Tutorial / Cram Notes
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is a service provided by Microsoft Azure that ensures business continuity by keeping business apps and workloads running during outages. ASR replicates workloads running on physical and virtual machines (VMs) from a primary site to a secondary location. When the primary site goes down due to a disaster, you can failover to the secondary location to keep apps and data available. After the primary location is restored, you can failback to it to resume operations.
Prerequisites
- Azure subscription.
- Azure Virtual Machines that you want to protect.
- A Recovery Services vault located in the same region as the VMs.
Create a Recovery Services vault
- In the Azure portal, select Create a resource > Management Tools > Recovery Services vault.
- Specify a name, subscription, resource group, and location.
- Click Create to provision the vault.
Discover Azure VMs
- In the Azure portal, go to your Recovery Services vault and click on + Replicate.
- In Source > Source location, select the Azure subscription and the source region where your VMs are located.
- In Resource group, select the resource groups that contain the VMs you want to replicate.
- The portal should automatically detect and list your VMs.
Setup target environment
- In the Target section, specify the target region where you want your VMs to be replicated.
- Choose the resource group where the Azure VMs will reside after failover.
- If you want to use specific settings like availability sets or VM sizes, configure these in the Virtual machine settings section.
- In Replication settings, specify the replication policy like recovery point retention and test failover settings.
Enable replication
- After configuring, click on Enable Replication.
- The portal will validate settings and start the replication process for the selected VMs.
Run a disaster recovery drill
- Once replication is set up, perform a test failover to make sure everything is in order by clicking on Test Failover.
- Specify a recovery point and target virtual network.
- The test failover will create a VM in the target location without impacting the ongoing replication.
Table: Site Recovery Configuration Summary
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Source Location | Azure region of the current VMs. |
| Target Location | Azure region to which VMs will be replicated. |
| Replication Policy | Defines RPO, retention, and test failover settings. |
| Source VM Configuration | Includes the Azure VMs and associated configuration details. |
| Target VM Configuration | Configuration of Azure VMs post-failover such as size, network. |
Monitor Replication Health
- To monitor the replication health, go to your Recovery Services vault and select Replicated items.
- View the replication status and check for any issues that might be reported by the service.
Conduct Failover
- In the event of a disaster, you can conduct a failover by clicking on Failover.
- Choose the recovery point to which VMs will be recovered.
- After confirming the settings, the failover process starts.
Failback Procedure
- After the primary site is back up and running, ensure all changes replicated to the recovery site during the disaster are failed back to the primary location.
- Use the Re-Protect function to start replicating from the secondary site back to the primary site.
By following these steps, you can configure Azure Site Recovery (ASR) to ensure that your Azure resources remain available during disruptions, which is critical for maintaining high availability and business continuity. The configuration process can vary depending on your specific setup and needs, but the outlined steps offer a general guide for setting up ASR within the Azure environment. Make sure to conduct regular tests and drills to ensure that the failover process will work smoothly when an actual disaster occurs.
Practice Test with Explanation
True or False: Azure Site Recovery can be used to replicate VMs from one Azure region to another.
- Answer: True
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery supports the replication of Azure VMs from one region to another, providing geographical redundancy.
True or False: Azure Site Recovery requires on-premises infrastructure to work with Azure resources.
- Answer: False
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery can replicate workloads between Azure regions without requiring any on-premises infrastructure.
What is the minimum replication frequency supported by Azure Site Recovery for Azure VMs?
- A) 1 hour
- B) 30 seconds
- C) 5 minutes
- D) 15 minutes
Answer: C) 5 minutes
Explanation: The minimum replication frequency for Azure VM replication using Azure Site Recovery is 5 minutes.
True or False: Azure Site Recovery supports the replication of Managed Disks.
- Answer: True
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery supports the replication of both standard and premium Managed Disks.
Which of the following is a requirement for replicating Azure VMs using Azure Site Recovery?
- A) Azure Backup vault
- B) Recovery Services vault
- C) Azure Blob Storage
- D) Azure File Sync
Answer: B) Recovery Services vault
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery requires a Recovery Services vault to manage replication, failover, and recovery of Azure VMs.
True or False: You can replicate Azure VMs to any Azure region of your choice using Azure Site Recovery.
- Answer: False
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery may have some restrictions based on regional availability, paired regions, and support for certain VM sizes.
What is the RTO (Recovery Time Objective) that Azure Site Recovery aims to achieve for Azure VMs?
- A) 4 hours
- B) 8 hours
- C) 24 hours
- D) 6 hours
Answer: A) 4 hours
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery aims for an RTO of less than 4 hours for Azure VMs during a failover event.
What kind of failover can be performed using Azure Site Recovery?
- A) Test failover
- B) Planned failover
- C) Unplanned failover
- D) All of the above
Answer: D) All of the above
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery supports test failovers, planned failovers, and unplanned failovers for comprehensive disaster recovery testing and execution.
