SERVER CLOUD
RECOVERY
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Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION ... 4 2. PRODUCT OVERVIEW ... 4 3. GETTING STARTED ... 5 3.1 Sign up ... 5 4. ACCOUNT SETUP ... 8 4.1 Overview ... 84.2 Steps to create a new IAM User ... 10
4.3 Service Instance Creation ... 11
5. SERVER BACKUP SETUP AND START ... 19
5.1 Steps to configure the Avlor DR Agent to start backup and upload of server images ... 19
6. HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SERVERS? ... 33
6.1 Dashboard ... 33
6.2 Failover Groups ... 36
6.3 Backup Sets ... 37
6.4 Reports ... 39
6.5 Settings... 41
7. START FAILOVER INSTANCES (VIRTUAL SERVERS) ... 42
8. APPENDIX ... 45
8.1 AWS Cloud Formation Script- Create IAM User Steps ... 45
8.2 AVLOR REQUIREMENTS ... 49
8.3 AVLOR LIMITATIONS... 50
8.4 STEPS TO INSTALL AVLOR DR AGENT ... 51
8.5 INSTRUCTIONS TO USE THE EXPORT OPTION IN AMAZON CLOUD WITH AVLOR ... 56
8.6 LOCAL RECOVERY ... 57
8.7 IMPLEMENTATION OF “PLAN – B” FOR SERVER CLOUD RECOVERY ... 65
8.8 HOW TO START MY FAILOVER INSTANCES? ... 69
8.9 TROUBLESHOOTING ... 70
8.10 SUBNET ID OPTIONS ... 71
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Overview diagram ... 5
Figure 2: Online Login ... 5
Figure 3: Create Trial Account ... 6
Figure 4: Registration Successful ... 7
Figure 5: How it works? ... 7
Figure 6: Account Setup Overview ... 9
Figure 7: Choose Region and complete IAM User Creation ... 10
Figure 8: Enter access and secret key ... 10
Figure 9: Service Instance Creation ... 11
Figure 10: Instance Types ... 12
Figure 11: Create Key Pair ... 12
Figure 12: Key Pair Name ... 13
Figure 13: Classic-Security group id ... 14
Figure 14: Enter Classic-Security group id ... 14
Figure 15: VPC-Security Group Id ... 15
Figure 16: Enter Classic-Security group id ... 15
Figure 17: VPC-subnet id ... 16
Figure 18: Enter VPC-subnet id ... 17
Figure 19: Choose VPC as EC2 instance Platform ... 17
Figure 20: Click to download Agent ... 18
Figure 21: Create Additional Service Instances ... 19
Figure 22: Compatibility Checklist ... 20
Figure 23: Agent Login ... 21
Figure 24: How the agent works? Is your data secure? ... 22
Figure 25: Where is your disk image files stored? ... 23
Figure 26: Source Drive Selection... 24
Figure 27: Select local Storage Folder ... 25
Figure 28: Choose Network UNC path ... 26
Figure 29: Enter Network Details ... 26
Figure 30: Enable Read/Write permission... 27
Figure 31: Advanced Sharing Settings ... 28
Figure 32: Select Options ... 30
Figure 33: Failover Instance Options- Choose Classic Platform ... 31
Figure 34: Failover Instance Options- Choose VPC Platform ... 31
Figure 35: VPC id and Security Group id ... 32
Figure 36: Thank you... 33
Figure 37: Dashboard ... 35
Figure 38: Failover Groups ... 36
Figure 39: Create Instance ... 37
Figure 40: Backup Sets ... 38
Figure 41: Server Reports ... 39
Figure 42: Audit log Report ... 40
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Figure 44: Failover Points Report ... 41
Figure 45: Profile Settings ... 41
Figure 46: SettingsAdvanced ... 42
Figure 47: Service Instance ... 42
Figure 48: Start Failover Instances ... 43
Figure 49: Instance Status Check ... 44
Figure 50: Select Template ... 45
Figure 51: Specify Parameters... 46
Figure 52: Review ... 47
Figure 53: Refresh ... 47
Figure 54: Copy access key and secret key ... 48
Figure 55: Enter access key and secret key ... 48
Figure 56: Setup Wizard ... 51
Figure 57: Accept terms and conditions ... 52
Figure 58: Create a desktop icon ... 53
Figure 59: Ready to Install ... 54
Figure 60: Installing... 55
Figure 61: Restart your computer ... 56
Figure 62: Upload only incremental images to S3 ... 57
Figure 63: Take Backup Later ... 58
Figure 64: Current Backups ... 59
Figure 65: Mount/Unmount Volume ... 60
Figure 66: Mounted Drives ... 60
Figure 67: Unmounted Volume ... 61
Figure 68: File Recovery ... 62
Figure 69: Virtualization ... 63
Figure 70: Volume Recovery ... 63
Figure 71: Restore Selected Volume ... 64
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1.
INTRODUCTION
As with many organizations today, your server houses critical data and applications that your business depends on.
Are your servers completely secure and protected from potential disasters?
Your server data and apps depend on many factors that may be unrelated to your IT environment, including natural disasters, intruders, or other interruptions. While many organizations are not planning to be victims of any potential disaster, their goal should be to mitigate the risk if one such disaster occurs. Therefore it is essential for every organization to setup an effective Disaster Recovery (DR) solution to protect their business servers from potential disasters.
To solve these challenges, we present Avlor’s Online Server Cloud Recovery Solution.
This paper describes an overview and working of the server cloud disaster recovery solution from Avlor. Avlor’s automated Server Cloud Recovery solution replicates existing physical and virtual servers from anywhere to the AWS cloud. You can protect your Windows Servers with automated bare metal backups with ready-to-launch virtual servers in the AWS Cloud. Incremental backups ensure that the failover servers in the cloud are always an exact clone of your on premise servers.
