Tag: VAO

August topic is VAO version 3.0.

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

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

Here below all the direct links to the topic:

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

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

1. VAO – Baseline-1:

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

Let’s see the decisional process of the IT Manager

These are the VAO answers.

Let’s move to the VAO consolle:

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

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

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

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

Picture 4

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

Picture 5

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

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

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

Picture 6

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

(Picture 7)

STORAGE SYSTEM: the most important VAO 3.0 news is the integration with storage replication technology. This version supports just Netapp. Picture 8 shows how to add the Storages to VAO.

Picture 8

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

RECOVERY LOCATION: it’s the place where the DR will be performed (Picture 9). It can be a different location respect where VAO is installed.

Picture 9

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

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

Picture 10

Picture 11

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

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

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

Tagging means that resources can be added to VAO

But …. is it possible to tag the resources?

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Picture 12)

(Picture 13)

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

(Picture 14)

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

Let’s see it with an easy example:

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

I want also to be sure that

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

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

What VAO can do for you?

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

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

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

(Picture 15)

Picture 16

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