Microsoft Azure Site Recovery
Microsoft azure site recovery is a disaster recovery solution that protects Hyper-V and VMware workloads in an offsite location. The system enables organizations to build comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plans by replicating data offsite. The service provides a low-cost way to ensure that critical applications are protected and available in the event of a disaster. The process of protecting on-premises workloads with Azure Site Recovery is quick and easy. It also supports cross-region recovery and synchronization between multiple locations.
Continuous replication ensures that data is backed up regularly and can be quickly recovered in the event of a disaster. This is made possible by capturing virtual machine (VM) images and storing them in an Azure backup vault. The vault is connected to an Azure virtual network, allowing client PCs that used to connect to on-premises servers to transparently continue connecting to the new server running in the cloud.
This allows a company to maintain uptime even when the primary datacenter is down, and to avoid costly application downtime caused by a lengthy restore process. The Azure Site Recovery service is also highly scalable and can be added on with a few clicks without incurring additional costs, making it an affordable and logical option for businesses looking to future-proof their IT infrastructure.
Before you begin using microsoft azure site recovery, it’s important to make sure that you have enough bandwidth to support the replication of your VMs. The amount of bandwidth required depends on the daily data-change rate of your VMs and the desired RPO. In addition, you must deploy a sufficient number of configuration servers and process servers to handle the load at your replication site.
During the replication process, your VMs will need outbound connectivity in order to write data to the cache storage account. You can also configure NSG rules in your source Azure region to allow outbound access for replication traffic. Additionally, if your on-premises firewall blocks outbound traffic from the replicated VMs, you must open ports for this communication.
Once the VMs are replicated, you can create a failover policy that includes failback actions. This can be done from the Azure Portal. You can specify the recovery point objective, the VM size limit for the policy, and whether the policy is persistent. You can also select the target region, the virtual network in which VMs will be placed after failover, and the replication frequency.
If you’re deploying your Site Recovery on a subscription with a limited capacity, you may want to increase the subscription size before you start protecting VMs. Doing so can provide more bandwidth for replication, help you meet your recovery point objective, and reduce the cost of storing the VMs.
During the failover process, your VMs will not be automatically connected to the on-premises network unless you enable that option in the VM settings. You can do this by selecting the Activate on failover checkbox in the VM settings.