2.
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
Avlor’s automated online service provides full-server cloud recovery to the Amazon Cloud in just seconds. There are 2 main steps:
1) The Avlor’s Disaster Recovery (DR) Agent running on the server being backed up performs the backup of server(s) and stores the backup images in your AWS S3 storage account.
2) These backup images from S3 storage are used to prepare the failover virtual servers (EC2 instances), which are ready to launch with a single click (Refer the overview diagram below).
5 Note that, it is mandatory to have an AWS account before you proceed to setup your Account.
Figure 1: Overview diagram
3.
GETTING STARTED
3.1 Sign upGo to www.avlor.com and click on the “Login” link (Fig 2)
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You will now be directed to the Login page. If you don’t have an account with Avlor, please click on the “Sign up” button to create a new account.
You will be directed to the registration page, where you should register your details to create a new trial account.
Enter all the details, accept to the terms and conditions and then click on the Create trial
Account button.
Figure 3: Create Trial Account
7 Figure 4: Registration Successful
Now click on the ‘Log In’ link to sign in to your account.
Your login Credentials will be sent to your mail once you have registered with Avlor. After successful login, you can watch the Avlor “How it Works” video before getting started. This video gives a basic idea on how Avlor works.
Figure 5: How it works?
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4.
ACCOUNT SETUP
4.1 Overview
In account setup, you need to create a new IAM (Learn more) User Account with required permissions for Avlor to access your S3 Bucket, to store your server backup images and to create EC2 instances (virtual servers).
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) enable you to manage and control access to AWS resources for your users in a secure way. IAM is required to manage permissions for users to access your AWS Account. You can create new users in IAM and assign them with individual security credentials (for e.g. access keys, passwords, and secret keys) to provide access to AWS resources and services. You can also manage permissions and control specific operations that a user can perform in your AWS Account.
Avlor requires few S3 and EC2 permissions (as shown below) to upload backup images and
to create EC2 instances of your servers respectively.
S3 permissions: “s3:CreateBucket, s3:DeleteObject, s3:GetBucketLocation, s3:GetObject,
s3:GetObjectAcl, s3:ListAllMyBuckets, s3:ListBucket, s3:PutObject, s3:PutObjectAcl”
EC2 permissions:
“ec2:AttachVolume, ec2:CancelConversionTask, ec2:CreateVolume, ec2:CreateTags, ec2:DeleteVolume, ec2:DescribeAccountAttributes, ec2:DescribeAvailabilityZones, ec2:DescribeConversionTasks, ec2:DescribeInstances, ec2:DescribeKeyPairs, ec2:DescribeRegions, ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups, ec2:DescribeSubnets,
ec2:DescribeVolumes, ec2:DetachVolume, ec2:ImportInstance, ec2:ImportVolume, ec2:ModifyInstanceAttribute, ec2:RunInstances, ec2:StartInstances, ec2:StopInstances, ec2:DescribeVpcs”
We provide an AWS Cloud Formation script, which automates the creation of IAM User Account. “AWS Cloud Formation” is an AWS Web service that provides an easy way to create collection of related AWS resources to the developers and businesses.
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You should download the script template from our application and run it in your AWS Account to create IAM User Account for Avlor (Refer figure below).
10 4.2 Steps to create a new IAM User
Step 1: Go to the ‘Account Setup’ tab and select the appropriate AWS Region (It is the
Geographical Region, where your backup server images are stored and virtual servers (EC2 Instances) are created.)
Step 2: Click on ‘Click to Create’ button and follow the steps to create your IAM User
account in AWS (Refer Appendix 8.1 for instructions).
Figure 7: Choose Region and complete IAM User Creation
Step 3: Once you complete all the instructions, you will get the access and secret keys of
your Amazon account. Check the box “I have created a new IAM user” and enter the keys in the relevant fields. Click on the Next button (Refer screen below).
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Now you will be navigated to the Service Instance Creation page.
4.3 Service Instance Creation
Service instance is an EC2 instance, which is launched with an EC2 instance creation Agent.
This service instance initially creates the failover instance using first two failover points/restore points. The EC2 instance creation Agent will automatically create the failover instance of your server. Upon downtime, these failover instances can be launched via Avlor Online portal.
Figure 9: Service Instance Creation
To create a new service instance, Avlor requires few details
1. Availability Zone: Each region in AWS has multiple, isolated locations known as
Availability Zones. The drop down displays the list of availability zones based on the region selected. Please choose the required availability zone.
2. Instance type: Instances are virtual servers that are optimized to fit for different use
cases. Amazon EC2 provides a wide range of instance types that are optimized to fit for different use cases. Select any of the listed instance types from the dropdown.
Click here to learn more about instance types. Select the Instance Type as per your requirements.
Note: Amazon supports only the listed instance types for server migration. You can change the instance type once failover is launched
12 Figure 10: Instance Types
3. Instance Name: Enter the service instance name for better identification of your
instance in the AWS Console.
NOTE: Instance Name should not exceed 100 characters.
4. Key Pair Name: Enter the Key Pair Name. To log in to your instance, you must create a
new key pair to get the password (See screenshot).
Figure 11: Create Key Pair
You can also enter the existing key pair name for the service instance with respect to the region selected in the account setup (See screenshot). To find the existing Key Pair name,
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login to your AWS Console and navigate to your EC2 dashboard. Click on the Key Pairs link on the left panel and choose the respective Key Pair name available for the selected region.
