PPBS User Guide: Preparing Your Environment for Successful PPBS Disaster Recovery

1. What is Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)?

• PPBS introduces the AWS Disaster Recovery functionality to extend its converged cloud-based data protection solution for enterprise infrastructure.
• The Disaster Recovery functionality enables the recovery and startup of already backed-up VMware virtual machines in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud.
• If a disaster occurs, Disaster Recovery maintains business continuity without the need for additional dedicated on-premises software, storage, or hardware, reducing costs and enhancing agility.

2. What are the benefits of PPBS DR?

• Disaster Recovery provides a wide array of benefits to maintain business continuity during unplanned disasters that may disrupt the VMware environment.
• To ensure proper failover during a disaster, Disaster Recovery provides an on-demand, cost-effective solution that eliminates infrastructure burden and reduces downtime.

3. How to purchase the DR License?

• The PPBS Enterprise tier suite requires the purchase of DR licenses (one license per virtual machine) to protect the VMware environment from disaster.
• However, the PPBS Elite tier license supports configuring an unlimited number of virtual machines for disaster recovery.
• For more detailed information, Disaster Recover Licensing

4. What are AWS component costs for cloud DR for VMware?

• PPBS Cloud DR for VMware incurs the following types of AWS costs:
  • Fixed Costs: Fixed costs are for the AWS resources deployed as part of CloudFormation Deployment.
  • Variable Costs: Variable costs are for the AWS resources created and used as a part of DR operations like Update DR Copy, DR Failover, and DR Failback.

5. What is the PPBS disaster recovery workflow?

• The following table lists the different stages of the disaster recovery process. Click each stage to get more information.
  • Restore:
    • With Disaster Recovery, the PPBS AWS proxy:
      • Reads the virtual machine backup data from the PPBS Cloud
      • Replicates the virtual machine to a writable snapshot called a DR copy in your AWS account
  • Failover:
    • The PPBS AWS proxy replicates the entire virtual machine the first time that it creates a DR copy.
    • Later, it incrementally updates the DR copy based on the replication frequency specified in the DR plan
    • This DR copy replaces the copy that is present in your AWS account. PPBS AWS proxy maintains only the latest DR copy of a virtual machine.
    • At the time of failover, the PPBS AWS proxy:
      • Converts the available DR copy to an Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume
      • Injects drivers into this EBS volume that is required to boot up the EC2 instance
      • Starts the EC2 instance, in turn spinning up to production in minutes
  • Failback:
    • Failed-over EC2 instances can be reverted through failback, enabling recovery of the virtual machine within the virtualization infrastructure with a single click, typically within a few hours after being restored to the AWS account during failover.

6. Which ports and communication protocols are used?

• The ports used by PPBS for secure connection and communication are listed in the Disaster recovery ports and communication protocols document.

7. What is PPBS AWS proxy?

• PPBS AWS proxy is an Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance that runs the Disaster Recovery service
• It orchestrates copying data from the PPBS Cloud to your AWS account and creates a DR copy at a frequency specified in the DR plan.
• The PPBS AWS proxy runs in your AWS account.
• The PPBS AWS proxy is launched in the same AWS region where the virtual machine backups are located.
• The EC2 instances are started in the same region for disaster recovery.
• PPBS uses the AWS Cloud Formation template to deploy the PPBS AWS proxy.

8. What are the prerequisites before deploying an AWS proxy?

• PPBS services should be available in the availability zone associated with the subnet selected during PPBS AWS proxy deployment.
• Perform the task mentioned in the precheck article to determine if the chosen subnet can be selected for the PPBS AWS proxy deployment or not.

