Backup VMware Server Workloads to Azure Backup Server

In my previous article, I explained how to install and configure Azure Backup Server. This article explains how to configure Azure Backup Server to help protect VMware  Server workloads. I am assuming that you already have Azure Backup Server installed. Azure Backup Server can back up, or help protect, VMware vCenter Server version 5.5 and later version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step1: Create a secure connection to the vCenter Server

By default, Azure Backup Server communicates with each vCenter Server via an HTTPS channel. To turn on the secure communication, we recommend that you install the VMware Certificate Authority (CA) certificate on Azure Backup Server.

To fix this issue, and create a secure connection, download the trusted root CA certificates.

1. In the browser on Azure Backup Server, enter the URL to the vSphere Web Client. The vSphere Web Client login page appears. Example, https://vcenter.domain.com

At the bottom of the information for administrators and developers, locate the Download trusted root CA certificates link.

2. Click Download trusted root CA certificates.

The vCenter Server downloads a file to your local computer. The file’s name is named download. Depending on your browser, you receive a message that asks whether to open or save the file.

3. Save the file to a location on Azure Backup Server. When you save the file, add the .zip file name extension. The file is a .zip file that contains the information about the certificates. With the .zip extension, you can use the extraction tools.
4. Right-click zip, and then select Extract Allto extract the contents. The CRL file has an extension that begins with a sequence like .r0 or .r1. The CRL file is associated with a certificate.
5. In the certsfolder, right-click the root certificate file, and then click Rename. Change the root certificate’s extension to .crt. When you’re asked if you’re sure you want to change the extension, click Yes or OK.  Right-click the root certificate and from the pop-up menu, select Install Certificate. The Certificate Import Wizard dialog box appears.
6. In the Certificate Import Wizarddialog box, select Local Machine as the destination for the certificate, and then click Next to continue.

If you’re asked if you want to allow changes to the computer, click Yes or OK, to all the changes.

7. On the Certificate Storepage, select Place all certificates in the following store, and then click Browse to choose the certificate store.

The Select Certificate Store dialog box appears.

8. Select Trusted Root Certification Authoritiesas the destination folder for the certificates, and then click OK. The Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder is confirmed as the certificate store. Click Next.
9. On the Completing the Certificate Import Wizardpage, verify that the certificate is in the desired folder, and then click Finish.
10. Sign in to the vCenter Server to confirm that your connection is secure.

If you have secure boundaries within your organization, and don’t want to turn on the HTTPS protocol, use the following procedure to disable the secure communications.

Step2: Disable secure communication protocol

If your organization doesn’t require the HTTPS protocol, use the following steps to disable HTTPS. To disable the default behavior, create a registry key that ignores the default behavior.

1. Copy and paste the following text into a .txt file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\VMWare]

“IgnoreCertificateValidation”=dword:00000001

2. Save the file to your Azure Backup Server computer. For the file name, use DisableSecureAuthentication.reg.
3. Double-click the file to activate the registry entry.

Step3: Create a role and user account on the vCenter Server

To establish the necessary user credentials to back up the vCenter Server workloads, create a role with specific privileges, and then associate the user account with the role.

Azure Backup Server uses a username and password to authenticate with the vCenter Server. Azure Backup Server uses these credentials as authentication for all backup operations.

To add a vCenter Server role and its privileges for a backup administrator:

1. Sign in to the vCenter Server, and then in the vCenter Server Navigatorpanel, click Administration.
2. In Administrationselect Roles, and then in the Roles panel click the add role icon (the + symbol). The Create Role dialog box appears.
3. In the Create Roledialog box, in the Role name box, enter BackupAdminRole. The role name can be whatever you like, but it should be recognizable for the role’s purpose.
4. Select the privileges for the appropriate version of vCenter, and then click OK. The following table identifies the required privileges for vCenter 6.0 and vCenter 5.5.

When you select the privileges, click the icon next to the parent label to expand the parent and view the child privileges. To select the VirtualMachine privileges, you need to go several levels into the parent child hierarchy. You don’t need to select all child privileges within a parent privilege. After you click OK, the new role appears in the list on the Roles panel.

