Disaster tolerance: DR for small businesses, enthusiasts and other geeks using Microsoft Azure
Good day to all!
On the nose of the New Year, the quality snow in white-stone finally began to fall ...
But these are all lyrics, and from the interesting in the cloudy-technogenic sphere today I would like to tell you about the new features of our public Microsoft Azure cloud in the field of disaster recovery and load redundancy . For a more detailed and detailed story, you are welcome under the cut!
')
Azure Site Recovery Service (ASR) is a set of services provided by Microsoft Azure in the field of holistic backup and switching the executable load environment - from the main area to the backup - in the event that something unexpected happens to the first, resulting in a failure. And if earlier such functionality was present in the platform only for the platform level (PaaS) and the application (IaaS) - now the stack has become full, - the infrastructure (IaaS) has added it.
Simply put, ASR now allows for holistic replication, protection, and recovery (as the final step) at the virtual machine level ...
What does this give in practice? Well, earlier we needed System Center Virtual Machine Manager at the main site to provide this functionality. Now it is not necessary at all. Now VM replication between Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure can be configured directly on the server itself, without third-party products (which cost money).
The process of setting up a service and installing its components is extremely simple and does not contain pitfalls.
Everything looks pretty easy and simple, step by step wizard to help you:
Figure 1. VM replication configuration steps for a dedicated Windows Server 2012 R2.
So:
1) Create a site in Microsoft Azure - the area where the servers will be located Hyper-V of our task.
2) Then we download the registration key (we will need it later).
3) Install the replication service provider (this is where the key file will be asked).
Figure 2. Installing the ASR components on the Hyper-V server.
4) Create a storage account in Microsoft Azure - it will be used to replicate the VHDs of our virtual girls.
5) Create an Azure virtual network (for replica communication).
6) Create a protection group (we will include the VMs of interest to us in it).
It only remains to add that Hyper-V Replica is a replica tool - a built-in component of Windows Server 2012 R2. The only caveat is that the replication process is initiated by the agent installed on the Hyper-V server, with the obligatory registration of the server we need on the Microsoft Azure portal.
Figure 3. Installing a replication provider and registering servers.
Now we need to select a virtual machine for the replica - and this is done directly from the Microsoft Azure portal .
In my example, I chose VM - “CLUST02-WS2012-R2-U1” (Guess which OS is inside, hehe?).
Figure 4. Adding VM to replication area.
That's just if you look closely at the picture, then orange triangles can be alerted - the fact is that 1st generation virtual machines (1st Generation VM) can be replicated - no older. This is due to the fact that the 2nd generation VMs work only with virtual hard disks of the VHDX format, and Azure does not understand them today. But I think that it is a matter of time and soon this moment will be corrected. In other words, only good old VHDs can be replicated, but not VHDX.
After that, the primary replication process will begin, and during the VM registration process you will specify the VM replication intervals and frequency.
As a result, there will be such a picture:
Figure 5. VM replication process in action.
Well, here and so, this process happens easily and simply. If you have local networks and VPNs configured as a single network space, then you can even set up an instant switch on the routing of requests from the main site to the backup site, in Microsoft Azure.
If you replicate and back up a service from multiple VMs, then the One-Click Orchestration using Recovery Plans tool will come to your aid.
And lastly, let's check how our VM is doing there and its replica ...
Figure 6. The replica state of the virtual machine in the Microsoft Azure portal.
This is how this wonderful and very useful process looks like ...
So I recommend that you try it out and set it up for critical VMs for the New Year holidays, hehe ... So, just in case!
Thank you very much for your attention, Happy New Year to you - and all the best in the New Year! Yes, come with us a replica!
PS> Oh, I completely forgot to say: not Hyper-V is one, we also know how to replicate VMware, and SAN-storage, and even whole private clouds based on VMM ... This is what I need to see, climbed - there are a lot of interesting things ...
With respect,
Fireman
George A. Gadzhiev.
