SLN093Physical to Virtual

Disaster Recovery with Virtual Infrastructure

Curtis PopeIrish Spring

This presentation may contain VMware confidential information.

Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be

trademarks of their respective companies.

TopicPhysical to virtual Disaster Recovery (DR) methodologies using VMware virtual infrastructure. The session will explain in detail the architecture used to set up a physical to virtual DR environment and will include examples from the deployment of a major banking company that created a DR site by reproducing its production environment with virtual machines on five physical servers.

AgendaDisaster Recovery problemThe Solution! – virtual infrastructureIntroducing P2VUsing P2V & backup softwareUsing P2V & 3rd party live imagingCustomer storyThings to watch out forQ&A

What is Disaster Recovery?The process of restoring an operation after an interruption in service, including equipment repair/replacement, file recovery/restoration, and resumption of service to users. www.ni2ciel.org/Glossary/d_glossary.html“Recovering Quickly”NOT Business Continuity

Why Disaster Recovery?“Between 60-90% of companies that don’t have a proactive disaster plan find themselves out of business within 24 months of experiencing a major disaster”

- The Definitive Handbook for Business Management

Importance of Disaster Recovery Solutions

In the past, backup & recovery was ‘best effort’Today’s standards are different

More reliability is expectedFaster pace of business ⇒ more critical changeIntense competitive environment requires high service levels

Number and severity of threats are increasingTerrorism, natural disasters, viruses, hackers, industrial espionage, human error

Not implementing disaster recovery puts business at risk

Every year, one out of 500 data centers will experience a severe disaster

Problems with Physical to Physical Recovery

Hardware cost Need to have a separate target recovery server that exactly matches each primary server

Long, lengthy process requiring manual intervention

Many steps necessary before one can start “single-step automatic recovery” from backup server

Uncertainty of successVery difficult to simulate environment for testingComplex processes, limited equipment availability complicate training of personnel

The Solution:Virtual Infrastructure

Disaster Recovery at Lower CostHardware / System / Application independence

NO NEED to worry about THE EXACT hardware configurationFlexibility to restore to any hardware

Application independent capture and recovery processesLess hardware required at “hot” failover siteSingle-step simplified capture and recovery

One step system and application recoveryNo Windows registry issuesEasy-to-automate recovery

Support for all capture / replication technologiesTape / MediaDisk-based Back upSynchronous or Asynchronous Data Replication

Improving Time to RecoveryRestore system and application data in one stepApplication / OS / hardware independent (crash consistent) backup and recovery processesNo need for 3rd party ‘bare metal’ restore tools

Reduce learning and ramp-upReduce software licensing expense

Use the same methodology through application lifecycleStagingDeploymentDR

Test once – recover anythingApplication independent recovery => simplified testing

Increased ReliabilityEnsure success

Easy to test and simulate in any environmentMinimal equipment requirementSimplified process and reduced personnel requirements

Introducing P2V Assistant

Physical to Virtual (P2V) MigrationPhysical Infrastructure

1U, 2-way

Citrix Metaframe

Server

1U, 2-way

1U, 2-way

Microsoft Exchange

Virtual Environment

4-way Rackmount

Microsoft SQL Server

1U, 2-way

Microsoft IISWeb Server

1U, 2-way

Citrix Metaframe

Seamlessly transform physical systems into virtual machines with P2V Assistant

SQLSQL

Win2K3

IISIIS

Win2K

CitrixApp MS Exch

Win2K

P2V Assistant

Win2K3

Win2K3

CitrixApp

Physical to Virtual Recovery PreparationP2V Assistant performs all necessary substitutions to transform a physical system into a production-ready virtual machine

Creates an image of the source machine using either the VMware imaging tool or a 3rd

party imaging product

Performs all necessary HAL and driver substitutions to make the image bootable

User can manually modify any additional settings before having a production-ready system

Using P2V and Backup Software

P2V with Backup Software ConceptPeriodic P2V image to capture system stateSystem state includes backup clientStandard backup practice to take full and incremental backupsOn disaster, restore backup from tape to virtual machine

Physical to Virtual Recovery

Virtual machine templates with operating systems and backup agents are created and archived

Full system restore occurs into virtual machine using existing recovery agents

Using P2V and Third Party Live Imaging

P2V with Live Imaging Software ConceptUse 3rd party imaging to create image and periodic (nightly) incremental imagesStore images and potentially replicate to DR siteOn disaster, restore image into Virtual Disk using 3rd party restore processRun P2V to migrate OS to boot virtual machine

Third Party Tools That Provide‘Live’ Imaging

Acronis TrueImageSymantec Live State RecoveryUltraBaC UBDR Gold

Customer Story

P2V with SAN replicated dataPeriodic P2V image to capture system state (System Drive only)Data Drive continuously replicated as Raw Device using array replicationOn disaster, attach replicated Raw device to DR VM and boot up

Exchange Server

Exchange Server

Exchange Server

Production Environment:4 Physical Exchange Servers

Kansas CityDatacenter

OlatheDatacenter

Back-Up/DR Environment:1 Physical Server

4 Virtual Exchange Servers

Symmetrix Remote Data

Facility

18 Miles 15 minutes to fail over!!

Exchange Server

Major Financial InstitutionMajor Financial Institution

Things to Watch Out For

Always test your processPerform image/virtual machine update after any application or OS updates/patches

Questions