True or False: Once you have set up replication for an Azure VM, you cannot change the target replication region in Azure Site Recovery.
- Answer: True
Explanation: After you have initially set up replication, the target region for replication cannot be changed; you would need to set up a new replication if you wanted to change the target region.
To ensure compliance with auditing requirements, what feature should be enabled in Azure Site Recovery?
- A) Geo-redundant storage
- B) Azure Activity Log
- C) Replication encryption
- D) Azure Monitor
Answer: B) Azure Activity Log
Explanation: Azure Activity Log provides auditing and can be used to ensure compliance with various requirements as it logs all the operations that occur in Azure Site Recovery.
True or False: You can only use Azure Site Recovery for disaster recovery scenarios and not for migration purposes.
- Answer: False
Explanation: While Azure Site Recovery is primarily used for disaster recovery, it can also be used as a migration tool to move Azure VMs from one region to another.
What type of consistency does Azure Site Recovery provide for VMs replication?
- A) Strong consistency
- B) Eventual consistency
- C) Crash-consistent
- D) Application-consistent
Answer: D) Application-consistent
Explanation: Azure Site Recovery provides application-consistent replication, ensuring that not just the data but also in-memory processes and transactions are consistently replicated.
Interview Questions
What is Azure Site Recovery?
Azure Site Recovery is an Azure service that provides disaster recovery for workloads running on physical and virtual machines.
What are the benefits of using Azure Site Recovery?
Azure Site Recovery provides protection against data loss, ensures business continuity, and reduces downtime by quickly recovering applications and services in case of a disaster.
What types of disasters can Azure Site Recovery help protect against?
Azure Site Recovery can help protect against disasters such as hardware failures, power outages, natural disasters, cyber attacks, and human errors.
What resources can be protected by Azure Site Recovery?
Azure Site Recovery can protect Azure virtual machines, VMware virtual machines, and physical servers.
What are the prerequisites for setting up Azure Site Recovery for Azure virtual machines?
The prerequisites for setting up Azure Site Recovery for Azure virtual machines include an Azure subscription, a recovery services vault, a source Azure virtual network, and a target Azure virtual network.
What are the prerequisites for setting up Azure Site Recovery for VMware virtual machines?
The prerequisites for setting up Azure Site Recovery for VMware virtual machines include an Azure subscription, a recovery services vault, an on-premises configuration server, a process server, and a target Azure virtual network.
How do I configure Azure Site Recovery for Azure virtual machines?
You can configure Azure Site Recovery for Azure virtual machines by creating a replication policy, selecting the source and target virtual networks, and enabling replication for the virtual machines.
How do I configure Azure Site Recovery for VMware virtual machines?
You can configure Azure Site Recovery for VMware virtual machines by setting up the configuration server and process server, installing the Site Recovery Unified Setup, and configuring protection for the virtual machines.
What are the replication options for Azure Site Recovery?
The replication options for Azure Site Recovery include asynchronous replication, which provides low RPOs but may result in some data loss, and continuous replication, which provides zero RPOs but may require additional network bandwidth.
How can I test my disaster recovery plan with Azure Site Recovery?
You can test your disaster recovery plan with Azure Site Recovery by creating a test failover, which allows you to verify the recovery process without impacting production workloads.
How can I monitor the status of my replicated resources with Azure Site Recovery?
You can monitor the status of your replicated resources with Azure Site Recovery by using the Site Recovery Job Summary, Site Recovery Health, and Site Recovery Replicated Items views in the Azure portal.
What is the Azure Site Recovery pricing model?
Azure Site Recovery is billed based on the number of protected instances, the amount of storage used for replicated data, and the amount of data transferred during replication.
Can I use Azure Site Recovery for cross-region replication?
Yes, you can use Azure Site Recovery for cross-region replication to protect your workloads against regional outages and disasters.
What are the best practices for configuring Azure Site Recovery?
The best practices for configuring Azure Site Recovery include creating a disaster recovery plan, testing your plan regularly, configuring monitoring and alerts, and optimizing your replication settings.
What are the recovery time objectives (RTOs) for Azure Site Recovery?
The RTOs for Azure Site Recovery depend on the replication options, network bandwidth, and size of the protected workload, but they typically range from a few minutes to a few hours.
Thanks for the comprehensive guide on configuring Azure Site Recovery! It helped me a lot.
Can someone explain why we need to configure the Storage Account for Azure Site Recovery?
Do we need to enable backup for resources before setting up Azure Site Recovery?
I found the process of setting up replication policies a bit confusing. Anyone else?
Excellent post. Appreciate the step-by-step breakdown.
How does Azure Site Recovery handle failback? Is it automatic?
Is there any impact on performance during replication?
What’s the cost associated with Azure Site Recovery?