How To: Migrate Windows Server 2003 to Azure via Zerto, Easily

So since Microsoft has officially ended extended support for Windows Server on July 15, 2015, that means that you may not be able to get support or any software updates. While many enterprises are working towards being able to migrate applications to more current versions of Windows, alongside initiatives to adopt more cloud services; being able to migrate the deprecated OS to Azure is an option to enable that strategy and provide a place for those applications to run in the meantime.

Be aware though that although Microsoft support (read this) may be able to help you troubleshoot running Windows Server 2003 in Azure, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will support the OS. That said, if you are running vSphere on-premises and still wish to get these legacy systems out of your data center and into Azure, keep reading and I’ll show you how to do it with Zerto.

Please note that I’ve only tested this with the 64-bit version of the OS (Windows Server 2003 R2). EDIT: this has also been verified to work on the 32-bit version of the OS – Thanks Frank!)

The Other Options…

While the next options are totally doable, think about the amount of time involved, especially if you have to migrate VMs at scale. Once you’re done taking a look at these procedures, head to the next section. Trust me, it can be done more easily and efficiently.

  • Migrate your VMs from VMware to Hyper-V
    • … Then migrate them to Azure. Yes, it’s an option, but from what I’ve read, it’s really just so you can get the Hyper-V Integration Services onto the VM before you move it to Azure. From there, you’ll need to manually upload the VHDs to Azure using the command line, followed by creating instances and mounting them to the disks. Wait – there’s got to be a better way, right?
  • Why migrate when you can just do all the work from vSphere, run a bunch of powershell code, hack the registry, convert the disk to VHD, upload, etc… and then rinse and repeat for 10’s or 100’s of servers?
    • While this is another way to do it, take a look at the procedure and let me know if you would want to go through all that for even JUST ONE VM?!
  • Nested Virtualization in Azure
    • Here’s another way to do it, which I can see working, however, you’re talking about nesting a virtual environment in the cloud and perhaps run production that way? While even if you have Zerto you can technically do this, there would have to be a lot of consideration that goes in to this… and likely headache.

Before You Start

Before you start walking through the steps below, this how-to assumes:

  1. You are running the latest version of Zerto at each site.
  2. You have already paired your Azure ZCA (Zerto Cloud Appliance) to your on-premises ZVM (Zerto Virtual Manager)
  3. You already know how to create a VPG in Zerto to replicate the workload(s) to your Azure subscription.

Understand that while this may work, this solution will not be supported by Zerto, this how-to is solely written by me, and I have tested and found this to work. It’s up to you to test it.

Additionally, this is likely not going to get any support from Microsoft, so you should test this procedure on your own and get familiar with it.

This does require you to download files to install (if you don’t have a Hyper-V environment), so although I have provided a download link below, you are responsible for ensuring that you are following security policies, best practices, and requirements whenever downloading files from the internet. Please do the right thing and be sure to scan any files you download that don’t come directly from the manufacturer.

Finally – yeah, you should really test it to make sure it works for you.

Migrating Legacy OS Using Zerto

Alright, you’ve made it this far, and now you want to know how I ended up getting a Windows Server 2003 R2 VM from vSphere to Azure with a few simple steps.

Step 1: Prepare the VM(s)

First of all, you will need to download the Hyper-V Integration Services (think of them as VMware Tools, but for Hyper-V, which will contain the proper drivers for the VM to function in Azure).

I highly suggest you obtain the file directly from Microsoft if at all possible, or from a trustworthy source. At the least, deploy a Hyper-V server and extract the installer from it yourself.

If you have no way to get the installer files for the Hyper-V Integration Services, you can download at your own risk from here. It is the exact same copy I used in my testing, and will work with Windows Server 2003 R2.

  1. Obtain the Hyper-V Integration Services ISO file. (hint: look above)
  2. Once downloaded, you can mount the ISO to the target VM and explore the contents. (don’t run it, because it will not allow you to run the tools installation on a VMware-hosted workload).
  3. Extract the Support folder and all of it’s contents to the root of C: or somewhere easily accessible.
  4. Create a windows batch file (.bat) in the support folder that you have just extracted to your VM. I put the folder in the root of C:, so just be aware that I am working with the C:\Support folder on my system.
  5. For the contents of the batch file, change directory to the C:\Support\amd64 folder (use the x86 folder if on 32-bit), then on the next line type: setup.exe /quiet (see example below). The /quiet switch is very important, because you will need this to run without any intervention.

    Example of batch file contents and folder path
  6. Save the batch file.
  7. On the same VM, go to Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks > Add Scheduled Task. Doing so will open the Scheduled Task Wizard.

    Create a scheduled task
  8. Click Next
  9. Click browse and locate the batch file you created in step 5-6, and click open

    Browse to the batch file
  10. Select when my computer starts, and click next

    Select when my computer starts
  11. Enter local administrator credentials (will be required because you will not initially have network connectivity), and click next

    enter admin credentials
  12. Click Finish

Step 2: Create a VPG in Zerto

The previous steps will now have your system prepared to start replicating to Azure. Furthermore, what we just did, basically will allow the Hyper-V Integration Services to install on the Azure instance upon boot, therefore enabling network access to manage it. It’s that simple.

Create the VPG (Virtual Protection Group) in Zerto that contains the Windows Server 2003 R2 VM(s) that you’ve prepped, and for your replication target, select your Microsoft Azure site.

If you need to learn how to create a VPG in Zerto, please refer to the vSphere Administration Guide – Zerto Virtual Manager documentation.

Step 3: Run a Failover Test for the VPG

Once your VPG is in a “Meeting SLA” state, you’re ready to start testing in Azure before you actually execute the migration, to ensure that the VM(s) will boot and be available.

Using the Zerto Failover Test operation will allow you to keep the systems running back on-premises, meanwhile booting them up in Azure for testing to get your results before you actually perform the Move operation to migrate them to their new home.

  1. In Zerto, select the VPG that contains the VM(s) you want to test in Azure (use the checkbox) and click the Test button.

    Select VPG, click Test
  2. Validate the VPG is still selected, and click Next.