Privileges for vCenter 6.0	Privileges for vCenter 5.5
Datastore.AllocateSpace	Datastore.AllocateSpace
Global.ManageCustomFields	Global.ManageCustomerFields
Global.SetCustomFields
Host.Local.CreateVM	Network.Assign
Network.Assign
Resource.AssignVMToPool
VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk	VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk
VirtualMachine.Config.AdvanceConfig	VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig
VirtualMachine.Config.ChangeTracking	VirtualMachine.Config.ChangeTracking
VirtualMachine.Config.HostUSBDevice
VirtualMachine.Config.QueryUnownedFiles
VirtualMachine.Config.SwapPlacement	VirtualMachine.Config.SwapPlacement
VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff	VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff
VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create	VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create
VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomAccess
VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomRead	VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomRead
VirtualMachine.State.CreateSnapshot	VirtualMachine.State.CreateSnapshot
VirtualMachine.State.RemoveSnapshot	VirtualMachine.State.RemoveSnapshot

Step4: Create a vCenter Server user account and permissions

After the role with privileges is set up, create a user account. The user account has a name and password, which provides the credentials that are used for authentication.

1. To create a user account, in the vCenter Server Navigatorpanel, click Users and Groups. The vCenter Users and Groups panel appears.
2. In the vCenter Users and Groupspanel, select the Users tab, and then click the add users icon (the + symbol). The New User dialog box appears.
3. In the New Userdialog box, add the user’s information and then click OK. In this procedure, the username is BackupAdmin. The new user account appears in the list.
4. To associate the user account with the role, in the Navigatorpanel, click Global Permissions. In the Global Permissions panel, select the Manage tab, and then click the add icon (the + symbol). The Global Permissions Root – Add Permission dialog box appears.
5. In the Global Permission Root – Add Permissiondialog box, click Add to choose the user or group.  The Select Users/Groups dialog box appears.
6. In the Select Users/Groupsdialog box, choose BackupAdmin and then click Add. In Users, the domain\username format is used for the user account. If you want to use a different domain, choose it from the Domain Click OK to add the selected users to the Add Permission dialog box.
7. Now that you’ve identified the user, assign the user to the role. In Assigned Role, from the drop-down list, select BackupAdminRole, and then click OK. On the Managetab in the Global Permissions panel, the new user account and the associated role appear in the list.

Step6: Establish vCenter Server credentials on Azure Backup Server

1. To open Azure Backup Server, double-click the icon on the Azure Backup Server desktop.
2. In the Azure Backup Server console, click Management, click Production Servers, and then on the tool ribbon, click Manage VMware. The Manage Credentialsdialog box appears.
3. In the Manage Credentialsdialog box, click Add to open the Add Credential dialog box.
4. In the Add Credentialdialog box, enter a name and a description for the new credential. Then specify the username and password. The name, Contoso Vcenter credential is used to identify the credential in the next procedure. Use the same username and password that is used for the vCenter Server. If the vCenter Server and Azure Backup Server are not in the same domain, in User name, specify the domain.

Click Add to add the new credential to Azure Backup Server. The new credential appears in the list in the Manage Credentials dialog box.

5. To close the Manage Credentialsdialog box, click the X in the upper-right corner.

Step7: Add the vCenter Server to Azure Backup Server

Production Server Addition Wizard is used to add the vCenter Server to Azure Backup Server. To open Production Server Addition Wizard, complete the following procedure:

1. In the Azure Backup Server console, click Management, click Production Servers, and then click Add. The Production Server Addition Wizarddialog box appears.
2. On the Select Production Server typepage, select VMware Servers, and then click Next.
3. In Server Name/IP Address, specify the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of the VMware server. If all the ESXi servers are managed by the same vCenter, you can use the vCenter name.
4. In SSL Port, enter the port that is used to communicate with the VMware server. Use port 443, which is the default port, unless you know that a different port is required.
5. In Specify Credential, select the credential that you created earlier.
6. Click Addto add the VMware server to the list of Added VMware Servers, and then click Next to move to the next page in the wizard.
7. In the Summarypage, click Add to add the specified VMware server to Azure Backup Server. The VMware server backup is an agentless backup, and the new server is added immediately. The Finishpage shows you the results.