On the nose of the New Year, the quality snow in white-stone finally began to fall ...
But these are all lyrics, and from the interesting in the cloudy-technogenic sphere today I would like to tell you about the new features of our public Microsoft Azure cloud in the field of disaster recovery and load redundancy . For a more detailed and detailed story, you are welcome under the cut!
')
Reliability, safety, remoteness ...
Azure Site Recovery Service (ASR) is a set of services provided by Microsoft Azure in the field of holistic backup and switching the executable load environment - from the main area to the backup - in the event that something unexpected happens to the first, resulting in a failure. And if earlier such functionality was present in the platform only for the platform level (PaaS) and the application (IaaS) - now the stack has become full, - the infrastructure (IaaS) has added it.
Simply put, ASR now allows for holistic replication, protection, and recovery (as the final step) at the virtual machine level ...
What does this give in practice? Well, earlier we needed System Center Virtual Machine Manager at the main site to provide this functionality. Now it is not necessary at all. Now VM replication between Windows Server 2012 R2 and Microsoft Azure can be configured directly on the server itself, without third-party products (which cost money).
The process of setting up a replication service
The process of setting up a service and installing its components is extremely simple and does not contain pitfalls.
Everything looks pretty easy and simple, step by step wizard to help you:
Figure 1. VM replication configuration steps for a dedicated Windows Server 2012 R2.
So:
1) Create a site in Microsoft Azure - the area where the servers will be located Hyper-V of our task.
2) Then we download the registration key (we will need it later).
3) Install the replication service provider (this is where the key file will be asked).
Figure 2. Installing the ASR components on the Hyper-V server.
4) Create a storage account in Microsoft Azure - it will be used to replicate the VHDs of our virtual girls.
5) Create an Azure virtual network (for replica communication).
6) Create a protection group (we will include the VMs of interest to us in it).
It only remains to add that Hyper-V Replica is a replica tool - a built-in component of Windows Server 2012 R2. The only caveat is that the replication process is initiated by the agent installed on the Hyper-V server, with the obligatory registration of the server we need on the Microsoft Azure portal.
Figure 3. Installing a replication provider and registering servers.
Now we need to select a virtual machine for the replica - and this is done directly from the Microsoft Azure portal .
In my example, I chose VM - “CLUST02-WS2012-R2-U1” (Guess which OS is inside, hehe?).
Figure 4. Adding VM to replication area.
That's just if you look closely at the picture, then orange triangles can be alerted - the fact is that 1st generation virtual machines (1st Generation VM) can be replicated - no older. This is due to the fact that the 2nd generation VMs work only with virtual hard disks of the VHDX format, and Azure does not understand them today. But I think that it is a matter of time and soon this moment will be corrected. In other words, only good old VHDs can be replicated, but not VHDX.
After that, the primary replication process will begin, and during the VM registration process you will specify the VM replication intervals and frequency.
As a result, there will be such a picture:
Figure 5. VM replication process in action.
Well, here and so, this process happens easily and simply. If you have local networks and VPNs configured as a single network space, then you can even set up an instant switch on the routing of requests from the main site to the backup site, in Microsoft Azure.
If you replicate and back up a service from multiple VMs, then the One-Click Orchestration using Recovery Plans tool will come to your aid.
And lastly, let's check how our VM is doing there and its replica ...
Figure 6. The replica state of the virtual machine in the Microsoft Azure portal.
This is how this wonderful and very useful process looks like ...
So I recommend that you try it out and set it up for critical VMs for the New Year holidays, hehe ... So, just in case!
Thank you very much for your attention, Happy New Year to you - and all the best in the New Year! Yes, come with us a replica!
PS> Oh, I completely forgot to say: not Hyper-V is one, we also know how to replicate VMware, and SAN-storage, and even whole private clouds based on VMM ... This is what I need to see, climbed - there are a lot of interesting things ...
With respect,
Fireman
George A. Gadzhiev.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/246581/
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