    Validate VPG, click Next
  3. The latest checkpoint should already be selected for you. Click Next

    Verify Checkpoint, click Next
  4. Click Start Failover Test.

    Start Failover Test

After you click Start Failover Test, the testing operation will start. Once the VM is up in Azure, you can try pinging it. If it doesn’t ping the first time, reboot it, as the Integration Services may require a reboot before you can RDP to it (I had to reboot my test machine).

When you’re done testing, click the stop button in Zerto to stop the Failover Test, and wait for it to complete. At this point, if everything looks good, you’re ready to plan your migration.

If you did anything different than what I had done, remember to document it and make it repeatable :).

Next Steps

Once you’ve validated that your systems will successfully come up you can then schedule your migration. When you perform the migration into Azure, I recommend using the Move Operation (see image below), as that will be the cleanest way to get the system over to Azure in an application-consistent state with no data loss, as opposed to seconds of data loss and a crash-consistent state that the failover test, or failover live operations will give you.

Note: Before you run the Move Operation, it will be beneficial to uninstall VMware Tools on the VM(s) that you are moving to Azure. It has been found that not doing so will not allow you to uninstall them once in Azure.



Move Operation


Recommendations before you migrate:

  • Document everything you do to make this work. (it may come in handy when you’re looking for others to help you out)
  • Be sure to test the migration beforehand using the Failover Test Operation.
  • Check your Commit settings in Zerto before you perform the Move Operation to ensure that you allow yourself enough time to test before committing the workload to Azure. Current versions of Zerto default the commit policy to 60 minutes, so should you need more time, increase the commit policy time to meet your needs.
  • Be sure to right-size your VMs before moving them to the cloud. If they are oversized, you could be paying way more in consumption than you need to with bigger instance sizes that you may not necessarily need.

That’s it! Pretty simple and straightforward. To be honest, obtaining a working copy of Windows Server 2003 R2 and the Hyper-V Integration Services took longer than getting through the actual process, which actually worked the first time I tried it.

If this works for you let me know by leaving a comment, and if you find this to be valuable information that others can benefit from, please socialize it!

Cheers!

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Configuring AWS for Zerto Virtual Replication

By now, it’s no secret that the IT Resilience Platform that Zerto has come to be known as offers complete flexibility when it comes to multi-cloud agility.  This agility allows businesses to accelerate their digital transformation and truly take advantage of what the public cloud platform offers – ensuring even more freedom to choose your cloud and to be able to replicate workloads to, from, and even between public clouds.  As there have been great improvements in Zerto’s any-to-any story, one in particular I’d like to focus on in this article is AWS (Amazon Web Services).

Starting with Zerto Virtual Replication 6.0, customers now have:

  • Orchestration allowing not only targeting AWS for DR or for workload migration, but now the ability to come back out of AWS to on-premises datacenters, or even the ability to replicate between public cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM Public Cloud) and Cloud Service Providers (CSPs).
  • Zerto Analytics visibility between all sites, including public cloud, now with network statistics and 30-day history.

Now, while these improvements are exciting and offer even more cloud agility to customers, one can’t help but realize that before you can actually start taking advantage of ZVR 6.0 to achieve a hybrid cloud architecture or DR in the cloud (specifically AWS), there are some pre-requisites to complete before doing so.  That said, meeting those requirements may not seem as intuitive as you’d hope at first glance.

While having a cloud use-case is usually the first step, and is determined by business requirements – the challenge lies within understanding what exactly needs to be configured in AWS for ZVR functionality, and how to accomplish it. If you take a look below, the workflow itself is a multi-step process that may not be very easy to perform, until now.

ZVR AWS Workflow
Figure 1: Configuring AWS for ZVR – Workflow

In my usual fashion of wanting to know exactly how things are done and then sharing it with everyone else, I’ve written a how-to document for configuring AWS for Zerto Virtual Replication, which I am happy to say has been turned into an official Zerto whitepaper and is now available for download!

>> Whitepaper – Configuring AWS for Zerto Virtual Replication <<

As usual, feedback, is welcomed with open arms. If you find this useful, please share and be social!

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Single vCenter, Single ZVM, and Recovering Zerto in a Failure Scenario

As a follow-up to my previous blog entry titled “Zerto Virtual Manger Outage, Replication, and Self-Healing“, which covers a ZVM failure scenario in an environment with paired ZVMs and two vCenters, I also decided to test and document what I found to be a useful solution to being able to recover from a failed ZVM in an environment where there is only one vCenter and one instance of Zerto Virtual Replication installed.  Granted, this is generally not a recommended deployment topology due to potentially having a single point of failure, this type of deployment does exist, and this should provide a suitable solution to allow recovery.

The following has been successfully tested in my lab, which is a vSphere environment, but I also do anticipate that this solution can also be carried over to a Hyper-V environment; which I’m hoping to test soon.

Since my lab originally consisted of two vCenters and two ZVMs, I first had to tear it down to become a single vCenter and single ZVM environment for the test.  Here is what I did, should you want to test this on your own before deciding whether or not you want to actually deploy it in your environment.

Disclaimer: 

Once again, this is not generally a recommended configuration, and there are some caveats similar to the referenced blog entry above, but with that said, this will allow you to be able to recover if you have Zerto deployed in your environment as described above.

Considerations

Please note that there may be some things to look out for when using this solution because of how the journal contains data until the checkpoints have been committed to the replica disk:

  • Journal disk being added at the time of a ZVM failure
  • VRA installation, new VRA installation at the time of a ZVM failure
  • Changes made to protected VMs (VMDK add) may not be captured if coinciding with a ZVM failure
  • VPG settings changed at the time of a ZVM failure, such as adding/removing a VM from a VPG

 

Based on additional testing I’ve done, it makes best sense to keep the journal size of the VPG protecting the ZVM as short as possible because any changes that occur to the ZVM (any of the above) will first go to the journal before aging out and being committed to the replica disk.  If those changes don’t commit to the disk, they will not appear in the UI when the ZVM is recovered using this method.

This was found by creating a VPG to protect another set of workloads, and then 10 minutes later, running through the recovery steps for the ZVM.  What I didn’t account for here is the FIFO (first-in-first-out) nature of the journal.  Because the change I had made resided within journal for the protected ZVM, it did not get a chance to age out to disk.  Recovering from the replica did not include the new VPG.