After you add the vCenter Server to Azure Backup Server, the next step is to create a protection group. The protection group specifies the various details for short or long-term retention, and it is where you define and apply the backup policy. The backup policy is the schedule for when backups occur, and what is backed up.

Step8: Configure a protection group

After you check that you have proper storage, use the Create New Protection Group wizard to add VMware virtual machines.

1. In the Azure Backup Server console, click Protection, and in the tool ribbon, click Newto open the Create New Protection Group wizard.

The Create New Protection Group wizard dialog box appears. Click Next to advance to the Select protection group type page.

2. On the Select Protection group typepage, select Servers and then click Next. The Select group memberspage appears.
3. On the Select group memberspage, the available members and the selected members appear. Select the members that you want to protect, and then click Next.

When you select a member, if you select a folder that contains other folders or VMs, those folders and VMs are also selected. The inclusion of the folders and VMs in the parent folder is called folder-level protection. To remove a folder or VM, clear the check box.

4. On the Select Data Protection Methodpage, enter a name for the protection group. Short-term protection (to disk) and online protection are selected. If you want to use online protection (to Azure), you must use short-term protection to disk. Click Next to proceed to the short-term protection range.
5. On the Specify Short-Term Goalspage, for Retention Range, specify the number of days that you want to retain recovery points that are stored to disk. If you want to change the time and days when recovery points are taken, click Modify. The short-term recovery points are full backups. They are not incremental backups. When you are satisfied with the short-term goals, click Next.
6. On the Review Disk Allocationpage, review and if necessary, modify the disk space for the VMs. The recommended disk allocations are based on the retention range that is specified in the Specify Short-Term Goals page, the type of workload, and the size of the protected data (identified in step 3).
   • Data size:Size of the data in the protection group.
   • Disk space:The recommended amount of disk space for the protection group. If you want to modify this setting, you should allocate total space that is slightly larger than the amount that you estimate each data source grows.
   • Colocate data:If you turn on colocation, multiple data sources in the protection can map to a single replica and recovery point volume. Colocation isn’t supported for all workloads.
   • Automatically grow:If you turn on this setting, if data in the protected group outgrows the initial allocation, System Center Data Protection Manager tries to increase the disk size by 25 percent.
   • Storage pool details:Shows the status of the storage pool, including total and remaining disk size.

When you are satisfied with the space allocation, click Next.

7. On the Choose Replica Creation Methodpage, specify how you want to generate the initial copy, or replica, of the protected data on Azure Backup Server.

The default is Automatically over the network and Now. If you use the default, we recommend that you specify an off-peak time. Choose Later and specify a day and time.  For large amounts of data or less-than-optimal network conditions, consider replicating the data offline by using removable media. After you have made your choices, click Next.

8. On the Consistency Check Optionspage, select how and when to automate the consistency checks. You can run consistency checks when replica data becomes inconsistent, or on a set schedule. If you don’t want to configure automatic consistency checks, you can run a manual check. In the protection area of the Azure Backup Server console, right-click the protection group and then select Perform Consistency Check. Click Next to move to the next page.
9. On the Specify Online Protection Datapage, select one or more data sources that you want to protect. You can select the members individually, or click Select All to choose all members. After you choose the members, click Next.
10. On the Specify Online Backup Schedulepage, specify the schedule to generate recovery points from the disk backup. After the recovery point is generated, it is transferred to the Recovery Services vault in Azure. When you are satisfied with the online backup schedule, click Next.
11. On the Specify Online Retention Policypage, indicate how long you want to retain the backup data in Azure. After the policy is defined, click Next.
12. On the Summarypage, review the details for your protection group members and settings, and then click Create Group.

Now you are ready to backup VMware VM using Backup Server v2.

Azure Backup Server v2

Azure Backup is used for backups and DR, and it works with managed disks as well as unmanaged disks. You can create a backup job with time-based backups, easy VM restoration, and backup retention policies.

The following table is a summary of the solutions available for DR.

