Virtualize Your Disaster! Remove the Disaster from “Disaster Recovery”

Virtualize Your Disaster!Remove the Disaster from “Disaster Recovery”

22

Agenda

Challenges of Traditional Disaster Recovery

Improving Disaster Recovery with VMware Virtualization

Impact of VMware Virtualization on Disaster Recovery

33

Defining Disaster Recovery

What is a “disaster”?

Extended outage that requires an organization to recover IT services at an alternate or rebuilt site

What is not a disaster?

Failure of an individual server

A short service interruption

Power failure

Server failureDisk failure

Fire

Hurricane

Storage failureFlood

Network failure

Earthquake

44

Requirements for Disaster Recovery

Minimize Downtime

93% of companies that lost their data center for ten days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster.

--National Archives and Records Administration

Control Cost

Minimize Risk

73% of executives expressed concern with the costs associated with maintaining a secondary data centre

--Beacon Technology Partners

92% of users surveyed acknowledged that their companies would face serious consequences if they had to implement their disaster recovery plans.

--Dynamic Markets Ltd.

Effective disaster recovery is a business imperative, but is very difficult to achieve

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Current State of Physical Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery protection tiered according to business priorities

Recovery requirements continue to become more demanding

Tier RPO RTO Cost

I Immediate Immediate $$$

II 24+ hrs. 48+ hrs. $$

III 7+ days 5+ days $

66

Physical Server Protection

Multiple elements to protect to ensure recoverability

Requires multiple technologies and processes

System disk backups

Backups and/or replication for applications and data

Tracking of hardware configuration requirements

Storage

Server

Operating System

Application Application installationApplication configuration

OS configuration OS customizations

Hardware configurationFirmware level & settingsSystem disk

Application data

77

Disaster Recovery for Physical Infrastructure

Production Recovery

Fastest, easiest recovery requires duplicate datacenter

Servers

Rack space

Network infrastructure

Storage infrastructure

Power and cooling infrastructure

Duplicating datacenter creates ongoing burdens

Ongoing management to keep identical to production

Idle except for occasional tests

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Disaster Recovery Process for Physical Infrastructure

Production Recovery

Copy important data• Hardware configuration• System disk• Application installation• Application data

WAN

Transfer data to recovery site

• Backup tapes• CD’s/DVD’s• Images (e.g. Ghost) • Replication

Start system and application recovery

• OS recovery• Configuration• Data recovery• Testing

99

Complications of Physical Recovery

Variety of information and data to protect

Separate processes for system and data disks

No easy way to track server configuration

Tapes can be misplaced, mislabeled, or corrupted

Complex recovery process

Bare metal recovery procedures

Failed recoveries due to hardware dependencies

Many manual steps prone to user errors

Inability to test recovery sufficiently

Additional infrastructure

Disruption to operations

Recovery

1010

Challenges of Disaster Recovery

Minimize downtime

Reduce risk

Control cost

Many manual processes for recovery

Multiple steps to overcome hardware differences

Incomplete or out-of-date runbooks

Testing requires additional hardware and infrastructure

Usually only data is regularly and cleanly updated

Frequent failures during recovery

Simplest recovery requires identical hardware

Idle recovery hardware is impossible to repurpose

Multiple third-party products necessary for recovery

1111

Agenda



Properties of virtualization

Data protection with virtualization

Disaster recovery automation


1212

VMware Vision for Disaster Recovery

Rapid> Automate recovery process

> Eliminate failures due to hardware dependencies

> Integrate different components of recovery

Reliable> Enable easier, more frequent testing

> Turn manual, inconsistent processes into pre-programmed, repeatable processes

Manageable> Centralize and simplify management of recovery plans

> Make disaster recovery protection a property of virtual infrastructure

Affordable> Eliminate idle recovery hardware

> Eliminate dependencies on physical infrastructure

1313Copyright © 2006 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Virtualization Eliminates Hardware Dependencies

OS in virtual machine sees “virtual hardware” (CPU, SCSI disk, memory, network)

Virtualization layer maps virtual hardware to physical hardware

Virtual hardware remains identical regardless of physical hardware

Virtual machines are hardware independent and can run on any server without modification

Physical Hardware

Virtual Machine

Virtualization Layer

OS

Virtual Machine

OS

1414Copyright © 2006 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Virtualization Turns Systems into Data

• Everything about a system stored in small number of files

• Simplifies copying and cloning of systems

• Simplifies provisioning systems for recovery and recovery testing

Virtual machines encapsulate and entire system in a few files on disk

SystemApps = files on disk

Physical Server

Data

Virtual Machine

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Virtual Machines

VMFS

Virtualized Server Protection

Everything needed to recover a virtual machine is stored in a few files in a single folder on disk

Hardware configuration (.vmx)

Firmware settings (.nvram)

Operating system install (.vmdk)

Application install (.vmdk)

Application data (.vmdk)

Standard backup and replication tools can be used to protect virtual machines

Virtual Machine

Servers

ESX ESX ESX ESX

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Data Protection Options for Virtual Machines