As a result, the recommendation for journal history when protecting the ZVM would be 1 hour (the minimum) – meaning your RPO for the ZVM will be 1 hour.

Setup the Test Environment

Before you can test this, you will need to configure your lab environment for it.  The following assumes your lab consists of two vCenters and 2 installations of Zerto Virtual Replication.  If your lab only has 1 vCenter, simply skip the “lab recovery site” section and move to the “lab protected site” steps.

In lab recovery site:

  1. Delete all existing VPGs
  2. Delete VRAs (via the ZVM UI)
  3. Un-pair the two ZVR sites (in the sites tab in ZVM UI)
  4. Remove hosts from recovery site vCenter

In lab protected site:

  1. [Optional] Create a new cluster, and add the hosts you removed from your recovery site.
  2. Deploy VRAs any hosts you’ll be using in for the test.
  3. Configure VPGs.

Protect the ZVM using Zerto

One thing I’ve wondered about that I finally got around to testing is actually protecting the ZVM itself using ZVR.  I’m happy to say, it appears to work just fine.  After all, Zerto does not make use of agents, snapshots, or disrupt production for that matter, as the technology basically replicates/mirrors block writes from the protected to the recovery site after they’re acknowledged via the virtual replication appliances, not touching the protected workload.

Protecting the ZVM is as simple as protecting any other application, via a VPG (Virtual Protection Group).  While you can likely protect the ZVM via storage snaps and replication, you’re still not going to get an RPO anywhere close to what Zerto itself can provide, which is typically in seconds – many cases single-digit seconds.  What this means, is that your amount of data loss, in the case of the ZVM, will likely be in minutes, even shorter if you can automate the recovery portion of this solution via scripting.

So, a few things to make this solution easier when creating the VPG to protect the ZVM:

  1. When selecting your default recovery server for the VPG that protects the ZVM, select a host, as opposed to a cluster.  This allows you to easily locate the VRA responsible for protecting the ZVM.  Further on through this article, you’ll see why.
  2. Select a specific datastore for recovery.  You can select a datastore cluster, but for the same reasons as above, selecting a specific datastore allows you to easily locate the disk files for the “recovery replica” of the ZVM in the event of a failure.

    Replication Settings - VPG Creation Wizard

  3. Select the production network/portgroup that houses the production IP space for the ZVM (Recovery tab of VPG creation wizard).  We will not be changing the IP address.Recovery Tab - VPG Creation Wizard
  4. Do not change the IP address for failover/move or test (in the NICs tab of the VPG creation wizard).

    NIC Settings - VPG Creation Wizard

Once you’ve created the VPG, allow initial sync to complete.  As you can see below, I now have a VPG containing the ZVM.  Please note that I’m protecting only the ZVM because I am using the embedded SQL CE database.  Using an external SQL server for the ZVR database will require additional planning.  Once initial sync has been completed, you’re ready to begin the actual failure test and recovery.

VPG List - Protecting ZVM

Simulate a Failure of the Primary ZVM

In order to test the recovery, we will need to simulate a failure of the Primary ZVM.

  1. Power off the ZVM.  Optionally, you can also go as far as deleting it from disk.  Now you know there’s no coming back from that scenario.  The ZVM will be gone.

Recover the ZVM Using the Replica

If you remember form the blog post linked at the beginning of this one, even if the ZVM is down, the VRAs are still replicating data.  Knowing that, the VRA in the recovery site (in this case on the recovery host) will have a lock on the VMDK(s) for the ZVM.  That is why I mentioned it would be good to know what host you’re replicating the ZVM to.

  1. IMPORTANT: Before you can start recovering, you will need to shutdown the VRA on the host specified for recovery.  Doing so will ensure that any lock on the VMDK(s) for the replica will be released.
  2. Once the VRA has been shutdown, open the datastore browser and move or copy the VMDK(s) out of the VRA folder to another folder.  By doing this, you’re making sure that if that VRA comes back up before you can delete the VPG protecting the ZVM, there will not be a conflict/lock.  If you select to copy the files, rather than move them, then you can use the existing replica as a pre-seed to re-protect the ZVM.
  3. Create a new VM using the vSphere client.
  4. Select to create a Custom virtual machine.

    Create VM - Custom

  5. Provide a name for the VM that doesn’t already exist in vCenter if you did not delete the original “failed” ZVM.  This ensures there won’t be a naming conflict.
  6. Select the datastore where you copied the replica VMDK(s) to.
  7. Select the Virtual Machine Version.  In this case, you can leave the default, which will be the latest version supported by vSphere version.

    Create VM - vHW Version

  8. Select the OS version for the ZVM.

    Create VM - OS Version

  9. Select the number of vCPUs required. (Match what the original ZVM had)
  10. Select the amount of memory to allocate to the VM. (Match what the original ZVM had)
  11. Select the PortGroup and Adapter type and make sure it’s set to connect at power on.  This should match the original.  My original ZVM had been configured with VMXNET3, so that’s what I selected.
  12. Select the SCSI controller to use.  Again, try to match the original.  Mine was LSI Logic SAS.
  13. On the Select a Disk screen, select Use an existing virtual disk.

    Create VM - Select Existing Disk

  14. Browse to the location of the ZVM replica’s VMDK(s) you copied, and select the disk and click OK.

    Create VM - Select existing disk file

  15. Leave the advanced options at default.
  16. On the summary screen, click Finish.
  17. When the creation is completed, power on the VM, open the console, and watch it boot up.  At this point, DO NOT power on the VRA that you previously shutdown.  There will be some cleanup, especially if you did not copy the VMDK(s) to another location.

Power on new VM created using existing disk.

Clean-up

Once the recovered ZVM has booted up, go ahead and log in to the Zerto UI.  Don’t be alarmed that everything is red.  This is because the ZVM is coming up from being down for a while, and it needs to run some checks, and get re-situated with the VRAs and begin creating new checkpoints again.  Once that process completes, as we saw in the previous blog article (referenced at the beginning of this one), things will start to go green and into a “Meeting SLA” state.