Scenario	Automatic replication	DR solution
Premium SSD disks Managed disks	Local (locally redundant storage) Cross region (read-access geo-redundant storage)	Azure Backup Azure Backup Server
Unmanaged LRS and GRS	Local (locally redundant storage) Cross region (geo-redundant storage)	Azure Backup Azure Backup Server

This article illustrates on how to use Azure Backup Server v2 to backup on-premises and Azure Workloads. Though Azure Backup Server shares much of the same functionality as DPM. Azure Backup Server does not back up to tape, nor does it integrate with System Center. Azure Backup Server is a dedicated role. Do not run any other application or role with the Azure Backup Server.

 

 

You can deploy Azure Backup Server from the Azure marketplace or on a On-premises server. The requirement to deploy Azure Backup server on a on-prem infrastructure is to have the below OS.

Operating System	Platform	SKU
Windows Server 2016 and latest SPs	64 bit	Standard, Datacenter
Windows Server 2012/R2 and latest SPs	64 bit	Standard, Datacenter,

Microsoft recommends you start with a gallery image of Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter or Windows Server 2016 Datacenter to create a Azure Backup Server. Here are the steps, you need to go through to deploy Azure Backup server.

Step1: Install Windows Virtual Machine from the Marketplace

1. Sign in to the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com.
2. Choose Create a resource in the upper left-hand corner of the Azure portal.
3. In the search box above the list of Azure Marketplace resources, search for and select Windows Server 2016 Datacenter, then choose Create.
4. Provide a VM name, such as myVM, leave the disk type as SSD, then provide a username, such as azureuser. The password must be at least 12 characters long and meet the defined complexity requirements.
5. Choose to Create newresource group, then provide a name, such as myResourceGroup. Choose your Location, then select OK.
6. Select a size for the VM. You can filter by Compute typeor Disk type, for example. A suggested VM size is D2s_v3. Click Select after you have chosen a size.
7. On the Settingspage, in Network > Network Security Group > Select public inbound ports, select HTTPand RDP (3389) from the drop-down. Leave the rest of the defaults and select OK.
8. On the summary page, select Createto start the VM deployment.
9. The VM is pinned to the Azure portal dashboard. Once the deployment has completed, the VM summary automatically opens.

Step2: Create Recovery Vault

1. Sign in to your subscription in the Azure portal.
2. In the left-hand menu, select All Services.
3. In the All services dialog, type Recovery Services. As you begin typing, your input filters the list of resources. Once you see it, select Recovery Services vaults.
4. On the Recovery Services vaultsmenu, select Add. The Recovery Services vaults menu opens. It prompts you to provide information for Name, Subscription, Resource group, and Location.
5. When you are ready to create the Recovery Services vault, click Create.

Step3: Select Appropriate Storage Type

1. Select your vault to open the vault dashboard and the Settings menu. If the Settingsmenu doesn’t open, click All settings in the vault dashboard.
2. On the Settingsmenu, click Backup Infrastructure > Backup Configuration to open the Backup Configuration On the Backup Configuration menu, choose the storage replication option for your vault.
3. Select LRS or GRS type storage.

Step4: Download Backup Software

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.
2. click Browse.In the list of resources, type Recovery Services.
3. As you begin typing, the list will filter based on your input. When you see Recovery Services vaults,
4. From the list of Recovery Services vaults, select a vault.
5. The Settingsblade opens up by default. If it is closed, click on Settings to open the settings blade.
6. Click Backupto open the Getting Started wizard. In the Getting Started with backup blade that opens, Backup Goals will be auto-selected.
7. In the Backup Goalblade, from the Where is your workload running menu, select On-premises.
8. From the What do you want to backup?drop-down menu, select the workloads you want to protect using Azure Backup Server, and then click OK.
9. In the Prepare infrastructureblade that opens, click the Download links for Install Azure Backup Server and Download vault credentials. You use the vault credentials during registration of Azure Backup Server to the recovery services vault. The links take you to the Download Center where the software package can be downloaded.
10. Select all the files and click Next. Download all the files coming in from the Microsoft Azure Backup download page, and place all the files in the same folder.

Step5: Extract Software Package

After you’ve downloaded all the files, click MicrosoftAzureBackupInstaller.exe. This will start the Microsoft Azure Backup Setup Wizard to extract the setup files to a location specified by you. Continue through the wizard and click on the Extract button to begin the extraction process.

