Virtual Recovery Assistant user s guide Part number: T2558-96323 Second edition: March 2009
Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Hewlett-Packard Company makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Hewlett-Packard shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material. This document contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. No part of this document may be photocopied, reproduced, or translated into another language without the prior written consent of Hewlett-Packard. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. Microsoft, Windows, and Windows NT are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Hewlett-Packard Company shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. The information is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind and is subject to change without notice. The warranties for Hewlett-Packard Company products are set forth in the express limited warranty statements for such products. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant User s Guide Second Edition (March 2009) Part Number: T2558-96323
Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction...1-1 Resources... 1-2 Chapter 2 Installing Virtual Recovery Assistant...2-1 Requirements... 2-1 Install Virtual Recovery Assistant... 2-2 Chapter 3 Console...3-1 Start Virtual Recovery Assistant... 3-1 Understanding the console... 3-1 Using the left pane navigation list... 3-1 Getting help... 3-1 Chapter 4 Connect to the VirtualCenter server...4-1 Log off VirtualCenter server... 4-2 Chapter 5 Select servers...5-1 Select the source machine... 5-1 Select volumes to protect... 5-2 Select a target server... 5-3 Select the target datastore... 5-5 Select the virtual recovery appliance... 5-5 Define replica virtual machine... 5-6 Set protection options... 5-7 Chapter 6 Monitor protection...6-1 Chapter 7 Failover...7-1 Chapter 8 Manage virtual recovery appliances...8-1 Add a virtual recovery appliance... 8-2 Chapter 9 Using Firewalls...9-1 Virtual Recovery Assistant ports... 9-1 Microsoft Windows ports... 9-1 Hardware ports... 9-1 i
Introduction Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant (VRA) is used to protect entire physical and/or virtual source machines to virtual target machines running on VMware ESX Server. In addition to providing the proven Storage Mirroring byte-level replication, monitoring, and failover technologies, the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant greatly simplifies the setup of the target virtual machines by automating the virtual machine provisioning process. Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant uses a client/server architecture. The Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant clients are used to create protection jobs. The target VMware ESX host server is a physical machine that the VMware ESX host software runs on. The Virtual Recovery Appliance and any replica virtual machines will reside on this ESX host. The Virtual Recovery Appliance is a virtual machine running on the target VMware ESX host. The Virtual Recovery Appliance serves as a communication and management hub for all Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant activities. Some of its functions include: Handling all ESX server communication (for example, it creates the virtual server, creates disks, mounts disks, formats disks, and dismount disks) Creating and controlling the Storage Mirroring job. Reporting the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant state to the clients. Virtual replica machines are hosted by the VMware ESX host server. The virtual replica machines are created by the source protection job using the Virtual Recovery Appliance, but remain powered off until failover. At failover, the replica machine is powered on and assumes the identity of the original source machine. Virtual Recovery Appliance Storage Mirroring VRA clients C:\ System C:\ Source Machine 1 Replica1_C:\ Source Machine 1_Replica C:\ D:\ Replica2_C:\ Replica2_D:\ Source Machine 2 ESX Datastore Source Machine 2_Replica Target VMware ESX Host Server Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant uses Storage Mirroring to configure the replication set and monitor failover conditions. For more information on Storage Mirroring system requirements, see the Storage Mirroring User s Guide or online documentation. 1-1
Resources You have many resources available to you when using Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant. Operating system and application documentation Make sure that you have complete documentation for your operating system and your applications. Storage Mirroring documentation Each Storage Mirroring manual is available in the \DblTake\docs directory on the product CD and in the root of the installation directory you selected during the installation. The manuals are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. If needed, you can install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader by downloading the latest version from the Adobe web site at www.adobe.com. Storage Mirroring User s Guide This guide is a complete how-to guide with detailed steps for installing and using Storage Mirroring. This guide also contains a complete list of Storage Mirroring messages, alerts, and statistics. Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant User s Guide This guide is a complete how-to guide for configuring Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant. This document is found in the C:\Program Files\StorageWorks\Storage Mirroring\VRA\Doc directory. Readme Storage Mirroring includes a readme file which contains any last-minute information. The readme file is located in the \DblTake\docs directory of the product CD and in the root of the installation directory you selected during the installation. 1-2