  1. Click on the VPGs tab.
  2. Locate the VPG previously created to protect the ZVM, and delete it.  If you want to retain the original replica disks as a pre-seed, make sure you select the checkbox labeled Keep the recovery disks at the peer site.  Please note that because the VRA that was protecting this VPG is still down, you may need to click delete again, and force the deletion of the VPG.

    Delete VPG - Preserve recovery disks.

  3. Once the VPG is deleted, go ahead and power on the VRA you previously shutdown.

Verify ZVR Functionality

Now that we’ve cleaned up and powered the VRA back up, you can verify that ZVR is working again, and the ZVM is performing its duty of creating and tracking checkpoints in the journal again.  You can do this by starting to initiate a failover test and clicking to see what checkpoints are available, or by attempting to recover a file from the journal from any one of the VPGs.

Validate checkpoint functionality

(Above) you can see when the ZVM went down, and when it started creating and tracking checkpoints again.

Validate JFLR

(Above) Restored a file from the Journal.

Summary

While this is not an optimal/recommended configuration, through testing and validation, we have seen that even in a single ZVM, single vCenter environment, being able to recovery the platform that is providing your resiliency services is completely possible.  Granted, there will be some data loss (RPO) on the ZVM itself, despite being down for time between the failure and the recovery, Zerto Virtual Replication is clearly able to pick up where it left off, and resume protection of your environment.

If you found this to be useful, please share, comment, and let me if you’ve tried this for yourself!

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Zerto Virtual Manager Outage, Replication, and Self-Healing

I’ve decided to explore what happens when a ZVM (Zerto Virtual Manager) in either the protected site or the recovery site is down for a period of time, and what happens when it is back in service, and most importantly, how an outage of either ZVM affects replication, journal history, and the ability to recover a workload.

Before getting in to it, I have to admit that I was happy to see how resilient the platform is through this test, and how the ability to self-heal is a built in “feature” that rarely gets talked about.

Questions:

  • Does ZVR still replicate when a ZVM goes down?
  • How does a ZVM being down affect checkpoint creation?
  • What can be recovered while the ZVM is down?
  • What happens when the ZVM is returned to service?
  • What happens if the ZVM is down longer than the configured Journal History setting?

Acronym Decoder & Explanations

ZVMZerto Virtual Manager
ZVRZerto Virtual Replication
VRAVirtual Replication Appliance
VPGVirtual Protection Group
RPORecovery Point Objective
RTORecovery Time Objective
BCDRBusiness Continuity/Disaster Recovery
CSPCloud Service Provider
FOTFailover Test
FOLFailover Live

Does ZVR still replicate when a ZVM goes down?

The quick answer is yes.  Once a VPG is created, the VRAs handle all replication.    The ZVM takes care of inserting and tracking checkpoints in the journal, as well as automation and orchestration of Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs), whether it be for DR, workload mobility, or cloud adoption.

In the protected site, I took the ZVM down for over an hour via power-off to simulate a failure.  Prior to that, I made note of the last checkpoint created.  As the ZVM went down, within a few seconds, the protected site dashboard reported RPO as 0 (zero), VPG health went red, and I received an alert stating “The Zerto Virtual Manager is not connected to site Prod_Site…”

The Zerto Virtual Manager is not connected to site Prod_Site

 

Great, so the protected site ZVM is down now and the recovery site ZVM noticed.  The next step for me was to verify that despite the ZVM being down, the VRA continued to replicate my workload.  To prove this, I opened the file server and copied the fonts folder (C:\Windows\Fonts) to C:\Temp (total size of data ~500MB).

As the copy completed, I then opened the performance tab of the sending VRA and went straight to see if the network transmit rate went up, indicating data being sent:

VRA Performance in vSphere, showing data being transmitted to remote VRA in protected site.

Following that, I opened the performance monitor on the receiving VRA and looked at two stats: Data receive rate, and Disk write rate, both indicating activity at the same timeframe as the sending VRA stats above:

Data receive rate (Network) on receiving/recovery VRA Disk write rate on receiving/recovery VRA

As you can see, despite the ZVM being down, replication continues, with caveats though, that you need to be aware of:

  • No new checkpoints are being created in the journal
  • Existing checkpoints up to the last one created are all still recoverable, meaning you can still recover VMs (VPGs), Sites, or files.

Even if replication is still taking place, you will only be able to recover to the latest (last recorded checkpoint) before the ZVM went down.  When the ZVM returns, checkpoints are once again created, however, you will not see checkpoints created for the entire time that ZVM was unavailable.  In my testing, the same was true for if the recovery site ZVM went down while the protected site ZVM was still up.

How does the ZVM being down affect checkpoint creation?

If I take a look at the Journal history for the target workload (file server), I can see that since the ZVM went away, no new checkpoints have been created.  So, while replication continues on, no new checkpoints are tracked due to the ZVM being down, since one of it’s jobs is to track checkpoints.

Last checkpoint created over 30 minutes ago, right before the ZVM was powered off.

 

What can be recovered while the ZVM is down?

Despite no new checkpoints being created – FOT or FOL – VPG Clone, Move, and File Restore services are still available for the existing journal checkpoints.  Given this was something I’ve never tested before, this was really impressive.

One thing to keep in mind though is that this will all depend on how long your Journal history is configured for, and how long that ZVM is down.  I provide more information about this specific topic further down in this article.

What happens when the ZVM is returned to service?

So now that I’ve shown what is going on when the ZVM is down, let’s see what happens when it is back in service.  To do this, I just need to power it back up, and allow the services to start, then see what is reported in the ZVM UI on either site.

As soon as all services were back up on the protected site ZVM, the recovery site ZVM alerted that a Synchronization with site Prod_Site was initiated:

Synchronizing with site Prod_Site

Recovery site ZVM Dashboard during site synchronization.

The next step here is to see what our checkpoint history looks like.  Taking a look at the image below, we can see when the ZVM went down, and that there is a noticeable gap in checkpoints, however, as soon as the ZVM was back in service, checkpoint creation resumed, with only the time during the outage being unavailable.

Checkpoints resume

 

What happens if the ZVM is down longer than the configured Journal History setting?