Figure 12: Key Pair Name
5. EC2 Instance: Choose the required EC2 Instance platform. You can either choose
Classic or VPC platform to launch the EC2 instances. Learn more on EC2-Classic and EC2-VPC platforms.
Follow the steps below if you choose Classic platform:
If you choose Classic platform, enter only the security group id and click on the Finish button. A security group acts as a virtual firewall that controls traffic for one or more instances. You can add rules to each security group that allow inbound and outbound traffic to that instance.
Security group id should be in the format of "sg-XXXXXXXX"
To get the security group id for your account, please do the following:
1. Login to your AWS management console and select the appropriate AWS region (chosen already in the first step of Account Setup-Refer section 4.2-Step1).
2. Now navigate to the EC2 dashboard and click on security groups on the left panel. The list of security groups available for your AWS account with respect to the selected region will be displayed (Refer screen below).
14 Figure 13: Classic-Security group id
Note: Make sure that you enter the security group id from the EC2 security groups in case
you have chosen EC2 classic as the instance platform.
Copy and paste the security group id in the appropriate field in Avlor Portal as shown below:
Figure 14: Enter Classic-Security group id
Click Finish to complete the Service Instance Creation.
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If you choose VPC as your EC2 instance platform, you need to enter both the subnet id and security group id to create a new service instance.
To find the security group id for your VPC, follow the steps shown below:
1. Login to your AWS management console and select the appropriate AWS region (chosen already in the first step of Account Setup-Refer section 4.2-Step1).
2. Now go to the VPC dashboard and choose the VPC available for that particular region. 3. Click on the Security Groups link on the left panel.
4. A list of security group ids available for your account will be displayed.
Figure 15: VPC-Security Group Id
Copy the necessary security group id and paste in the Avlor Portal.
16 To find the subnet id for your VPC, please do the following:
A subnet is termed as a range of IP addresses in your VPC. You can launch AWS resources into the selected subnet. Use a public subnet for resources that should be connected to the Internet, and use a private subnet for resources that should not be connected to the Internet.
To find the subnet for your VPC, please do the following:
1. Login to your AWS console and navigate to the VPC dashboard. 2. Select the respective VPC from the dropdown.
3. Now click on the subnets link on the left panel and choose the required subnet id (See screenshot).
Figure 17: VPC-subnet id
17 Figure 18: Enter VPC-subnet id
Note: Make sure that both subnet id and security group id are from the same Region, VPC,
and Availability zone. Subnet Id is in the format of “subnet-xxxxxxx” and Security Group Id is in the format of “sg-xxxxxxx”
Figure 19: Choose VPC as EC2 instance Platform
After you enter all the details, a new S3 bucket will be created in your AWS account and your backup server images will be uploaded to that bucket. The S3 bucket name (for e.g. avlor103666452 availabilityzone) can be found under Settings→Advanced tab of our application.
Your account setup is completed successfully. Now download the Avlor DR Agent to start the backup and recovery of your server(s).
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Note: Make sure you do not make any changes to the details that you provided during account setup.
Figure 20: Click to download Agent Note:
You can create additional service instances from the Settings tab of Avlor portal, if you wish to run each failover server on a separate service instance. However, you can run multiple servers on a single service instance.
Follow the steps below.
Go to the SettingsService Instance tab
Click on the Create button to create new service instance.
Enter the required details (as shown above in section 4.3) and click on create button to create service instance.
19 Figure 21: Create Additional Service Instances
Once you complete Account Setup, you should download and install the Avlor DR agent on the server that you need to backup for DR purpose. This agent sends the backup images of your servers to your AWS S3 storage account. You can click on the ‘Help Video’ button to know how to install the Avlor DR Agent (Refer figure 20).
Refer to Appendix 8.4and find the steps for installing the Avlor DR Agent on your server. Note: Please read the requirements and limitations of Avlor Server Cloud Recovery Solution from Appendix 8.2and Appendix 8.3respectively, before you install the DR Agent on your server.
5.
SERVER BACKUP SETUP AND START
Once the Agent is installed on your server, you must configure the Agent to start the backup of your server images to the Cloud. The DR Agent starts the data collection and image creation of your servers and these images will be stored in your local folder and then uploaded to the AWS S3 bucket. The DR Agent automatically takes image of your complete server drives (including OS, apps and data) and then uploads it securely with AES-256 bit encryption to the AWS Cloud.
20 Step 1: Compatibility Checklist
The following screen shows all the prerequisites to start your server backup and recovery. Please check all the requirements and click on Next to continue.
Figure 22: Compatibility Checklist Step 2: Login
Please enter your online account credentials that you gave at the time of registering with Avlor and click on the Login button.
21 Figure 23: Agent Login
22 Step 3: How the agent works? Is your data secure?
Click on Next to continue.
23 Step 4: Where is your disk image files stored?
The disk image files are stored in a local folder on your server and then moved to your AWS account with encryption.
Click on Next to continue.
24 Step 5: Source Drive Selection.
A default server name and backup set name will be displayed on this screen. You can change/edit these details as per your requirements.
Select the Source Drives to be backed up.
Click on Next.
Figure 26: Source Drive Selection
Note: You must select the operating system volume to create the failover instance of your server.
25 Step 6: Select local storage folder
Click on Browse and select the local storage folder (destination drive) to store the server backup images.
Figure 27: Select local Storage Folder
Click Next to continue.
Note: You can also select mapped network storage or network UNC path or a local folder of
your server for storing the server images for local recovery.
If you choose Network UNC path to store the backup server images, please do the following.
26 Figure 28: Choose Network UNC path
A pop up appears as shown below. Please enter the network credentials and click Ok.