Installing Virtual Recovery Assistant Requirements Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant requires the following minimum system configuration: Source machines can be any 32- or 64-bit physical or virtual machines running Microsoft Windows 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later A version of Storage Mirroring with the Windows Server 2008 feature pack must be installed on the source server. In order to protect a 64-bit source machine, both the source and the recovery appliance must be running a 64-bit version of Windows. The source and target cannot both be domain controllers. Only one or the other can be a domain controller. Ideally, the target should not be a domain controller or host any functionality (file server, application server, and so on) because the functionality will be removed when failover occurs. If your source is a domain controller, it will start in a non-authoritative restore mode after failover. This means that if the source was communicating with other domain controllers before failover, it will require one of those domain controllers to be reachable after failover so it can request updates. If this communication is not available, the domain controller will not function after failover. If the source is the only domain controller, this is not an issue. The target VMware ESX host server is a physical machine running VMware ESX 3.01 or later. If you are running VMware ESX version 3i, you will either need to use a licensed version or install the ESX 3.i 3.5.0 update or later. The Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant service runs on the Virtual Recovery Appliance. The Virtual Recovery Appliance must be a virtual machine running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later and hosted by the VMware ESX server where you want to create the replica virtual machines. You must create the virtual machine to be used as the Virtual Recovery Appliance before installing Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant. It is strongly recommended that this virtual machine be used for no other purpose than as the Virtual Recovery Appliance. A version of Storage Mirroring with the Windows Server 2008 feature pack must be installed on the Virtual Recovery Appliance. The Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant client software must be installed on a 32-bit or 64-bit physical or virtual server running one of the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows 2003 with Service Pack 1 or later Microsoft Windows 2008 The client should not be running on the source machine. Depending on your version of Windows and the components installed, you may see an additional button on the last screen of the installation program allowing you to download the Microsoft.NET Framework version 3.5. If you do not see this button, your server already has the appropriate version of.net. You will need to verify that port 6330 is open for Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant communications. 2-1
Install Virtual Recovery Assistant The Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant is installed during the Storage Mirroring for Windows installation. For more information about installing Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant, see the Storage Mirroring User s Guide. 2-2
Console This section provides information about how to use the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant console. Start Virtual Recovery Assistant Launch Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant by selecting Start, Programs, StorageWorks, Storage Mirroring, Virtual Recovery Assistant for ESX. The first time you launch Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant, a login window will appear. In subsequent sessions, after you have entered and saved login information for your VirtualCenter server, you will be taken directly to the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant interface. Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant uses standard Windows-style controls. Enter information in fields, select options from drop-down menus, click buttons, and use menu options. Understanding the console The Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant interface is designed to guide you through the process of configuring protection for your virtual machines. The default configuration parameters have been selected to be appropriate for most configurations; however, they may need to be modified for your specific environment. Using the left pane navigation list When you launch Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant, you will see the main Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant window. The first time you launch Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant, the interface will lead you through each step you need to take to set up protection for a physical source machine. After you have set up the initial protection job, you can select options in the left pane of Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant to monitor and manage your protection jobs. Getting help Additional information about tasks in the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant interface is available in the online help. To launch the online help: 1. From the Help menu, click Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant Help. 2. To navigate through the online help topics, click the icons in the upper-left corner of the help window. 3. To open the Table of Contents, click the closed book icon. 3-1