In my lab, for the above testing, I set the VPG history to 1 hour.  That said, if you take a look at the last screen shot, older checkpoints are still available (showing 405 checkpoints).  When I first tried to run a failover test after this experiment, I was presented with checkpoints that go beyond an hour.  When I selected the oldest checkpoint in the list, a failover test would not start, even if the “Next” button in the FOT wizard did not gray out.  What this has lead me to believe is that it may take a minute or two for the journal to be cleaned up.

Because I was not able to move forward with a failover test (FOT), I went back in to select another checkpoint, and this time, the older checkpoints were gone (from over an hour ago).  Selecting the oldest checkpoint at this time, allowed me to run a successful FOT because it was within range of the journal history setting.  Lesson learned here – note to self: give Zerto a minute to figure things out, you just disconnected the brain from the spine!

Updated Checkpoints within Journal History Setting

Running a failover test to validate successful usage of checkpoints after ZVM outage:

File Server FOT in progress, validating fonts folder made it over to recovery site.

And… a recovery report to prove it:

Recovery Report - Successful FOT Recovery Report - Successful FOT

 

Summary and Next Steps

So in summary, Zerto is self-healing and can recover from a ZVM being down for a period of time.  That said, there are some things to watch out for, which include known what your configured journal setting is, and how a ZVM being down longer than the configured history setting affects your ability to recover.

You can still recover, however, you will start losing older checkpoints as time goes on while the ZVM is down.  This is because of the first-in-first-out (FIFO) nature of how the journal works.  You will still have the replica disks and journal checkpoints committing to it as time goes on, so losing history doesn’t mean you’re lost, you will just end up breaching your SLA for history, which will re-build over time as soon as the ZVM is back up.

As a best practice, it is recommended you have a ZVM in each of your protected sites, and in each of your recovery sites for full resilience.  Because after all, if you lose one of the ZVMs, you will need at least either the protected or recovery site ZVM available to perform a recovery.  The case is different if you have a single ZVM.  If you must have a single ZVM, put it into the recovery site, and not on the protected site, because chances are, your protected site is what you’re accounting for going down in any planned or unplanned event.  It makes most sense to have the single ZVM in the recovery site.

In the next article, I’ll be exploring this very example of a single ZVM and how that going down affects your resiliency.  I’ll also be testing some ways to potentially protect that single ZVM in the event it is lost.

Thanks for reading!  Please comment and share, because I’d like to hear your thoughts, and am also interested in hearing how other solutions handle similar outages.

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Zerto Automation with PowerShell and REST APIs

Zerto is simple to install and simple to use, but it gets better with automation!  While performing tasks within the UI can quickly become second nature, you can quickly find yourself spending a lot of time repeating the same tasks over and over again.  I get it, repetition builds memory, but it gets old.  As your environment grows, so does the amount of time it takes to do things manually.  Why do things manually when there are better ways to spend your time?

Zerto provides great documentation for automation via PowerShell and REST APIs, along with Zerto Cmdlets that you can download and install to add-on to  PowerShell to be able to do more from the CLI.  One of my favorite things is that the team has provided functional sample scripts that are pretty much ready to go; so you don’t have to develop them for common tasks, including:

  • Querying and Reporting
  • Automating Deployment
  • Automating VM Protection (including vRealize Orchestrator)
  • Bulk Edits to VPGs or even NIC settings, including Re-IP and PortGroup changes
  • Offsite Cloning

For automated failover testing, Zerto includes an Orchestrator for vSphere, which I will cover in a separate set of posts.

To get started with PowerShell and RESTful APIs, head over to the Technical Documentation section of My Zerto and download the Zerto PowerShell Cmdlets (requires MyZerto Login) and the following guides to get started, and stay tuned for future posts where I try these scripts out and offer a little insight to how to run them, and also learn how I’ve used them!

  • Rest APIs Online Help – Zerto Virtual Replication
    • The REST APIs provide a way to automate many DR related tasks without having to use the Zerto UI.
  • REST API Reference Guide – Zerto Virtual Replication
    • This guide will help you understand how to use the ZVR RESTful APIs.
  • REST API Reference Guide – Zerto Cloud Manager
    • This guide explains how to use the ZCM RESTful APIs.
  • PowerShell Cmdlets Guide – Zerto Virtual Replication
    • Installation and use guide for the ZVR Windows PowerShell cmdlets.
  • White Paper – Automating Zerto Virtual Replication with PowerShell and REST APIs
    • This document includes an overview of how to use ZVR REST APIs with PowerShell to automate your virtual infrastructure.  This is the document that also includes several functional scripts that take the hard work out of everyday tasks.

If you’ve automated ZVR using PowerShell or REST APIs, I’d like to hear how you’re using it and how it’s changed your overall BCDR strategy.

I myself am still getting started with automating ZVR, but am really excited to share my experiences, and hopefully, help others along the way!  In fact, I’ve already been working with bulk VRA deployment, so check back or follow me on twitter @EugeneJTorres for updates!

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Changing a VM’s Recovery VRA When a Host Crashes or Prior to Recovery Site Maintenance

Yesterday, we had one host in our recovery site PSOD, and that caused all kinds of errors in Zerto, primarily related to VPGs.  In our case, this particular host had both inbound and outbound VPGs attached to it’s VRA, and we were unable to edit (edit button in VPG view was grayed out, along with the “Edit VPG” link when clicking in to the VPG) any of them to recover from the host failure.  Previously when this would happen, we would just delete the VPG(s) and recreate it/them, preserving the disk files as pre-seeded data.

When you have a few of these to re-do, it’s not a big deal, however, when you have 10 or more, it quickly becomes a problem.

One thing that I discovered that I didn’t know was in the product, is that if you click in to the VRA associated with the failed host, and go do the MORE link, there’s an option in there to “Change Recovery VRA.”  This option will allow you to tell Zerto that anything related to this VRA should now be pointed at X. Once I did that, I was able to then edit the VPGs.  I needed to edit the VPGs that were outbound, because they were actually reverse-protected workloads that were missing some configuration details (NIC settings and/or Journal datastore).

Additionally – If you are planning on host maintenance in the recovery site (replacing a host(s), patching, etc…), these steps should be taken prior to taking the host and VRA down to ensure non-disrupted protection.