27 Note:
In case if your server is configured under Active directory (AD), follow the steps below:
1. Make sure you have created user account with admin rights in the AD 2. Choose the network UNC path and click on Next (as shown in figure 18)
3. A pop up appears, where you should enter the network credentials and click on OK (as shown in figure 19).
In case if your server is configured under Active directory (AD), username should be as shown in the following format: “domainname/username”
Note: Before you choose network storage path to store the backup images, make sure you do the following:
1. Enable Read/Write permission for everyone in your network (shared path/folder).
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2. Go to Control Panel Network and Internet Network and Sharing Center Advanced sharing settings. Turn on “Network Sharing” as shown in the figure below.
Figure 31: Advanced Sharing Settings
Note: The above figure shows the file sharing settings for Home network. You need to make
similar change for Public as well as Domain networks.
Step 7: Select Options
Initial Backup Time: It is the initial time taken to perform complete backup of your server
images in your local folder. This backup speed depends on your system hardware specifications. The initial backup time of your server should be set slightly ahead of the system time.
Incremental Frequency: Incremental frequency provides backup of your server images that
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incremental backups of your servers to hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. You can edit the incremental frequency whenever required in the future. This new frequency will be updated for subsequent incremental backups.
Internet Bandwidth Limit: It decides the upload speed of backup images to your S3. This is
completely based on the internet bandwidth speed of your server.
Local Recovery: Local Recovery allows you to store the server backup images in your local
folder. You can enable this option to store the backup images locally. Make sure you have enough disk space to store the files before you choose this option. Refer Appendix 8.2 to learn more on Local Recovery.
These images can be later used for recovery through the Local Recovery Agent. Refer
Appendix 8.6 on how to do this.
AWS Import/Export Option: Users are given options to “Upload all images to S3” or
“Upload only incremental backups to S3” to enable reliable and redundant data storage. Uploading all images to S3 becomes complex if the backup storage size is large. Therefore, users can upload only the incremental images to S3 if the server storage is large. In case of choosing “upload only the incremental images to S3”, users need to transport their server data through portable storage devices. AWS Import/Export allows users to move huge amounts of data in and out of AWS through the usage of portable storage devices (Like a small hard drive or data storage device) for transport. AWS will transfer your entire data directly using “Amazon’s high-speed internal network”. Please refer Appendix 8.5 to learn more on AWS Import/Export options.
Storage media destination: This is the portable storage device, where your backup server
images are stored. Its acts as a secondary storage destination folder and images from this folder will be saved in your S3 bucket of AWS cloud. [Note: Follow similar procedure shown in step 6, in case if you choose network UNC path as your storage media destination]
30 Figure 32: Select Options
Step 8: Failover Instance Options
Enter the following details to create failover instance of your server.
1. The list of service instance names created either during Account Setup or from the Settings tab will be displayed here. Choose appropriate service instance name from the dropdown as per your requirements.
2. The Availability zone will be changed with respect to the service instance name that you have chosen in the previous step.
3. Select the instance type. Instances are virtual servers that are optimized to fit for different use cases. Refer to Appendix 8.2 on the supported instance types. Click here
to learn more about instance types.
4. Choose the EC2 Instance platform. Learn more on EC2-Classic and EC2-VPC platforms. If you choose Classic platform, enter the security group id and click Finish. [Note: Check the EC2 dashboard of your AWS Console for more details on the supported EC2 platforms.]
31 Figure 33: Failover Instance Options- Choose Classic Platform
1. If you choose VPC as your EC2 instance platform, enter both subnet id and security group id and click Finish.
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1. Vpc id: The list of Vpc id with respect to the selected region will be displayed here.
Please choose the appropriate Vpc id from the dropdown. To find the Vpc id for your account, go the AWS management console with your login credentials. Navigate to the VPC dashboard and find the respective VPC id with respect to the selected region (Refer figure 35).
2. Subnet Id is used for the creation of failover instances under a Virtual Private Cloud.
Select Subnet Id (e.g. subnet-70f7c61f) of your virtual private cloud from the dropdown in order to create the failover instances under a controlled access (Refer figure 17).
3. Security Group Id is used for creating failover instances under the virtual private
cloud. Select the Security Group Id (e.g.: sg-b3bf61dc) of your virtual private cloud from the dropdown in order to create the failover instances under a controlled access (Refer Figure below).
Figure 35: VPC id and Security Group id
The backup of your server images will start shortly once you complete the agent configuration.
A thank you message will be displayed as shown in the figure below. Click on the Close button.
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Figure 36: Thank you
6.
HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SERVERS?
After you configure the Avlor DR agent, please login to our application to monitor the status of your backup process, completed backups, and upload status of server images to S3. After login, you will be directed to the DASHBOARD Page, where you can view the status of your server backup process.
6.1 Dashboard
You can check the status of your server backup process from the Avlor Dashboard. Total servers backed up, past incremental backups, number of failover servers, and active and completed backup lists will be displayed in the dashboard. The dashboard displays the following.
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You can use this option to search the status of a particular server.
b. Status:
Backup: Status of backup completed, backup in progress and backup error will be
displayed in the chart.
Upload: Upload status (such as complete, upload in-progress and upload error) of
server images to your AWS S3 bucket will be displayed here
Failover: Status of the failover instances will be displayed (such as Instance completed,
Instance in progress and Instance not started.)
c. Incremental Backup data:
This graph represents the amount of data uploaded to S3 in the last 30 days.
d. Server Status
Status of servers backed up to AWS is displayed in this table. The status table displays the backup, upload and failover status of each server. You can hover on each button/titles to know its functionalities.
e. Recent Errors
View the 5 recent errors that occurred during the DR process. Errors with respect to each server will be displayed here. Click on a particular error for troubleshooting steps. You can click on “View more logs” button to view all the errors that occurred during the backup process.