Connect to the VirtualCenter server Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant can use VMware VirtualCenter to manage the VMware ESX host server. To use VirtualCenter, you must enter credentials for logging in to the VMware VirtualCenter server. The first time you log in, the Connect to VirtualCenter Server dialog box will appear: The VirtualCenter server is where the VMware VirtualCenter service is running. The VMware VirtualCenter service manages all the VMware ESX servers in the environment. The account you specify must have permission to view, create, and modify virtual machines in the datacenter. Typically, this account has administrator permission. When using VirtualCenter, the VirtualCenter APIs are necessary to connect to the target ESX host to manipulate the VMDK connections and start the replica virtual machine at failover. If the VirtualCenter server is offline and failover is attempted, the failover process will not complete successfully. If you do not want to connect to the VirtualCenter server, click the Skip button. You will need to specify an ESX host as described in Select a target server on page 5-3. Enter the following information in the appropriate fields: 1. Server Enter the IP address or fully-qualified domain name of the VirtualCenter server. 2. User name Enter the user name for the account that will access the VirtualCenter server. 3. Password Enter the password that is associated with the user name. 4. If you want Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant to remember the login information, select the Save VirtualCenter connection information checkbox. By selecting this box, Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant will remember the credentials for logging in to the VirtualCenter server. The logon information is cached and encrypted, so you will not need to enter this information again at subsequent logons. 5. When you have finished entering the login information, click Connect. Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant will verify the credentials that you have entered for the VirtualCenter server. If this is your first time to usestorage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant, you will start by selecting your source server to protect. Continue with Select the source machine on page 5-1. 4-1
Log off VirtualCenter server Logging off clears the current credentials so that you will be prompted to enter credentials on your next logon. To disconnect from the currently-configured VirtualCenter server, click the Disconnect button in the left pane, or select File, Disconnect. A box that identifies the servers that you are currently logged in to will appear. If you click Disconnect, you will be disconnected from the VirtualCenter server and your Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant session will end. When you disconnect from the server, any saved connection information (such as user name and password) will be deleted. 4-2
Select servers The Protect a server workflow guides you through all the steps to protect the physical source server whose data and system state you will be protecting with a virtual target server. Select the source machine When you click Protect a server or select Go, Protect a server, the Select source server window will appear. Enter the following information for the source server: 1. Server Enter the IP address or DNS name of the source server you want to protect. Or, click the Browse button to browse to locate a server. a. In the Browse for server window, browse through the server tree to select a source server. b. After you have found the source server, select it, then click Choose. In order to protect a source, the source must have no more than four NICs enabled. 5-1
2. User name Enter the user name for the account that will access the source server. The user account specified must have Storage Mirroring Admin privileges on the source server. 3. Password Enter the password that is associated with the user account. 4. Storage Mirroring port If you have changed the default port (6320) used by the Storage Mirroring server, specify the port. 5. After all fields have been completed, click Next. A window will display the progress as the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant console authenticates the source server. Select volumes to protect Select the volumes you want to protect to the targetvirtual machine. By default, the system volume will be selected. Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant can protect a maximum of 14 source volumes per SCSI controller installed on the Virtual Recovery Appliance virtual machine. Consult your VMware ESX documentation to determine how to install additional SCSI controllers on the Recovery Appliance. You can specify the size of the selected volume on the replica virtual machine. 1. Select the name of the volume in the Volume table. 2. Enter a value in the Size of the selected volume on the replica virtual machine field. 3. Use the drop-down box to select whether the value is in MB or GB. 4. After you have entered information for the selected volume, click Update. 5. Repeat this process to configure the size of additional volumes on the replica virtual machine. 5-2
6. To exclude a path or folder from the protection, type the path to exclude in the Exclude these paths field, then click Add. 7. To remove a path from being excluded, select the path, then click Remove. 8. When you are finished selecting the data to protect, click Next. Select a target server Select the target VMware ESX server where the virtual recovery appliance and replica virtual machines will be hosted. 5-3
Enter the following information for the target server: 1. IP address or DNS name Enter the IP address or DNS name of the target server which will host your virtual recovery appliance and replica virtual machines. Or, click the Browse button to browse to locate a server. If you did not specify a VirtualCenter server, the Browse button will not be available. You will be prompted to add a username and password for the target server. a. In the Browse for server window, browse through the file tree to select a target server, or type a server name in the search bar at the top of the screen and click Search. b. After you have found the target server, select it, then click Choose. 2. When you are finished, click Next. 5-4