Step 6: Install Software Package

1. Click Microsoft Azure Backupto launch the setup wizard.
2. On the Welcome screen click the Next This takes you to the Prerequisite Checkssection. On this screen, click Check to determine if the hardware and software prerequisites for Azure Backup Server have been met. If all prerequisites are met successfully, you will see a message indicating that the machine meets the requirements. Click on the Next button.
3. Microsoft Azure Backup Server requires SQL Server Standard. Further,the Azure Backup Server installation package comes bundled with the appropriate SQL Server binaries needed if you do not wish to use your own SQL. When starting with a new Azure Backup Server installation, you should pick the option Install new Instance of SQL Server with this Setupand click the Check and Install Once the prerequisites are successfully installed, click Next.
4. Provide a location for the installation of Microsoft Azure Backup server files and click Next.
5. Provide a strong password for restricted local user accounts and click Next.
6. Select whether you want to use Microsoft Updateto check for updates and click Next.
7. Review the Summary of Settingsand click Install.
8. The installation happens in phases. In the first phase the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent is installed on the server. The wizard also checks for Internet connectivity. If Internet connectivity is available you can proceed with installation, if not, you need to provide proxy details to connect to the Internet.
9. Once registration of the Microsoft Azure Backup server successfully completes, the overall setup wizard proceeds to the installation and configuration of SQL Server and the Azure Backup Server components. Once the SQL Server component installation completes, the Azure Backup Server components are installed.
10. When the installation step has completed, the product’s desktop icons will have been created as well. Just double-click the icon to launch the product.

Step7: Add a Data Disk to Azure Backup Server

1. Log on to Azure Portal. In the menu on the left, click Virtual Machines.
2. Select the virtual machine from the list.
3. On the virtual machine page, click Disks.
4. On the Diskspage, click + Add data disk.
5. In the drop-down for the new disk, select Create disk.
6. In the Create managed diskpage, type in a name for the disk and adjust the other settings as necessary. When you are done, click Create.
7. In the Diskspage, click Save to save the new disk configuration for the VM.
8. After Azure creates the disk and attaches it to the virtual machine, the new disk is listed in the virtual machine’s disk settings under Data disks.

Step8: Initialise the Disk of the Azure Backup Server

1. Connect to the VM.
2. Click the start menu inside the VM and type mscand hit Enter. Disk Management snap-in opens.
3. Disk Management recognizes that you have a new, un-initialized disk and the Initialize Diskwindow pops up.
4. Make sure the new disk is selected and click OKto initialize it.

Step9: Create a Storage Pool for Azure Backup Server

1. Navigating to the Storage Pools page in Server Manager
2. Launch Server Manager and navigate to the “File and Storage Services” page.
3. Navigate to the Storage Pools page. Refresh the UI by clicking on the Refresh button.
4. Logon as a user with admin privileges to your server, launch Server Manager, and then navigate to the “Storage Pools” page within the File and Storage Services Role.
5. Right-click the “Available Disks” pool for the Storage Spaces subsystem and launch the New Storage Pool Wizard.
6. Launch the New Storage Pool Wizard from the TASKS list.
7. In the New Storage Pool Wizard, enter desired pool name and optional description. Make sure that you have selected the Primordial pool for the Storage Spaces subsystem.
8. Select the number of disks needed for pool creation. If you want to designate a physical disk as a hot spare, then select the “Hot Spare” allocation type.
9. Confirm the selected settings and initiate pool creation by selecting “Create” on the “Confirm selections” page.

Step10: Create a Virtual Disk

1. Right-click the concrete pool that you just created (the pool where type value is Storage Pool), and then launch the New Virtual Disk Wizard.
2. In the New Virtual Disk Wizard, make sure that you have selected the appropriate pool. Enter the desired virtual disk name and optional description.
3. Select the desired storage layout and provisioning scheme as per your storage requirements.
4. On the “Specify the size of the virtual disk” page, enter the desired size for the new virtual disk or pick the “Maximum size” option.