 

Here’s how:

  1. Log on to the Zerto UI.
  2. Once logged on, click on the Setup tab.
  3. In the “VRA Name” column, locate the VRA associated with the failed host, and then click the link (name of VRA) to open the VRA in a new tab in the UI.
  4. Click on the tab at the top that contains VRA: Z-VRA-[hostName].
  5. Once you’re looking at the VRA page, click on the MORE link.
  6. From the MORE menu, click Change VM Recovery VRA.
  7. In the Change VM Recovery VRA dialog, check the box beside the VPG/VM, then select a replacement host. Once all VPGs have been udpated, click Save.

Once you’ve saved your settings, validate that the VPG can be edited, and/or is once again replicating.

 

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ESXi 6.0 U2 Host Isolation Following Storage Rescan

Following an upgrade to ESXi 6.0 U2, this particular issue has popped up a few times, and while we still have a case open with VMware support in an attempt to understand root cause, we have found a successful workaround that doesn’t require any downtime for the running workloads or the host in question.  This issue doesn’t discriminate between iSCSI or Fibre Channel storage, as we’ve seen it in both instances (SolidFire – iSCSI, IBM SVC – FC).  One common theme with where we are seeing this problem is that it is happening in clusters with 10 or more hosts, and many datastores.  It may also be helpful to know that we have two datastores that are shared between multiple clusters.  These datastores are for syslogs and ISOs/Templates.

 

Note: In order to perform the steps in this how-to, you will need to already
have SSH running and available on the host, or access to the DCUI.

Observations

  • Following a host or cluster storage rescan, an ESXi host(s) stops responding in vCenter and still has running VMs on it (host isolation)
  • Attempts to reconnect the host via vCenter doesn’t work
  • Direct client connection (thick client) to host doesn’t work
  • Attempts to run services.sh from the CLI causes script to hang after “running sfcbd-watchdog stop“.  The last thing on the screen is “Exclusive access granted.”
  • The /var/log/vmkernel.log displays the following at this point: “Alert: hostd detected to be non-responsive

Troubleshooting

The following troubleshooting steps were obtained from VMware KB Article 1003409

  1. Verify the host is powered on.
  2. Attempt to reconnect the host in vCenter
  3. Verify that the ESXi host is able to respond back to vCenter at the correct IP address and vice versa.
  4. Verify that network connectivity exists from vCenter to the ESXi host’s management IP or FQDN
  5. Verify that port 903 TCP/UDP is open between the vCenter and the ESXi host
  6. Try to restart the ESXi management agents via DCUI or SSH to see if it resolves the issue
  7. Verify if the hostd process has stopped responding on the affected host.
  8. verify if the vpxa agent has stopped responding on the affected host.
  9. Verify if the host has experienced a PSOD (Purple Screen of Death).
  10. Verify if there is an underlying storage connectivity (or other storage-related) issue.

Following these troubleshooting steps left me at step 7, where I was able to determine if hostd was responding on the host.  The vmkernel.log further supports this observation.

Resolution/Workaround Steps

These are the steps I’ve taken to remedy the problem without having to take the VMs down or reboot the host:

  1. Since the hostd service is not responding, the first thing to do is run /etc/init.d/hostd restart from a second SSH session window (leaving the first one with the hung services.sh restart script process).
  2. While running the hostd restart command, the hung session will update, and produce the following:

  3. When you see that message, press enter to be returned to the shell prompt.
  4. Now run /etc/init.d/vpxa restart, which is the vCenter Agent on the host.
  5. After that completes, re-run services.sh restart and this time it should run all the way through successfully.
  6. Once services are all restarted, return to the vSphere Web Client and refresh the screen.  You should now see the host is back to being managed, and is no longer disconnected.
  7. At this point, you can either leave the host running as-is, or put it into maintenance mode (vMotion all VMs off).  Export the log bundle if you’d like VMware support to help analyze root cause.

 

I hope you find this useful, and if you do, please comment and share!

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Zerto: Dual NIC ZVM

Something I recently ran into with Zerto (and this can happen for anything else) was the dilemma of being able to protect remote sites that (doesn’t happen often) happen to have IP addresses that are identical in both the protected and recovery sites.  And no, this wasn’t planned for, it was just discovered during my Zerto deployment in what we’ll call the protected sites.

Luckily, our network team had provisioned two new networks that are isolated, and connected to these protected sites via MPLS.  Those two new networks do not have the ability to talk back to our existing enterprise network without firewalls getting involved, and this is by design since we are basically consolidating data centers while absorbing assets and virtual workloads from a recently acquired company.

When I originally installed the ZVM in my site (which we’ll call the recovery site), I had used IP addresses for the ZVM and VRAs that were part of our production network, and not the isolated network set aside for this consolidation.  Note: I installed the Zerto infrastructure in the recovery site ahead of time before discussions about the isolated networks was brought up.  So, because I needed to get this onto the isolated network in order to be able to replicate data from the protected sites to the recovery site, I set out to re-IP the ZVM, and re-IP the VRAs.  Before I could do that, I needed to provide justification for firewall exceptions in order for the ZVM in the recovery site to link to the vCenter, communicate with ESXi hosts for VRA deployment, and also to be able to authenticate the computer, users, service accounts in use on the ZVM.  Oh, and I also needed DNS and time services.

The network and security teams asked if they could NAT the traffic, and my answer was “no” because Zerto doesn’t support replication using NAT.  That was easy, and now the network team had to create firewall exceptions for the ports I needed.

Well,  as expected, they delivered what I needed.  To make a long story short, it all worked, and then about 12 hours before we were scheduled to perform our first VPG move, it all stopped working, and no one knew why.  At this point, it was getting really close to us pulling the plug on the migration the following day, but I was determined to get this going and prevent another delay in the project.

