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Step 5: Enable Protection (Add VM to the protection

group)

Go to the Protection Group page and select the Protection group you just created (click
on the name of the Protection Group- Dont select the Failback Protection group).
Click on the Add Machines button at the bottom of the page and Select virtual
machines. In the Wizard that pops up select your ESXi host in the vCenter server
dropdown, and select the check-box next to CentOS VM. Select the checkbox at the
bottom that asks if youve allocated sufficient bandwidth and planned for appropriate

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capacity to protect this server to Azure.

In the next screen select the Process Server, and the storage account to use to protect
your machine. Select ConfigSrv as your Process server and the Geo-redundant storage
account you created as your Storage account
In the next screen select Linux as the account to be used. This is the account you added
previously and is required in order for the Process server to push the Mobility service
software onto the server you are protecting.
Wait for the enable protection job to complete. This may take a while (10-20 minutes).
You can monitor the progress of the job by selecting the appropriate job from the jobs

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page of the vault

Once the enable protection job is completed, Initial replication of the data begins. It will
take about 15-25 minutes in this case before initial replication is complete and the VM
goes to a protected state. Once the VM reaches a protected state it can then be
recovered (failed over) in Azure. You can monitor the status of the protection by drilling
down into the protection group, and further into the VM within the protection group.
(Tip: Refresh the configuration server periodically to get more frequent updates on the
status of Initial replication)
Once the server reaches a protected state you should see something like below. The
server is then ready to be failed over.

Step 6: Create a recovery plan.

Go the Recovery Plans page under the vault and click on create a recovery plan

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Specify a name for your recovery plan, pick the Configuration server as the source and
Azure as the target and click next
Add protected VMs to the recovery plan by using the checkbox to select them and click
OK.

You can further customize recovery plans by creating Groups to sequence the order in
which the various VMs in a recovery plan should boot up, add automation runbooks etc.
These will not be covered as part of this HOL.

Step 7: Try a test-failover (New feature in the enhanced

VMware to Azure ASR scenario)

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Go to the Recovery Plans page , highlight your Recovery plan and click on the Test
Failover button at the bottom.

Select an Azure network (if created in the first step) that you would like to test the
failover to (alternately leave this blank and proceed.) Click OK to start the test failover

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Check Jobs to view the progress of the test failover operation

When the test failover job has completed failing over the machines to Azure it will pause
at the complete failover step awaiting further action. At this point you can test the failed
over VMs and once completed can resume the test failover job. Resuming the job will
then cleanup the failed over VM and other artifacts.

To test the failed over VM, go the virtual machines extension, select the failed over
CentOSVM1 VM and add a public SSH endpoint to it. Youll now be able to ssh to this
VM using the Public IP address of the cloud service the VM is failed over to.

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Once you are done testing the failover, go back to the paused test failover job in the
recovery services portal and complete the job

Once the test failover job completes you can also try a planned failover with source
shutdown or an unplanned failover job. You may want to set the recovery VM
properties by clicking on the VM under the protection group and going to the properties
page before you trigger the failover

Lab Summary
In this lab you have created a Protection group to protect your application, enabled protection
for your virtual machines and failed the same over using recovery plans.
Thank you for completing this lab, your feedback on the lab and your experiences with it is very
important to us.

Feedback
Action

Completed/issues faced

Feedback
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Identify your vault

Familiarize yourself with the

architecture

Create a Protection Group

Protect VMs

Create a Recovery Plan for

your VM

Test Failover RP

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