• If you pick the “Maximum size” option, the system will try to create the largest size possible for the virtual disk.
• If you select the check box for “Create the largest virtual disk possible, up to the specified size” while specifying the size then the system will try to create the largest size possible for the virtual disk up to the requested size.
• It is also important to note that the value showing up as the storage pool free space (in our example 43.8GB) shows the actual free allocation the pool has overall. For cases with a fixed provisioning of a non-simple storage layout such as Mirror or Parity, when defining the size of the virtual disk, you have to take into account the overhead of storage needed to create the extra copies of the virtual disks extents for resiliency. As a basic example, with the 43.8GB free space in the pool, creating a 30GB mirrored virtual disk is not possible since it will take at least 60GB of free space in the pool to create a mirrored virtual disk to hold the two copies of the mirrored data.

5. Confirm the settings and initiate virtual disk creation by selecting “Create” on the “Confirm selections” page.

Step11: Add Disk to Azure Backup Server

1. Launch  Azure Backup Server and locate Disk Storage and Add – Select the disk, you want to add
2. Once Added, this disk will be formatted with REFS file system and the storage will be available for Azure Backup Server.

Now you are ready to use Azure Backup Server. On my next blog, I will explain how to backup VMware VM using Azure Backup Server.

Azure Site Recovery for VMware VMs

Azure Site Recovery orchestrates and manages disaster recovery for Azure VMs in Azure Cloud, and on-premises VMs in VMware, System Center VMM and physical servers.

Prerequisites:

• VMware Virtual Server
• Azure Subscription
• Azure Virtual Network
• ExpressRoute between On-premises to Azure Network
• Permit communication between Azure VMs to Azure Site Recovery Virtual Network
• Appropriate Azure Storage Network
• Administrative Credentials in Azure Cloud
• Administrative Credentials in On-premises Network inclusive VMware Virtual Infrastructure
• The Mobility service must be installed on each VM you want to replicate. Site Recovery installs this service automatically when you enable replication for the VM
• Set up an isolated virtual network for the test failover

Supported VMware Environment:

Component	Requirement
vCenter server	Version 5.5 or later
vSphere host	Version 5.5 or later

Supported VMs

VM Requirement	Details
OS disk size	Up to 2TB
OS disk count	1
Data disk count	64 or less
Data disk VHD size	Up to 4TB
Network adapters	Multiple adapters are supported
Shared VHD	Not supported
FC disk	Not supported
Hard disk format	VHD or VHDX. Azure Site Recovery automatically converts VHDX to VHD when you fail over to Azure. When you fail back to on-premises VMs continue to use the VHDX format.
Bit-locker	Not supported. Disable before you enable replication for a VM.
VM name	Between 1 and 63 characters. Restricted to letters, numbers, and hyphens. The VM name must start and end with a letter or number.
VM type	Generation 1 – Linux or Windows Generation 2 – Windows only

Site Recovery Scenario:

1. Fail over from the on-premises site to Azure Site
2. Reprotect the Azure VMs, so that they start replicating back to the on-premises VMware VMs.
3. Fail back from Azure Site to On-prem Site.
4. After data has failed back, re-protect the on-premises VMs that you failed back to, so that they start replicating back to Azure site.

Configuring Azure Site Recovery for the On-prem VMware Vcenter

Step1: Storage Account in Azure

1. Sign into the Azure portal using Global Admin, Click Menu, click New>Storage>Storage account>Add to create a new Storage Account.
2. Enter a name for your storage account. For these tutorials, I am going to use the name OnPremtoAzureSA01
3. Select the below properties

• Deployment model: Resource Manager
• Account Kind: General Purpose
• Performance: Standard
• Replication: RA-GRS

4. For replication, you have four options to choose from Locally redundant storage (LRS), Zone-redundant storage (ZRS), Geo-redundant storage (GRS), Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)
5. Select the subscription in which you want to create the new storage account. For example, your EA or PAYG Account
6. Specify a new resource group. An Azure resource group is a logical container into which Azure resources are deployed and managed. For example: CorpRG
7. Select the geographic location for your storage account. The storage account must be in the same region as the Recovery Services vault. For these tutorials we use the location Australia East.
8. Click Create

Step2: Create a vault.