Select the target datastore Select the datastore where the protected data will be stored, then click Next. The target datastore must have enough free space to store the source data. Select the virtual recovery appliance Select the virtual machine that will be used to coordinate the protection of the data. Enter the following information for the virtual recovery appliance: 1. Choose an existing virtual machine Select the virtual machine you would like to use as the virtual recovery appliance. This field will only display virtual recovery appliances that are powered on and that are running Windows 2003, Standard or Enterprise edition. 2. User name Enter the user name for the account that will access the virtual recovery appliance. The user account specified must have Storage Mirroring Admin privileges on the virtual appliance. 5-5
3. Password Enter the password that is associated with the user account. 4. Storage Mirroring port If you have changed the default port (6320) used by the Storage Mirroring server, specify the port. 5. After all fields have been completed, click Next. A window will display the progress as the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant console authenticates the virtual recovery appliance. Define replica virtual machine Select the options that will configure the virtual machine that will stand in for the source server after failover. 1. Replica virtual machine name Use the default replica virtual machine name, or enter a new name. 2. Map replica virtual network IP to target networks If there are multiple target networks, you can select the network on the target to use. 3. Number of processors Select the number of processors for the replica virtual machine. The Processors on the source server field displays the number of processors on the original source server. 4. Amount of memory Enter the amount of memory to use for the replica virtual machine. The Memory on the source server field displays the amount of memory (in MB) on the original source server. 5. When you are finished configuring the replica virtual machine, click Next. 5-6
Set protection options Select the options you want to use during protection. 1. Compression Select the compression level (None, Low, Medium, or High) to use when sending data from the source to target server. 2. Target route Select the IP address on the target server to which you want to send data. If your host is on multiple networks and has multiple addresses associated with those networks, you can choose to use an IP address other than the oneyou entered for the target in Selecting a target server on page 4-5. 3. Enable automatic failover If you want the replica virtual machine to stand in for the source server when the source is inaccessible, select this checkbox. If automatic failover is enabled and a failover condition is met before the initial mirror has completed, Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant will attempt to failover to the target virtual machine. To prevent potential issues, all protection jobs should be configured to use manual failover until the initial mirror is complete. 4. IP address to monitor for automatic failover Select the IP address to monitor for automatic failover. 5. Monitoring interval (seconds) (Default = 5) Select how often the monitor will check the source machine availability. 6. Missed intervals (Default = 5) Select how many monitor replies can be missed before assuming the source machine has failed. 5-7
7. When you have finished setting protection options, click Next. The Protection Summary pane will appear. 8. Review the protection options, then click Finish to initiate the protection process. When you click Finish, a message box will appear identifying the status of the protection check. 5-8
Monitor protection After you have finished setting up the protection, the Monitor Protection pane will appear. From this window, you can view the status of machine protection jobs. You can also open this pane by clicking the Monitor protection button on the left pane, or select Go, Monitor Protection. Select a protection job, then choose one of the following actions: Toolbar button Function Start protection Starts synchronization for the selected protection job. When you start protection, the Status column will display the protection progress. Pause protection Temporarily pause synchronization for the selected protection job. Stop protection Stop the selected protection job. Delete protection Remove the selected protection job. When you click this button, you will have to confirm whether to Keep and register the associated replica virtual machine or to Delete the associated replica virtual machine. Select one of these options, then click Yes to proceed with deleting the protection, or click No to cancel. View last error View the last error associated with the selected protection job. Failover Transfer ownership from the source to the target virtual machine in the selected protection job. For more information, see Failover on page 7-1. 6-1
Failover The Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant provides the ability to failover to a replica virtual machine in the event of a failure of the source machine. Source servers may be failed over in two different ways: Automatic Failover The application detects that a failover condition is met and automatically initiates the failover process. Manual Failover The user manually initiates the failover process by clicking the Failover button in the user interface. The type of failover for the job is selected during job creation. For more information, see Set protection options on page 5-7. For optimal virtual machine performance, Hewlett-Packard recommends that you install VMtools on the replica virtual machine after failover is complete. In most cases, the installation of VMtools will require the virtual machine to be rebooted. During the failover process, the following steps are initiated by the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant: 1. The Storage Mirroring connection between the source machine and Virtual Recovery Appliance is disconnected. 2. The VMware virtual drivers for video, mouse, disk controllers, and network adapters are injected into the Windows registry on the target virtual disk. 3. The target virtual disk volumes are un-mounted and removed from the Virtual Recovery Appliance. 