35 Figure 37: Dashboard
36 6.2 Failover Groups
This page displays the failover details and the restore points of your servers. Every incremental backup from the server is referred as Restore points.
On the left hand side of the page, the backup sets of servers are displayed. The failover groups of the respective backup set are displayed on the right hand side of the page.
Click on ‘Show More Restore points’ to view the status of the completed restore points that are ready to be converted as virtual servers in the cloud. Here you can check the status of instances created, uploads completed and also start creating instances of your server images.
Figure 38: Failover Groups Create Instance:
Create Instance option can be used to create point in time failovers of your source server
based upon the restore points (Incrementals)
To launch a failover of the particular restore point, you can click on the Create Instance button corresponding to that restore points and start creating a failover.
37 Note:
1. Point in time failover of a particular restore point will be created with the configuration of the failover instance
2. The create instance option for the particular restore points can be used only once. 3. The instance once terminated cannot be launched.
4. Specific configurations are not required to create or launch this instance.
5. You can use the username and password of your source server to login to this instance.
Figure 39: Create Instance 6.3 Backup Sets
Click on the backup sets tab to view the details of your server backup set.
This page displays the backup sets of servers, where the backup of server images takes place. The backup sets for each server backup are displayed and can be managed here. ‘Backup Set Name’: Name of your Backup sets with respect to the server name is displayed here.
‘Description’: This describes the drives that you are migrating from your server(s) to Amazon account.
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‘Frequency’: Frequency of incremental backups will be displayed here as chosen by you previously while configuring the DR Agent.
‘Scheduled Time’: It is the time scheduled for your backup set to start the backup based on the
Frequency when it is configured as Hourly and daily.
‘Internet Bandwidth’: It decides the upload speed of backup images to your S3.
‘Status’: Shows whether the backup set is currently enabled or disabled.
‘Enable’: Backup set is currently disabled. If you want to enable, click this option. Enabling the
backup set will come into effect for upcoming restore points
‘Disable’: Backup set is currently enabled. If you want to disable, click this option. Disabling the
backup set will come into effect for upcoming restore points
‘Edit’: Click to edit the frequency and internet bandwidth limit. The changes will come into effect
only from the subsequent restore points.
‘Delete’: Deletes the backup set and also the backup images stored in your S3 Bucket. This option will not be shown when Failover instance creation is in progress.
39 6.4 Reports
You can click on the ‘Reports’ tab to view the status of the server backup process.
Server Reports: Server Report displays the user details and the server details.
User details displays the details of the user such as username, email id, and number of servers backed up and the audit log reports.
Figure 41: Server Reports
Audit Log Reports: Audit log report displays the actions performed by the user within the
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Figure 42: Audit log Report
Backup Sets Report: Click on the “Backup Sets reports” icon (see above fig) to view the
reports for your backup sets. A backup set report is shown below.
Figure 43: Backup Sets Reports
Failover Points Report: Click on the “Failover Points Reports” icon (see above fig), to view
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a new pop up window appears where you can view the Failover Points Report of your server images.
Figure 44: Failover Points Report 6.5 Settings
Click on the ‘Settings’ tab to manage the account settings
Profile Settings: You can change your profile password and send the log reports under the
profile settings tab.
Figure 45: Profile Settings
SettingsAdvanced: Under this tab, you can view the AWS account details such as access
42 Figure 46: SettingsAdvanced
Service Instance Settings:
Here you can create new service instances if you require creating and launching EC2 instances in different availability zones.
Figure 47: Service Instance
7.
START FAILOVER INSTANCES (VIRTUAL SERVERS)
Once your failover instances are created, you can start these instances whenever you encounter downtime.
Go to the Failover Groups tab in our application. Upon downtime, you can select any instance and click on the Start button as shown in figure below.
43 Figure 48: Start Failover Instances
Click on the “Learn more” button to find the steps on how to start your failover instance. (Refer Appendix 8.8 to find the steps to be followed after starting your failover instance.)
Note: Check your instance status under the status check tab of your AWS account (refer
figure below). If any of these instances have failed, please reboot your server and check the instance status.
44 Figure 49: Instance Status Check
NOTE:
Boot failure error may occur during the launch of failover instances. This error is caused in AWS while launching the failover instances of your servers.
Click here to know how to solve this error.
If the error still persists and the failovers failed to launch in AWS, we have an alternate solution to be followed to mitigate the situation, which is described in APPENDIX 8.7
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8.
APPENDIX
8.1 AWS Cloud Formation Script- Create IAM User Steps Please follow the steps below to Create IAM User Account. Step1: Create Stack
• Go to https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/homewith your AWS login credentials
• Click on the ‘Create new Stack’ or ‘Create Stack’ button (see screenshot below).
Step 2: Select Template
1. Enter the stack name as “Avlor-Server-DR” (You can choose any name as per your requirements).
Click here to download the template file.
2. Click on “Upload a template to Amazon S3” (Upload the script template file that you downloaded from previous step). This template script, when run on the AWS Console, creates IAM User for Disaster Recovery (DR) purpose.
3. Click ‘Next’ (See Screenshot below).
46 Step 3: Specify Parameters
1. Enter a new password. This password allows you to login to the IAM User Account via AWS Console in future.
Note: The username will be automatically created. Therefore, you need to enter only the
password.