1. In the Azure portal menu, click New > Monitoring & Management > Backup and Site Recovery.
2. In Name, specify a friendly name to identify the vault. For example CorpVault.
3. Select the existing resource group named CorpRG.
4. Specify the Azure region Australia East.
5. Click Create

Step3: Create an On-premises Service Account for VMware Environment

1. In the Active Directory Users and Computers, Create a Service Account Named , SVC-AzureSR
2. Assign permission in the vCenter to the Data Center level and propagate to all
3. Windows Local Admin Permissions: Make the service account SVC-AzureSR a Member Off Domain Admins or Local Admin Security Group on the VMs where Azure Mobility Services Software will be installed.
4. Linux Admin Permission: Prepare a root account on the source Linux server which will be used to install Azure Mobility Services Software
5. VMware vCenter Permissions are:

Object	Permission
Data Center object	Propagate to Child Object
Datastore	Allocate space, browse datastore, low-level file operations, remove file, update virtual machine files
Network	Network assign
Resource	Assign VM to resource pool, migrate powered off VM, migrate powered on VM
Tasks	Create task, update task
Virtual machine	Configuration, answer question, device connection, configure CD media, configure floppy media, power off, power on, VMware tools install Create, register, unregister Allow virtual machine download, allow virtual machine files upload Remove snapshots

Step4: Configure Windows Firewall and IP Based Firewall

1. Create a Group Policy or amend an existing Group Policy to allow RDP for all profiles i.e. Domain, Private and Public
2. Allow Windows Firewall>Allowed apps and features for Domain and Private
3. Be sure to allow IP address ranges for the Azure region of your subscription. Any IP address-based firewall rules should allow communication between On-prem infrastructure to Azure Datacenter IP Ranges, and ports 443 (HTTPS) and 9443 (data replication). You have to allow these IP ranges in your on-prem firewall for example Cisco ASA and Cloud Firewall such as Azure NSG.

Step5: Setup SAN Policy in Diskpart MS KB

1. Log on to the VM which will be protected by Azure Site Recovery, Open Command Prompt as an Admin

• Type DiskPart then type SAN
• It will show SAN Policy : Online All

·         If not then type SAN POLICY=ONLINEALL

2.  On the on-premises machine before failover, check that the Secure Shell service is set to start automatically on system boot. Check that firewall rules allow an SSH connection3.       On the Azure VM after failover, check Boot diagnostics to view a screenshot of the VM if you can’t connect.

Step6: Setup Azure Site Recovery Component in an On-premises Server

1. Create a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM in VMware vCenter comprised of 8 vCPU, 12GB vRAM, 1 OS Disk, 1 600GB Cache Data Disk, 1 600GB retention disk and 1 VMXNET3 NIC with Static IP
2. Allow port 443, 9443 for this VMs if you maintain internal firewall and Azure virtual network NSG. This VM must Access *.Windows.Net, *. windowsazure.com, time.nist.gov , time.windows.com
3. Make this VM has access to internet and browse Azure Cloud storage account.
4. Assign a static IP address
5. Join the Computer to the domain

Step7: Download the Site Recovery Unified Setup

1. Open the Azure portal and click on All resources.
2. Click on the Recovery Service vault named ContosoVMVault.
3. Click Site Recovery > Prepare Infrastructure > Protection goal.
4. Select On-premises for where your machines are located, To Azure for where you want to replicate your machines, and Yes, with VMware vSphere Hypervisor. Then, click OK.
5. In the Prepare source pane, click +Configuration server.
6. In Add Server, check that Configuration Server appears in Server type.
7. Download the Site Recovery Unified Setup installation file.

8. Download the vault registration key. You need this when you run Unified Setup. The key is valid for five days after you generate it.