When looking for answers, I contacted my Zerto SE, reached out on twitter, and also contacted Zerto Support.  Well, at the time I was on the phone with support, we couldn’t do anything because communication to the resources I needed was not working.  We couldn’t perform a Zerto re-configure to re-connect to the vCenter, and at this point, I had about 24VPGs that were reporting they were in sync (lucky!), but ZVM to ZVM communication wasn’t working, and recovery site ZVM was not able to communicate with vCenter, so I wouldn’t have been able to perform the cutover.  So since support couldn’t help me out in that instance, I scoured the Zerto KB looking for an alternate way of configuring this where I could get the best of both worlds, and still be able to stay isolated as needed.

I eventually found this KB article that explained that not only is it supported, but it’s also considered a best practice in CSP or large environments to dual-NIC the ZVM to separate management from replication traffic.  I figured, I’m all out of ideas, and the back-and-forth with firewall admins wasn’t getting us anywhere; I might as well give this a go.  While the KB article offers the solution, it doesn’t tell you exactly how to do it, outside of adding a second vNIC to the ZVM.  There were some steps missing, which I figured out within a few minutes of completing the configuration.  Oh, and part of this required me to re-IP the original NIC back to the original IP I used, which was on our production network.  Doing this re-opened the lines of communication to vCenter, ESXi hosts, AD, DNS, SMTP, etc, etc… Now I had to focus on the vNIC that was to be used for all ZVM to ZVM as well as replication traffic.  In a few short minutes, I was able to get communication going the way I needed it, so the final thing I needed to do was re-configure Zerto to use the new vNIC for it’s replication-related activities.  I did that, and while I was able to re-establish the production network communications I needed, now I wasn’t able to access the remote sites (ZVM to ZVM) or access the recovery site VRAs.

It turns out, what I needed here were some static, persistent routes to the remote networks, configured to use the specific interface I created for it.

Here’s how:

The steps I took are below the image.  If the image is too small, consider downloading the PDF here.

zerto_dual_nic_diagram

 

On the ZVM:

  1. Power it down, add 2nd vNIC and set it’s network to the isolated network.  Set the primary vNIC to the production network.
  2. Power it on.  When it’s booted up, log in to Windows, and re-configure the IP address for the primary vNIC.  Reboot to make sure everything comes up successfully now that it is on the correct production network.
  3. After the reboot, edit the IP configuration of the second vNIC (the one on the isolated network).  DO NOT configure a default gateway for it.
  4. Open the Zerto Diagnostics Utility on the ZVM. You’ll find this by opening the start menu and looking for the Zerto Diagnostics Utility.  If you’re on Windows Server 2008 or 2012, you can search for it by clicking the start menu and starting to type “Zerto.”
    zerto_dual_nic_1_4
  5. Once the Zerto Diagnostics Utility loads, select “Reconfigure Zerto Virtual Manager” and click Next.
    zerto_dual_nic_1_5
  6. On the vCenter Server Connectivity screen, make any necessary changes you need to and click Next.  (Note: We’re only after changing the IP address the ZVM uses for replication and ZVM-to-ZVM communication, so in most cases, you can just click Next on this screen.)
  7. On the vCloud Director (vCD) Connectivity screen, make any necessary changes you need to and click Next. (Note: same note in step 6)
  8. On the Zerto Virtual Manager Site Details screen, make any necessary changes you need to  and click Next. (Note: same as note in step 6)
  9. On the Zerto Virtual Manager Communication screen, the only thing to change here is the “IP/Host Name Used by the Zerto User Interface.”  Change this to the IP Address of your vNIC on the isolated Network, then click Next.zerto_dual_nic_1_9
  10. Continue to accept any defaults on following screens, and after validation completes, click Finish, and your changes will be saved.
  11. Once the above step has completed, you will now need to add a persistent, static route to the Windows routing table.  This will tell the ZVM that for any traffic destined for the protected site(s), it will need to send that traffic over the vNIC that is configured for the isolated network.
  12. Use the following route statement from the Windows CLI to create those static routes:
    route ADD [Destination IP] MASK [SubnetMask] [LocalGatewayIP] IF [InterfaceNumberforIsolatedNetworkNIC] -p
    Example:>
    route ADD 192.168.100.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 10.10.10.1 IF 2 -p
    route ADD 102.168.200.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 10.10.10.1 IF 2 -p
    
    Note: To find out what the interface number is for your isolated network vNIC, run route print from the Windows CLI.  It will be listed at the top of what is returned.
    

 

zerto_dual_nic_1_10

Once you’ve configured your route(s), you can test by sending pings to remote site IP addresses that you would normally not be able to see.

After performing all of these steps, my ZVMs are now communicating without issue and replications are all taking place.  A huge difference from hours before when everything looked like it was broken.  The next day, we were able to successfully move our VPGs from protected sites to recovery sites without issue, and reverse protect (which we’re doing for now as a failback option until we can guarantee everything is working as expected).

If this is helpful or you have any questions/suggestions, please comment, and please share! Thanks for reading!

 

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Protecting a VM with vSphere Replication

Continuing on from the previous blog about configuring array-based replication with SRM, in this blog post we’ll be going through configuring protection of a VM using vSphere Replication.  The reason I’m doing this instead of jumping right into creating the protection groups and recovery plans is because vSphere Replication can function on its own without SRM.  That said, we’ll go through the steps to protect a virtual workload using vSphere Replication, and follow this up with creating protection groups and recovery plans, which come into play in either situation (ABR vs vR) when we get to the orchestration functionality that SRM brings to the table.

vSphere Replication is included with VMware Essentials plus and above, so chances are you have this feature available to you to should you decide to use it to protect VMs using hypervisor-based replication.  In my experience, vSphere Replication works great and can be used to either migrate or protect virtual workloads, however, as stated above, can be limited.  See this previous post for the details of what vSphere Replication can and can’t do without Site Recovery Manager.

 

Procedure

In this walkthrough for protecting a VM using vSphere Replication, I will be performing the steps using a decently sized Windows VM as the asset that needs protection.  This VM is a plain installation of Windows, however, I use the fsutil to generate files of different sizes to simulate data change.

