Azure Site Recovery: Overview
Overview
Microsoft Azure Site Recovery is a service of protection virtual machines in Hyper-V and Azure to sync machines managed by System Center Virtual Machine. This feature can be used to replicate virtual machines between two datacenters onpremises to onpremie or between a datacenter and Microsoft Azure cloud.
The feature uses the component found in the Clouds and Services VM Virtual Machine Manager 2012 to expand the scope of the virtual machine and allow replication of arrays associated with it to another cloud, which can be managed by another VMM another in a redundant datacenter Cloud or Microsoft Azure. The replication uses the replication feature called Hyper-V Replica, present in Hyper-V Windows Server 2012 or higher.
In each VMM runs Azure Site Recovery Provider, the package is responsible for expanding the functionality of VMM and add the replication configuration parameters.
Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Manager is responsible for orchestrating the replication and failover of virtual machines between clouds the service. This component runs on Microsoft Azure, and plans failover can be configured directly in the portal ensuring the availability of the machines.
As an added layer of protection data can be encrypted in storage, authentication and authorization for replication uses digital certificate.
In each Hyper-V host is running the Azure Services Recovery Agent, this service is responsible for registering the host in Azure environment.
Planning
There are a number of prerequisites and system infrastructure that must be implemented before replicating the virtual environment.
Management
Two version of Virtual Machine Manager are supported, but there replication topologies differences between the versions supported.
A VMM server, physical or virtual, can be can be configured to replicate virtual machines between on-premise to on-premise clouds between two different services on the same site management VMM.
A VMM Server, only virtual cluster can be configured to replicate virtual machines between on-premise to on-premise in another cluster in the same VMM management site
Replication of virtual machines can be configured with either the VMM Server on a single server or cluster in VMM replicating information to Microsoft Azure.
System Center 2012 SP1
Supported replication topology:
- Replication On-premises to on-premises
Both the Hyper-V Host of origin and destination must be running Windows Server 2012 with the latest updates applied.
System Center 2012 R2
Supported replication topology:
- Replication On-premises to on-premises
- Replication On-premise to Azure
Hyper-V Host origin server must be installed with Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2012 with the latest updates applied.
Replication Support On-premise to Azure
There are some conditions so that a virtual machine be eligible to replication.
Operational Systems
Only Guest OS with 64-bit systems are supported for replication.
The virtual machine must be created as generation 1 in VMM.
The following systems are supported:
- Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2
- Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2
- Centos
- OpenSUSE
- SUSE
- Ubuntu
Disks
The discs of the operating system must have size between 20 MB and 127 GB and is not supported replicate system disks mirrored. This is the limit available for the Extra Large machines that support up to 8 processors and 14 GB of memory
The virtual machine can contain up to 16 disks up to 1023 GB.
The following discs are not supported for replication:
- iSCSI
- shared VHD
- FC
It is necessary to create a Storage Account in the cloud for storage of replicated machines. The account must have the feature geo-replication enabled and must be located in the same region Azure Site Recovery service.
Network
Virtual machines must have only one network adapter configured with dynamic IP addressing.
Statically configure Ip in the virtual machines is not supported.
Azure networks must be configured before starting the replication of virtual machines, each replicated virtual machine must be connected to a VM in VMM Server Network and VM Network must be associated with a logical network created in the cloud.
Certificate
Authentication and authorization of Virtual Machine Manager server on Azure is made using a digital certificate. The certificate is imported into the Azure portal and must contain the following feature.
- Valid for up to three years
- Key of at least 2048 bits
- Key Usage should be Client Authentication
- Reside in the Personal certificate store of Local Computer.
In portal TehNet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730826 (v = WS.10).aspx has a template list and which possess the key usage needed.
Site Recovery Vault
The Site Recovery Vault is the container where user can set the protection of virtual machines and where you set the properties of replication and security.
During creation you can configure the area where the machines are stored.
Protected Items
In the vault configuration Protected Items contains the private clouds created in Virtual Machine Manager and all virtual machines that are part of the on-premise cloud environment.
The machines that are part of the on-premise cloud environment can be replicated to the Microsoft Azure cloud.
Recovery Plans
The Recovery Plans is responsible for orchestrating the failures of the virtual machines from on-premise environment to a Azure cloud.
On each Recovery Plan can contain multiple virtual machines and you can configure multiple plans, which ensures a high level of customization of the activation and continuity of business
Jobs
Every change made to the settings or each test performed on the vault environment can be monitored on the Jobs tab. Besides enabling a history of changes.
In the properties of each activity is shown to the steps performed and technical information.