4. If you are performing manual failover, the source machine is shut down. 5. The target virtual disk volumes are connected to the replica virtual machine. 6. The replica virtual machine is powered on. Because of the nature of physical-to-virtual failover process, failback to the original source is not possible with the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant. If a VirtualCenter server is used during job creation and failover is attempted while VirtualCenter is offline, the failover process will not complete properly and the job will be in an error state. To resolve this issue: 1. Using the VMware VI client, edit the virtual machine settings of the recovery appliance. Remove the disk drives of the replica virtual machine, but DO NOT delete the drives from disk. 2. Start the replica virtual machine. 3. Delete the protection job from the Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant client. If asked whether or not to delete the associated replica virtual machine, DO NOT delete the replica, then confirm the selection. 7-1
Manage virtual recovery appliances Select Manage virtual recovery appliances in the left pane, or select Go, Manage virtual recovery appliance to view the Manage virtual recovery appliances pane. From this pane, you can select a virtual machine, then choose one of the following actions: Toolbar button Function Add virtual recovery appliance Click this button to add a new virtual recovery appliance. The Select ESX server pane will appear where you can begin selecting the virtual machine. For more information, see Add a virtual recovery appliance on page 8-2. Configure virtual recovery appliance Select a virtual recovery appliance in the list, then click this button to enter or update the login credentials for the selected virtual recovery appliance. Remove virtual recovery appliance Select a virtual recovery appliance in the list, then click this button to delete the selected virtual recovery appliance. 8-1
Add a virtual recovery appliance Select the VMware ESX server where the virtual recovery appliance will be hosted. Enter the following information for the target server: 1. IP address or DNS name Enter the IP address or DNS name of the server which will host your virtual recovery appliance. Or, click the Browse button to browse to locate a server. If you did not specify a VirtualCenter server, the Browse button will not be available. You will be prompted to add a username and password for the target server. a. In the Browse for server window, browse through the file tree to select a target server. b. After you have found the target server, select it, then click Choose. 8-2
2. When you are finished, click Next. The Add virtual recovery appliance window will appear. 3. Choose an existing virtual machine Select the virtual machine you would like to use as the virtual recovery appliance. This field will only display virtual recovery appliances that are powered on and that are running Windows 2003, Standard or Enterprise edition. 4. User name Enter the user name for the account that will access the virtual recovery appliance. If Storage Mirroring is installed on the virtual appliance, then the user account specified must have Storage Mirroring Admin privileges on the virtual appliance. 5. Password Enter the password that is associated with the user account. 6. After all fields have been completed, click Finish. 8-3
Using Firewalls If your source and target are on opposite sides of a NAT or firewall, you will need to configure your hardware to accommodate Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant communications. You must have the hardware already in place and know how to configure the hardware ports. If you do not, see the reference manual for your hardware. In a NAT or firewall environment, you must have a static mapping where a single, internal IP address is always mapped in a one-to-one correlation to a single, external IP address. Virtual Recovery Assistant cannot handle dynamic mappings where a single, internal IP address can be mapped to any one of a group of external IP addresses managed by the router. Virtual Recovery Assistant ports By default, Storage Mirroring uses port 6320 for all communications. You will also need to verify that port 6330 is open for Storage Mirroring Virtual Recovery Assistant communications. Virtual Recovery Assistant uses ICMP pings to monitor the source for failover. A failover monitor will not be created if ICMP is blocked (although the data and system state will still be protected). You should configure your hardware to allow ICMP pings between the source and target. If you cannot, you will have to monitor for a failure manually and create a dummy monitor at failover time that can be manually failed over. Contact technical support for assistance with this manual process. Microsoft Windows ports Virtual Recovery Assistant uses WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) which uses RPC (Remote Procedure Call). By default, RPC will use ports at random above 1024, and these ports must be open on your firewall. RPC ports can be configured to a specific range by specific registry changes and a reboot. See the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 154596 for instructions. Virtual Recovery Assistant also relies on other Microsoft Windows ports. Microsoft File Share uses ports 135 through 139 for TCP and UDP communications. Microsoft Directory uses port 445 for TCP and UDP communications. These ports must be open on your firewall. Check your Microsoft documentation if you need to modify these ports. Hardware ports You need to configure your hardware so that the Virtual Recovery Assistant and Microsoft Windows ports are open. Since communication occurs bidirectionally, make sure you configure both incoming and outgoing traffic. There are many types of hardware on the market, and each can be configured differently. See your hardware reference manual for instructions on setting up your particular router. 9-1