After it is enabled, you are prompted to perform a test failover; you can do so with or without networking enabled during the test.
To perform a test failover
1 Click the Test Failover icon. The Test Failover dialog appears. 2 Select the preferred option, as described below:.
• Continue with networking on the replica disabled – When performing a test failover with networking disabled, the replica VM is powered on with the network adapter disconnected. This protects the production environment, but eliminates the ability of testing your replica VM as part of a larger environment.
• Continue with networking on the replica enabled – When performing a network enabled test failover, your replica VM is powered on with the network adaptor connected.
3 Click OK.
4 When testing is complete, select the Test Failover task in the Current Jobs node, and click Resume. • The snapshots made are reverted.
• The network card is set to “Connect at power on”. This prepares the replica VM for failover. • The VM returns to its dormant state.
5 Click Yes when the confirmation prompt appears
Performing a failover
If the production site becomes unavailable, or you need to move the workload to the DR site, you have the option of performing a failover operation from the vRanger interface.
A failover operation consists of the following actions: • Turning on the production VM.
• [Optional] Performing a final synchronization between sites. This ensures that no data is lost during a failover. If you do not want to synchronize changes (in the event of a virus, perhaps) or cannot (in the event of a hardware failure), data changed since the last replication pass is lost.
• Turn on the D/R VM.
• Reverse the replication job, with the D/R VM now acting as the source.
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WARNING: This has the potential to impact your production environment - exercise caution when using this option.
NOTE: The first replication pass after failing over will send the entire image, not just the changed data.
To perform a failover
1 In the My Jobs view, select a replication job. 2 Click the Failover icon.
A confirmation message displays. Click Yes. 3 The Confirm Synchronization dialog appears.
• Yes – This shuts down the production VM and perform a final synchronization to the D/R site. This ensures that no data is lost, but also transfers any virus or corruption to the replica VM. View the replication progress in the Running Tasks section of the vRanger UI.
• No – The production VM is turned off, but no changes are sent to the D/R replica.
4 After the Failover completes, the Destination of the original replication job is now the Source, and the original Source is now the Destination. In other words, the job is now set to replicate from the D/R site to the Production site. This change is not reflected in the vRanger UI. Jobs that have been failed over are indicated by a failover icon and tool-tip message:
5 If the production site is unavailable, or you do not want to replicate changes, disable the replication job.
Roadmap for performing failback
When the production server has been returned to proper operation, you usually need to failback the replicated VM to the production site. A failback is simply a failover back to the production site.
A failback operation involves the following events: • Turning off the D/R VM.
• [Optional] Performing a final synchronization between sites. This ensures that any data changed on the D/R VM is replicated back to the production site. If you do not synchronize changes, data changed since the last replication pass is lost.
• Turn on the production VM.
• Reverse the replication job (return to the jobs original configuration), with the D/R VM now acting as the target.
• If the job is enabled, replication continues, sending changes from the source production VM to the D/R target.
To perform a failback
1 In the My Jobs view, select a replication job. 2 Click the Failback icon.
A confirmation message displays. 3 Click Yes.
A Confirm Synchronization dialog appears. 4 Select one of the following:
NOTE: If you are using differential replication, this causes vRanger to perform a complete scan of the VM disks (as it does for every replication pass), but only changed data is sent to the replica VM.
NOTE: The first replication pass after failing back re-scans the entire image to identify changed blocks. Only changed data is sent.
• Yes – This ensures that any data changed on the D/R VM is replicated back to the production site. If you do not want to synchronize, data changed since the last replication pass is lost. View the replication progress in the Running Tasks section of the vRanger UI.
• No – The D/R VM turned off, but no changes are sent to the Production site.
After the Failback completes, the direction of replication reverses again, this time returning to the original configuration. The Failover icon is no longer shown.