2. Click ‘Next’. (See figure below)
Figure 51: Specify Parameters Step 4: Add Tags (Optional):
Click “Next” to continue
Step 5: Review
1. Review the Information for stack creation
2. Check “I acknowledge that this template might cause AWS CloudFormation to create
IAM resources” checkbox
47 Figure 52: Review
It may take 2 minutes for the creation of stack. Click on “Refresh” button (See Screenshot).
Figure 53: Refresh
Select the newly created stack and go to the outputs tab to see the access key and secret key (Refer figure below).
48 Figure 54: Copy access key and secret key
Copy both access key and secret key and enter in the appropriate field on "Account Setup" page and then click “Next” to continue.
Figure 55: Enter access key and secret key
Note: Enter the user access key and secret key of the same IAM User account. Make sure
49 8.2 AVLOR REQUIREMENTS
>> System and Software Requirements .NET Framework 4.0
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package
x86 and x64 operating system platforms
Open 1336 port on your firewall.
>> Supported Servers
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard)
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Datacenter)
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise)
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later
>> Supported Instance Types:
General purpose: m3.medium | m3.large | m3.xlarge | m3.2xlarge
Compute optimized: c3.large | c3.xlarge | c3.2xlarge | c3.4xlarge | cc2.8xlarge Memory optimized: cr1.8xlarge
Storage optimized: hi1.4xlarge | hs1.8xlarge | i2.xlarge | i2.2xlarge | i2.4xlarge GPU: cg1.4xlarge
>> Local Recovery Requirements
We use advanced disk imaging technology to create backup image files of your server disks. These backup images are exact copy of your original disks, which will be compressed to 40% (approximately) of your used disk space in the server.
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Therefore, if local recovery option is selected, make sure that you have enough disk space in your destination server to store the backup image files. Backup files can be either stored in a local disk or network drives for local recovery.
If local recovery is not selected, all the backup image files will be deleted once when the
backup is complete. These backup files will be stored in the destination folder temporarily since at least one backup image is required to take the next incremental backup of your server. These backup image files will be deleted once after the next incremental backup is complete.
>> EC2 instance creation
Avlor’s EC2 Instance Controller runs on a service instance in the cloud to incorporate the
incremental backups into standby instances. This EC2 Instance controller will manage these instances keeping them up-to-date and ready to be launched when needed. The service instance is responsible only for creating the failover instances of your servers and should not be used for any storage purposes. This instance should not be stopped or terminated before the failover instance is launched.
Please read the AWS EC2 Prerequisites to learn more.
8.3 AVLOR LIMITATIONS
This agent can be installed only on Windows server 2003, 2003 R2, 2008 and 2008 R2.
Active Directory/Domain Controller servers cannot be migrated for backup (Note: Servers under the AD can be migrated)
Servers installed with AD/DC could not be migrated.
We can allow only up to 7 backup sets for each server.
OS drive should be selected as source drive to create failover instance.
Users cannot use the same drive as source and destination (For example, if C and D are selected in source drives, these drives cannot be used as destination).
After installing and uninstalling the Avlor agent, users must reboot the server.
51 It is possible to add only 11 drives per failover instance.
The EBS volume attached on the service/failover instance should not be disturbed or interrupted.
The service instance should not be stopped or terminated, since it is responsible for applying the incremental backups to the failover instances of your servers.
8.4 STEPS TO INSTALL AVLOR DR AGENT
The Avlor DR Agent sets up backup and recovery for your servers and stores the server backup images in your AWS S3 account. Follow the steps below to install the Avlor DR Agent.
Step 1: Start Installation
Once the Agent is downloaded, extract the zip file, right click on the setup and click open. A setup wizard appears; click on ‘Next’ to continue.
Figure 56: Setup Wizard Step 2: License Agreement
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Please accept the terms and conditions and click on next.
Figure 57: Accept terms and conditions Step 3: Select Additional Tasks
Select the check box if you want to create a desktop shortcut icon. Click on ‘Next’ to continue.
53 Figure 58: Create a desktop icon
Step 4: Ready to Install
54 Figure 59: Ready to Install
Step 5: Installing
55 Figure 60: Installing
Step 6: Restart your Computer
Once the Agent is installed, please restart your computer for the agent to work on your server system. Click on the ‘Finish’ button to restart your computer.
56 Figure 61: Restart your computer
8.5 INSTRUCTIONS TO USE THE EXPORT OPTION IN AMAZON CLOUD WITH AVLOR
1. If you have chosen to upload only incremental images to S3 (as shown in figure below), while selecting AWS Export options, please read the AWS Import/Export Instructions before getting started.
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Figure 62: Upload only incremental images to S3
2. The backup images of your server(s) will be stored in the destination folder (primary destination folder) and also in the storage media destination folder (portable storage device).
3. These backup images will be uploaded in your S3 bucket in the cloud from the storage media destination.
8.6 LOCAL RECOVERY
If you choose to backup and recover your servers locally while configuring the Avlor DR Agent, a Local Recovery application will also be installed on your server. This local recovery solution enables backup and recovery of your servers locally in addition to cloud recovery. The following steps will explain how Avlor Local Recovery solution works.
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Double click on the “Local Recovery” application installed on your server and the following screen will show up.
Figure 63: Take Backup Later
Click on the ‘Take Backup Later’ button (Refer figure above).
Once you click on ‘Take Backup Later’ button, the following screen will show up.
You can view the current backups running on your server by clicking on the ‘Current
59 Figure 64: Current Backups
Right click on any backup to select a drive and the following options appear;
Mount Volume Delete File Recovery Virtualization Volume Recovery 1. Mount/Unmount Volume
60 Figure 65: Mount/Unmount Volume
Choose the “Mount Volume” option to create a virtual volume on your server. The names of the mounted drives will appear, click OK to close (refer figure below).