Virtual machine backup

File and image backup

Useful for non-production and many production virtual machines

Slowest recovery time

Server-based replication

Granular replication

Often OS-dependent

Processing overhead on server

Array-based replication

Minimal overhead on server

LUN-level granularity

Storage

Servers

Virtual Machines

ESX ESX ESX





Virtual machine backups

Virtual machine backups

1717

Backup for Virtual Machines

Hardware-independent backup and restore

No bare metal recovery or operating system reinstall required

Simplified backup of system state, boot disk, and data disks

No need for separate tools and procedures

Non-disruptive backup via Consolidated Backup interface

Image and file-level backup

Minimizes backup load on ESX and network

Integrated with leading 3rd-party backup products

BackupM

ou

nt

Snap

Snap

Storage

ESX server

Backup Server

1818

Virtualized Recovery Infrastructure

Servers running VMware Infrastructure as recovery targets

Can recover a VM to any VMware Infrastructure edition

Virtual machine image

VMware Converter to create virtual machine images of physical systems

Backup or replication software to create copies of virtual machines

Virtual Machines

ESX ESX

RecoveryProduction

ConverterESX

1919

VMware Virtualization Simplifies Infrastructure Requirements

Eliminate need for identical infrastructure for recovery

VMware Infrastructure provides hardware-independent recovery

Reduces ongoing management burden of recovery site

Reduce infrastructure requirements

Consolidate production and recovery servers

Waterfall servers from production to recovery

VMware

Production

VMware

Recovery

2020

Simplifying the Disaster Recovery Process

Eliminate recovery steps

No operating system re-install or bare-metal recovery

No time spent reconfiguring hardware

Standardize recovery process

Consistent process independent of operating system and hardware

Configure hardware

Install OS

Configure OS

Install backup agent

Start “Single-step automatic recovery”

RestoreVM

Poweron VM

Physical

Virtual 40+ hrs < 4 hrs

2121

Simpler Disaster Recovery Testing with Virtualization

1. Snapshot and clone replicated data to create testing VM’s

2. Connect test VM’s to an isolated network

3. Power up testing VM’s to validate recovery

4. Delete VM clones used for testing

SANSAN

Target VMFS

Recovery Site

OS.image

Appln.image

Data.imageData.

OS

Application

15 GHz 9 GHzPowered On DR VMs

LiveDR

TestDR

Replicated Data

Snapshot

2222

Simplifies and automates disaster recovery workflows:

Setup, testing, failover

Turns manual recovery runbooks into automated recovery plans

Provides central management of recovery plans from VirtualCenter

Automating the Disaster Recovery Process

Works with VMware Infrastructure to make disaster recovery rapid, reliable, manageable, affordable

Site Recovery Manager provides management and automation of the disaster recovery process for virtual machines

2323

Site Recovery Manager Key Components

Storage

Servers

VMware Infrastructure

Virtual Machines

VirtualCenterSite

Recovery Manager

Storage

Servers

VMware Infrastructure

Virtual Machines

VirtualCenterSite

Recovery Manager

Site Recovery Manager> Manages and monitors recovery plans

> Tightly integrated with VirtualCenter

Storage Partner Replication> Integrated via replication adapters created,

certified and supported by replication vendor

Partner Replication

VMware Infrastructure> Requires ESX server 3.0.2, ESX 3.5 U1 or later

> Requires VirtualCenter 2.5 U1 or later

Storage> iSCSI or FibreChannel storage

2424

Disaster Recovery Setup

Integrate with replicationIdentify which virtual machines are protected by replication configuration

Map recovery resourcesServer resources, network resources, management objects

Create recovery plans For virtual machines, applications, business unitsConvert manual runbook to pre-programmed responseCustomizable with scripting and callouts

2525

Testing

Replication ManagementSnapshot replicated LUNs before test

Delete snapshots of replicated LUNs after test

Network ManagementChange all virtual machines to a test port group before powering them on

Customization/extensibilitySame breakpoints and callouts as failover sequence

Extra breakpoints and callouts around the test bubble

2626

Failover Automation

Detect site failuresRaise alert when heartbeat lost

Initiate failoverUser confirmation of outage

Granular failover initiation

Manage replication failoverBreak replication

Make replica visible to recovery hosts

Execute recovery processUse pre-programmed plan

Provide visibility into progress

2727

Agenda




2828

Hancock Bank: Before Virtualization

Production Datacenter

DB HR App App

DR Hosting Provider Site

DB HR App App

Backup data

> Unknown hardware makes and models> Recovery time unable to meet requirements> Failing back to primary site takes months

2929

Hancock Bank: With Virtualization

Production Datacenter DR Hosting Provider

DB HR App App > Recovery to any hardware

> Recovery time within 24 hour objective

> Failback takes days, not months

Image and data backups

DB HR App App

“Without VMware Infrastructure, it would have taken us weeks to recover our critical systems when Hurricane Katrina hit our datacenter. VMware Infrastructure enabled us to get our critical systems up and running within 24 hours.”

-- Scott Fontenette, Hancock Bank

3030

VMware Impact on Disaster Recovery

Expand disaster recovery protection

Minimize the cost and complexity of disaster recovery

Reduce time to recovery

Single button kicks off recovery process

Increase reliability of recovery

Automation ensures repeatable recovery

Hardware independence eliminates failures due to different hardware

Easier testing based off of actual failover sequence allows more frequent and more realistic tests

3131

Next Steps

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