    1. In your vSphere Web Client, locate a VM that you wish to protect via hypervisor-based replication.
    2. Right-click on the VM and go to All vSphere Replication Actions > Configure Replication.how-to_vspherereplication_1_2
    3. When the wizard loads, the first screen asks for the replication type.  Select Replicate to a vCenter Server, and click Next.how-to_vspherereplication_1_3
    4. Select the Target Site and click Next.how-to_vspherereplication_1_4
    5. Select the remote vSphere Replication server (or if you only have 1, then select auto-assign), wait for validation, then click Next.how-to_vspherereplication_1_5
    6. On the target location screen, there are several options to configure, so we’ll go through each one by one:- Expand the settings by clicking the arrow next to the VM, or click the info link.how-to_vspherereplication_1_6_a– Click edit in the area labeled Target VM Location, select the target datastore and location for the recovery VM, then click OK to be returned to the previous screen.how-to_vspherereplication_1_6_b– Typically, the previous step would be enough, however, if you want to place VMDKs in specific datastores, edit their format (thick vs. thin provisioned), or assign a policy, use the edit links beside each hard disk.  Once all your settings are how you want them, click Next.

      how-to_vspherereplication_1_6_c

    7. Specify your replication options, then click Next.
      Notes:
      - Enable quiescing if your guest OS supports it, however, keep in mind
        that quiescing may affect your RPO times.
      - Enable network compression to reduce required bandwidth and free up
        buffer memory on the vSphere Replication server, however, higher CPU
        usage may result, so it is best to test with both options to see what
        works best in your environment.
      

      how-to_vspherereplication_1_7

    8. Configure RPO to meet customer requirements, enable point in time instances (snapshots in time as recovery points – maximum of 24) if needed, then click Next.
    9. Review your configuration summary, make changes if necessary, but when you’re done, click Finish.  As soon as you finish, a full sync will be initiated.

There you go, configuring vSphere replication for a VM.  The next post will cover creating protection groups and recovery plans, which we will then tie into what we’ve just performed here and with the array-based replication post.

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VMware SRM 6.1 – Configure Array-Based Replication

Introduction

 

This how-to will walk through the installation and configuration of array-based replication features for VMware Site Recovery Manager 6.1.

Before configuring array-based replication for use with VMware SRM, there are some pre-requisites.  First of all, you’re going to need to visit the VMware Compatibility Guide, which will help you determine if your specific array vendor is supported for use with SRM.  Second, there are steps to take to configure array based replication on the storage side, and that portion is out-of-scope for this blog, as I did not have access to do so.

vmware_hcl_example

There are several ways to search the compatibility guide, but to be specific, you can select entries from the areas highlighted above.  The bottom section that is highlighted will be your results once you click “Update and View Results.”  The reason why I wanted to point this step out is because if you assume your array vendor is supported, and don’t verify first, you could end up wasting your time planning and designing.

For this example, we are using SRM 6.1 with the Fibre Channel protocol on IBM SVC-fronted DS8K’s in both sites. I wanted to point that out because when I first set out to find the SRAs for use with our solution, I attempted to use the “IBM DS8000 Storage Replication Adapter”, later to find out it wasn’t the correct one.   The correct SRA for use with my environment is the “IBM Storwize Family Storage Replication Adapter”, so there may be a little bit of trial and error with this; however, if you do it up front during testing, you’ll save yourself some time later when deploying to production.

That all said, once you’ve verified your storage is supported, and what version of the SRA to download, you can get it by visiting the VMware downloads (you will need to login).  Be sure to also verify that the version of the SRA you are downloading is compatible with the version of array manager code you’re running.

 

Installing the SRA

Before you Begin – Prior to installing the SRA on the SRM server in each site (protected and recovery), you should have already paired the sites successfully.  Also, if you haven’t installed SRM yet, you will need to, otherwise the SRA installer will fail once it discovers that SRM is not installed.

Installing the SRA should be straightforward and painless, as there are not many options to configure during installation.  Once the installation is completed on both the protected and recovery SRM servers, proceed.

 

Verify That SRM Has Registered the SRAs

  1. Once you’ve installed the SRA on each site’s SRM server, log into the vSphere Web Client, and go to Site Recovery > Sites and select a site.site_recovery_sites_sra_monitor
    From this view, you can see what SRA has been installed, its status, and compatibility information.
  2. Click the rescan button to ensure the connection is valid and there are no errors.srm_sra_rescan_button

Configure Array Managers

After pairing the protected and recovery sites, you will need to configure the respective array managers so SRM can discover replicated devices, compute datastore groups, and initiate storage operations.  You typically only need to do this once, however, if array access credentials change, or you want to use a different set of arrays, you can edit the connections to update accordingly.

Pre-Requisites

  • Sites have been paired and are connected
  • SRAs have been installed at both sites and verified

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Web Client, go to Site Recovery > Array Based Replication.srm_abr_settings_1_1
  2. On the Objects tab in the right window pane, click the icon to add an array manager.srm_abr_settings_1_2
  3. Select from one of two options for adding array managers (pair or single), then click Next.srm_abr_settings_1_3
  4. Select a pair of sites for the array manager(s), and click Next.srm_abr_settings_1_4
  5. Enter a name for the array in the Display Name field, and click Next.srm_abr_settings_1_5
  6. Provide the required information for the type of SRA you selected, and click Next.srm_abr_settings_1_6
  7. If you chose to add a pair of array managers, enter the paired array manager information, then click Next.srm_abr_settings_1_7
  8. Click-to-enable the checkbox beside the array pair you just configured, and click Next.srm_abr_settings_1_8
  9. Review your configuration, then click Finish when ready.srm_abr_settings_1_9

 

Rescan Arrays to Detect Configuration Changes

SRM performs an automatic rescan every 24 hours by default to detect any changes made to the array configurations.  It is recommended to perform a manual rescan following any changes to either site by way of reconfiguration or adding/removing devices to recompute the datastore groups.  If you need to change the default interval at which SRM performs a rescan, you can do this in the advanced settings for each site, editing the storage.minDsGroupComputationInterval advanced setting:

srm_abr_settings_1_11

To perform a manual rescan after making any configuration changes:

  1. Go to Site Recovery  > Array Based Replication
  2. Select an array for either site
  3. On the Manage tab of the selected array, click the Array Pairs sub tab
  4. Click the rescan button to perform a manual rescan.srm_abr_settings_1_10

 

Once you’ve got all of the above configured, you can begin setting up your protection groups and recovery plans.

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