VEEAM Cloud Connect DR to IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions-Part1

In this post we are going to create a replication job using IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions (vCloud Director) and VEEAM Cloud Connect. We hope you enjoy it!

The scenario consist of a customer running a vSphere infrastructure and wanting to migrate or recovery virtual machines to a cloud provider offering IaaS with vCloud Director as CMP and Veeam for data protection.

• Signup for Veeam Cloud Connect with your service provider
  Set up the Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure on your Veeam Backup and Replication server

• Add the Service Provider in the tenant Veeam backup and replication console using credentials of the vCD Organization Administrator account.

• Create a replication job targeted at a cloud host that uses an Organization vDC as a back end. (This task covered below)

Creating a replication job

In Veeam Backup & Replication, replication is a job-driven process. You need to configure a replication job to build replicas on VM. The role of replication determines how, where and when to replicate the data on VM. One job can be used to process one VM or several VMs.

To create a replication job:

1. On the Home tab, click Replication Job and select Virtual machine > VMware vSphere or Virtual machine >Microsoft Hyper-V.

2. At the Name step of the wizard, specify a name and description for the replication job.

3. Advanced settings for the job are:

• Select the Replica seeding check box to enable the Seeding step in the wizard.
  
• Select the Network remapping check box to enable the Network step in the wizard. Veeam Backup & Replication does not currently support automatic connection of a Linux-based VM replica to the network on the cloud host. You must use the Network step of the wizard to manually select source and target networks for such replicas.
  
• Veeam Backup & Replication does not support re-IP rules for VM replicas on the cloud host. Do not select the Replica re-IP check box for the replication job targeted at the cloud host. If you select the Replica re-IP option, this option will be disabled when you select the cloud host at the Destination step of the wizard.

4. At the Virtual Machines step of the wizard, click Add and select VMs and VM containers that you want to replicate. To quickly find the necessary object, use the search field at the bottom of the Add Objects window.

4.1. If you want to specify the source from which VM data must be read, click Source and select one of the following options:

• From production storage. In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication will retrieve VM data from the production storage connected to the source virtualization host.
  
• From backup files. In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication will read VM data from a backup chain already existing in the regular backup repository or cloud backup repository.
  
  This option is good in scenarios where size of VM or change rate is big (or other reasons) and there is a need to reduce total time the production workload has a job running on it by using backup files as seeds

4.2. If you want to exclude VMs from the VM container or replicate only specific VM disks, click Exclusions and specify what objects you want to exclude.

4.3. If you want to define the order in which the replication job must process VMs, select a VM or VM container added to the job and use the Up and Down buttons on the right to move the VM or VM container up or down in the list.

5. At the Destination step of the wizard, in the Host or cluster section, click Choose and select Cloud host. Then select the cloud host allocated to you by the SP:

• If the SP allocated to you replication resources on a VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V host, select the cloud host provided to you through a hardware plan.

• If the SP allocated to you replication resources in VMware vCloud Director, select the cloud host provided to you through an Organization vDC.

Note that after the replication job is performed for the first time, you will not be able to change the target host for the job.

6. At the Destination step of the wizard, select storage resources allocated to you by the SP:

• In this example we use for a replication job vCloud Director as target. If you want to specify a vApp or storage policy for VM replicas, do the following:

1. In the vApp section, click Choose and select the necessary vApp.
2. In the Storage policy section, click Choose and select the necessary storage policy.

7. At the Network step of the wizard, in the Network mapping section, click Add and select the production network to which VMs in the job are connected and network on the cloud host to which VM replicas must be connected. Repeat this step for every network to which Linux-based VM replicas must be connected — automatic network mapping for non-Windows VMs is not currently supported in Veeam Cloud Connect Replication.

8. At the Job Settings step of the wizard, from the Repository for replica metadata list, select a regular backup repository that is configured in your backup infrastructure. Veeam Backup & Replication will store in the selected backup repository metadata for VM replicas — checksums of read data blocks required to streamline incremental runs of the replication job.

8.1. In the Replica name suffix field, enter a suffix for the name of VM replicas. To register a VM replica on the target host in the SP site, Veeam Backup & Replication appends the specified suffix to the name of the source VMs.

8.2. In the Restore points to keep field, specify the number of restore points that should be maintained by the replication job. If this number is exceeded, the earliest restore point will be deleted.

9. At the Data Transfer step of the wizard, select backup infrastructure components that must be used for the replication process and choose a path for VM data transfer:

• Click Choose next to the Source proxy field to select a source backup proxy for the job. In the Backup Proxy section, you can choose automatic backup proxy selection or assign the source backup proxy explicitly.

You cannot specify a target backup proxy for the replication job targeted at the cloud host. During the replication job run, Veeam Backup & Replication will automatically select the target backup proxy configured by the SP in the SP Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure.

• To transport VM data directly via one or more backup proxies to the cloud host, select Direct.
  
• To transport VM data via WAN accelerators, select Through built-in WAN accelerators. In the Source WAN accelerator field, select the WAN accelerator that you have configured on your side.

10. At the Guest Processing step of the wizard, select the Enable application-aware processing check box to create transactionally consistent VM replicas. With application-aware processing enabled, Veeam Backup & Replication can detect network settings of replicated VMs in the most efficient way and use the detected settings for configuring network extension appliances.

11. At the Schedule step of the wizard, select the Run the job automatically check box and specify the necessary scheduling settings for the job. If you do not select this check box, you will have to run the replication job manually to create restore points for VM replicas in the cloud.

12. At the Summary step of the wizard, select the Run the job when I click Finish check box if you want to start the created job right after you complete working with the wizard.

13. Click Finish.

This concludes the steps showing how easy is to replicate a VM to a service provider using Veeam.

In Part2 post we are showing how to create a failover plan and how to initiate the failover or test using your on premise Veeam Backup and Replication console

Also how to initiate the failover using your service provider Veeam Cloud Connect portal for situations where your side of the solution is unavailable

It is important to keep your DR plan tested to ensure everything is working

Creating a failover plan

In case one or more VMs in the production site become unavailable, the tenant can perform failover tasks with VM replicas on the cloud host.
We are going to cover “how to create a failover plan” in our next post.

Here are some screens showing how Cloud Connect Portal looks like and the tasks performed in vCloud Director during Failover.

Additional Resources

VEEAM Cloud Connect Documentation
IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Documentation

Contact us for more information