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To unmount the volume, right click on the volume and choose “Unmount Volume” option, you’ll receive a notification upon success. Click OK to close (refer figure below).
Figure 67: Unmounted Volume 2. Delete Volume
If you select the “Delete” option, the volume will be deleted.
3. File Recovery
Choose “File Recovery” option to recover the selected files.
Now select the “Destination” volume and the required files to be recovered. A message will appear when the files have been copied. Click OK to close.
62 Figure 68: File Recovery
4. Virtualization
To have additional backup snapshots of your server’s hard disk drives image created, choose the “Virtualization” option.
Then select the type of Operating System, type of target VM and the target image path from the drop downs respectively (Refer Figure below).
63 Figure 69: Virtualization
Click on the “Create File for Virtualization” button and the process will begin. A message will appear when your Image file has been successfully created along with the path location; click OK to close.
5. Volume Recovery
To recover the currently updated volume Choose the “Volume Recovery” option. The source path appears in the “Select Source” field.
Select the destination volume and click the OK button (refer figure below).
Figure 70: Volume Recovery
To confirm the restoration of the selected volume click the “Yes” button (refer figure below).
64 Figure 71: Restore Selected Volume
Click on “Restart now” button to begin the restore process, which will be completed in just a few seconds (refer figure below).
65 Figure 72: Restart Now
When you choose a volume for recovery where the OS is installed, the restoration process will be scheduled and you need to restart your system to begin the process. During BIOS reboot process, the recovery of the volume will be completed. For data storage volumes, the restoration process will occur normally without a system reboot.
8.7 IMPLEMENTATION OF “PLAN – B” FOR SERVER CLOUD RECOVERY Introduction
Avlor Server Cloud Recovery allows you to create failover instances of your servers in t he AWS Cloud and makes them ready to be launched whenever required.
In the current Avlor DR scenario, boot failure errors may occur during the launch of failover instances. This error is caused in AWS while launching the failover instances of your
servers.
This error occurs when the import request for the instance fails or the instance was unable
to boot up and establish network connectivity. This error may also occur due to driver
changes, License activation, and software versions.
Click here to know how to solve this error.
If the error still persists and the failovers failed to launch in AWS, we have an alternate solution to be followed to mitigate the situation, which is described as follows:
Need for Plan B
It is necessary to make sure that all the servers migrated to AWS are available to the End User along with Disaster Recovery Protection. Therefore, Boot Failure errors should be avoided and resolved to ensure high availability. To achieve this goal and to provide continuous throughput, we need an alternative solution or a precautionary step, which avoids downtime of any services.
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Let’s consider a scenario, where a customer creates a failover of the server (Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter with SQL Server). Boot failure error has occurred, while instance creation and launch.
In this plan we will be giving a standard instance (probably AMI) of a server with similar Operating systems, software and data volumes of the failed instance. You now have the data and other important files that were stored in your on-premise server. You can now recreate a database with the data available in your on-premise server. The data recovery and logs can be done manually or by using tools.
Note that the given instance can be launched either in a VPC or in a non VPC of any regions.
Prerequisites to Implement Plan - B:
1. Folder path for the log files and the data files
2. Make sure the logs and backed up data are in the same drive or if it is on other drive, you need to create a backup of the drive.
3. If the data is already backed up using its own tool, make sure the file is available on the respective drives.
Steps to launch SQL Server in case of a boot failure error
Consider that the failover of a SQL Server cannot be created in AWS, and the Data, Logs were stored in the C:\ Drive which was backed up. Now, please follow the steps below to proceed further.
a. Launch the standard instance in AWS with the same operating system and SQL server should be installed on that instance.
b. Attach the EBS Volume (C:\ Drive) that was created from the backup created from the on-premise server.
Get the file path for the logs and the backup files. Make sure the user can login to the SQL server either by using a Windows Authentication or by using SQL server authentication. If user needs a separate user login, go ahead and create a login for that specific user. Follow the steps mentioned below to recover your database.
67 To restore on a new database:
a. Connect to the appropriate SQL Server Database Engine, and then in Object Explorer, click the server name to expand the server tree.
b. Right-click Databases and then click on Restore Database. The Restore Database
dialog box opens.
c. On the General page, you need to use the Source section to specify the source and location of the backup sets to restore. Check the From Device checkbox, since we need to restore the database from the backup file of the database.
d. Click the browse (...) button and open the Select backup devices dialog box. In the
Backup media type box, select any one of the listed device types and then click on Add.
Locate the backup file from the drive that we have attached and click on OK. In the Source:
Device: Database list box, select the database name that needs to be restored.
e. In the Destination section, the Database box will be automatically populated with the database name that has to be restored. Enter the new name in the Database box in order to change the name of the database.
f. In the “Restore to” box, leave the default as “To the last backup taken” or click
Timeline to access the Backup Timeline dialog box for manually selecting a point-in-time to
stop the recovery action.
g. In the “Backup sets to restore” grid, select the backups that required to be restored. This grid displays the available backups for the specified location. By default, a recovery plan is suggested.
h. To specify the new location of the database files, you need to select the Files page, and then click on “Re locate all files to folder”. Now provide a new location for the Data file
folder and the Log file folder. Alternatively, you can also have the same folders and just
rename the database and the log file names.
To restore the Transaction logs and data logs, follow the steps in the following link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-IN/library/ms177446.aspx Steps to attach a new database:
1. Locate the .mdf files and the respective log files from the drive attached to the standard instance and move it to the drive of the given standard instance
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2. Connect to the appropriate SQL Server Database Engine, and then in Object Explorer, click the server name to expand the server tree.