9. How to deploy an AWS proxy?

• PPBS AWS proxy deployment consists of the following steps: (See Deploy AWS proxy for detailed information)
  • Step 1: Select an AWS region on the Management Console
  • Step 2: Create a CloudFormation Stack on the AWS Management Console
  • Step 3: View deployed proxy

10. What is the Disaster Recovery(DR) Plan?

• A DR plan defines the virtual machines, AWS account, replication frequency, network settings, failover configurations, and recovery order.
• The steps involve in creating a DR plan are as below. (See Create a DR plan for detailed information.)
  • Add DR plan details
  • Add virtual machines
  • Add failover settings
  • Define network mapping

11. What is DR Restore or DR Copy?

PPBS AWS proxy:

• Reads the virtual machine backup data from the PPBS Cloud
• Replicates the virtual machine to a writable snapshot called a DR copy in your AWS account

12. How to manage DR Restore or DR Copy?

• Replication frequency can be set in the DR plan.
  • One of the following options can be selected from the drop-down list:
    • Immediately after backup: The DR copy update starts immediately after a successful backup of the virtual machine configured for disaster recovery
    • Daily: The DR copy update starts every day at the configured time.
    • Weekly: The DR copy updates every week at the configured time.
    • Start Time: The Start Time list appears only when the Daily or Weekly options are selected from the Replication Frequency drop-down list. The time when the DR copy update is scheduled to start. In the adjacent box, the AM or PM option can be selected based on the wanted update time.
• Manually update the DR Copy
  • Go to Management Console - select your organization - Disaster Recovery -Select the DR Plan - All Virtual Machines - Select checkbox beside the VM - Update DR Copy.

13. What is DR failover?

The Disaster Recovery Failover feature restores virtual machines in the AWS account during a disaster or test based on the DR plan settings.

14. What are the types of DR Failover?

PPBS supports configuring virtual machines for disaster recovery failover in two modes. Production mode and Test mode are the two available options.

• Production Failover
  • It is used to test that the virtual machines are recovered at the recovery site as expected. This operation creates virtual machines based on the preconfigured virtual machine failover settings specified in the DR plan.
  • If a disaster occurs, it is used to recover protected virtual machines to AWS. Production Failover ensures that the virtual environment is failed over successfully with minimal downtime during the disaster.
• Test Failover
  • It is used to test that the virtual machines are recovered at the recovery site as expected. This operation creates virtual machines based on the preconfigured virtual machine failover settings specified in the DR plan.

15. What are the DR Failover prechecks?

There are two types of DR Failover prechecks.

• Environment
  • Incorrect IP settings
  • Incorrect instance type
  • Issues with the subnet
  • Unavailability of the DR Copies
• Guest OS
  • When the VMs are being backed up, the Failover checks - Guest OS kick into action and provide the status; if the VMs have successfully cleared the checks and are DR ready or not.
  • With these checks in place, a robust DR strategy can be established, minimizing the risk of failures during failover.
  • It further helps avoid sending requests to the cloud that are bound to fail and help reduce failed requests to the cloud, and your cloud spending too!

16. How to manage DR Failover?

The detailed step-by-step instructions for DR Failover setup can be found in the Manage disaster recovery failover document.

17. What is disaster recovery failback?

• When the callback is triggered, the backup proxy creates a target virtual machine in the virtualization infrastructure.
• The virtual machine then connects to the failed over EC2 instance, and the data is copied to the virtual machine.
• PPBS then boots up the virtual machine and launches the target instance.
• The virtual machine must be configured with the previous backup policy to resume operations.
• See About disaster recovery failback for VMware machines for detailed information.

18. What are the DR Failback prechecks?

There are two types of DR Failback prechecks.

• Environment
• Guest OS

19. How to manage DR Failback?

The detailed step-by-step instructions for DR Failback can be found here.

20. What are the most commonly encountered issues with file servers?

• A list of scenarios that may be encountered while performing Disaster Recovery. (Troubleshoot common disaster recovery scenarios)
• Lists of Disaster Recovery FAQs

21. What are the best practices for disaster recovery?

To learn more about the best practices that must be followed when implementing Disaster Recovery, Best Practices for Disaster Recovery as a Service