3. Right-click Databases and click Attach. “Attach Database” dialog box opens.
4. Click Add in the Databases to attach Section. Locate Database Dialog box appears. Locate the mdf file from the drive of the instance in the Dialog. Select the mdf file and click on ok.
5. Now the .mdf file will be added to the database for attachment. The log file details are shown within the Database details section.
6. Click on Ok and then click on Refresh. Now the database will be attached to the standard instance and now you can access/use the database.
Steps to launch Exchange Server in case of a boot failure error
Consider a failover Exchange Server instance that cannot be created in AWS, and the Data, Logs were stored in the C:\ Drive which was backed up.
a. Launch the standard instance in AWS with the same operating system and exchange server was installed
b. Attach the EBS Volume (C:\ Drive) created from the backup created from on-premise server. Get the file path for the logs and the backup files.
Follow the steps below to attach the database from the on premise server to the instance created in AWS. The Given standard instance must be brought under the Active directory domain and also in the cluster service.
NOTE: The following steps can be done with some downtime of the mailbox server
Mounting the Database from an old server to the new server (Using EMC):
1. Dismount mailbox database from the old server
2. Run eseutil /MH <MAILBOX NAME>.edb to confirm whether you have a clean shutdown on the old server.
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4. Now, dismount the new mailbox store.
5. Manually copy the old database to the new mailbox store database location (make sure it has the same name)
6. Run the following command on the new server “SetMailboxDatabase DBNAME
-AllowFileRestore:$true”
7. Delete the transaction log files and checkpoint files for that database. 8. Mount the store.
9. Finally you need to modify user account settings and user access points to the new mailbox server Get-Mailbox -Database OLD_DB | where {$_ObjectClass -NotMatch
'(SystemAttendantMailbox|ExOleDbSystemMailbox)'} | Set-Mailbox -Database NEW_DB
Refer the following links for mounting the database for database portability and to change the logs files for backup.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876926.aspx
http://msexchangeguru.com/2013/04/15/e2010-database-portability/ 8.8 HOW TO START MY FAILOVER INSTANCES?
1. Click on the “Start" button displayed under the Failover Groups page with respect to the backup set of the particular server.
2. Wait until the instance initializes. Once the instance is initialized, it will be ready to use and the instance IP will be displayed in the table.
3. Now go to your AWS Management console and select the instance
4. Check your instance status under the status check tab of your failover server. If any of the status check is failed, please reboot your server and check the instance status once again.
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5. Click on the Summary Tab and check whether the Public IP of the instance is visible in case if it is launched in a VPC. Also check the RDP access for the instance using the same IP address.
6. Take RDP either using a Public IP or Private IP based on the EC2 platform chosen by you (EC2 Classic or VPC).
7. Make sure that you use the login credentials of your source server for accessing the failover instance.
It is important to note that you cannot have both your on-premise server and failover server at the running state on the same time. Make sure you stop your on-premise server before you launch the failover instance. This is because Windows server does not allow multiple servers running for the same license key.
To overcome this situation, you can use any one of the following solutions.
Run the failover instance in a virtual private cloud, which should be disconnected from the Internet.
Stop the on-premise server before launching the failover instance.
You can get a new license key to start failover server instance.
Note: The above scenarios should be applied for all the applications and services of your on-premise server to avoid license conflicts.
8.9 TROUBLESHOOTING
Steps to follow if Public IP is not assigned to the failover instance:
If Public IP is not assigned to the instance, the user cannot have RDP access outside their VPC network. To overcome this situation, we must add an Elastic IP to the failover instance.
Refer the following steps for the process to be followed.
1. Login to your AWS management console and go to the EC2 dashboard. Now select the appropriate region where the failover is launched.
71 3. Now click on the “Allocate New Address” button and a new Dialog box will appear. In the dialog, select the “VPC” option from the list and click on the “Yes, Allocate” button.
4. Now select the newly created address from the list and click “Associate Address” button and the Associate Address dialog will be opened.
5. In the Associate Address dialog, type the instance Id or click on the textbox and choose the instance from the provided list.
6. Now click on the “Associate” Button and click the “Instances” Link available on the left panel . Select the created failover instance and make sure the public address has been added successfully.
7. Now go ahead and take RDP of the Failover Instance using the Public IP.
Steps to launch failovers with respect to restore points
Users can launch their failover servers at any restore point in case if there is any issue with the recently created failover server. For launching these failovers, Avlor doesn't need any manual configuration. It uses the configuration given for the failover servers while configuring the server backup. To launch the failover at a particular restore point follow the steps shown below.
1. Go to the Restore point for which the failover needs to be created and click on the “Create Instance” button displayed with respect to the available restore point.
2. Wait for few hours until the failover instance is created at the restore point. Once the process is completed a Public IP for that instance will be displayed.
8.10 SUBNET ID OPTIONS
While selecting the subnet id, make sure the subnet id has the following option as
Auto-assign Public IP: Yes. To check and enable the option, follow the steps below:
1. Login to your AWS Management console and select VPC and then select the region from where the VPC is created.
2. Select your VPC id from the list at the top left corner and now your VPC details will be displayed.
72 4. Make sure the option “Auto-assign Public IP:” is set to “Yes” under the “Summary” tab. If not click “Modify Auto-AssignPublic IP” and “Modify Auto-assign Public IP” dialog will appear. Check Enable Auto-AssignPublic IP checkbox and click “Save”.
5. Thus, Public ip will be assigned to the instances that were launched under the modified subnets.
6. This is required for assigning a public IP to the instance while launching. If this option is set to “No”, then you cannot access the instance outside VPC.