Step8: Run and Configure Site Recovery Unified

1. Run the Unified Setup installation file.

2. In Before You Begin, select Install the configuration server and process server then click Next.
3. In Third Party Software License, click I Accept to download and install MySQL, then click Next.
4. In Registration, select the registration key you downloaded from the vault.
5. In Internet Settings, specify how the Provider running on the configuration server connects to Azure Site Recovery over the Internet. If you have an internet proxy server, provide the proxy details here.
6. In Prerequisites Check, Setup runs a check to make sure that installation can run. If a warning appears about the Global time sync check, verify that the time on the system clock (Date and Time settings) is the same as the time zone.
7. In MySQL Configuration, create credentials for logging on to the MySQL server instance that is installed.
8. In Environment Details, select Yes to protect VMware VMs. Setup checks that PowerCLI 6.0 is installed.
9. In Install Location, select where you want to install the binaries and store the cache. The drive you select must have at least 5 GB of disk space available, but we recommend a cache drive with at least 600 GB of free space.
10. In Network Selection, specify the listener (network adapter and SSL port) on which the configuration server sends and receives replication data. Port 9443 is the default port used for sending and receiving replication traffic, but you can modify this port number to suit your environment’s requirements. We also open port 443, which is used to orchestrate replication operations. Do not use port 443 for sending or receiving replication traffic.
11. In Summary, review the information and click Install. Setup installs the configuration server and registers with it the Azure Site Recovery service.
12. When installation finishes, a passphrase is generated. You will need this when you enable replication, so copy it and keep it in a secure location. The server is displayed on the Settings > Servers pane in the vault.
13. On your configuration server, launch exe. It is available as a shortcut on the desktop and located in the install location\home\svsystems\bin folder.
14. Click Manage Accounts > Add Account.
15. In Account Details, add the account that will be used for automatic discovery.

Step9: Add vCenter Server to Azure Site Recovery Vault

1. Open the Azure portal and click on All resources.
2. Click on the Recovery Service vault named ContosoVMVault.
3. Click Site Recovery > Prepare Infrastructure > Source
4. Select +vCenter to connect to a vCenter server or vSphere ESXi host.
5. In Add vCenter, specify a friendly name for the server. Then, specify the IP address or FQDN.
6. Leave the port set to 443, unless your VMware servers listen for requests on a different port.
7. Select the account SVC-AzureSR to use for connecting to the server. Click OK.
8. Seat back and relax for Azure Site Recovery to discover VMs.

Step10: Select and verify target resources.

1. Click Prepare infrastructure > Target, and select the Azure subscription you want to use.
2. Specify whether your target deployment model is Resource Manager-based, or classic.
3. Site Recovery checks that you have one or more compatible Azure storage accounts and networks.

Step11: Create a replication policy

1. Open the Azure portal and click on All resources.
2. Click on the Recovery Service vault named CorpVault.
3. To create a replication policy, click Site Recovery infrastructure > Replication Policies > +Replication Policy.
4. In Create replication policy, specify a policy name VMwareRepPolicy.
5. In RPO threshold, use the default of 60 minutes. This value defines how often recovery points are created. An alert is generated if continuous replication exceeds this limit.
6. In Recovery point retention, use the default of 24 hours for how long the retention window is for each recovery point. For this tutorial we select 72 hours. Replicated VMs can be recovered to any point in a window.

7. In App-consistent snapshot frequency, use the default of 60 minutes for the frequency that application-consistent snapshots are created. Click OK to create the policy.
8. The policy is automatically associated with the configuration server. By default, a matching policy is automatically created for failback.

Step12: Enable replication as follows:

1. Click Replicate application > Source.
2. In Source, select the configuration server.
3. In Machine type, select Virtual Machines.
4. In vCenter/vSphere Hypervisor, select the vCenter server that manages the vSphere host, or select the host.
5. Select the process server (configuration server). Then click OK.
6. In Target, select the subscription and the resource group in which you want to create the failed over VMs. Choose the deployment model that you want to use in Azure (classic or resource management), for the failed over VMs.
7. Select the Azure storage account you want to use for replicating data.
8. Select the Azure network and subnet to which Azure VMs will connect, when they’re created after failover.
9. Select Configure now for selected machines, to apply the network setting to all machines you select for protection. Select Configure later to select the Azure network per machine.
10. In Virtual Machines > Select virtual machines, click and select each machine you want to replicate. You can only select machines for which replication can be enabled. Then click OK.
11. In Properties > Configure properties, select the account that will be used by the process server to automatically install the Mobility service on the machine.
12. In Replication settings > Configure replication settings, verify that the correct replication policy is selected.
13. Click Enable Replication. You can track progress of the Enable Protection job in Settings > Jobs > Site Recovery Jobs.

Step13: Verify VM Properties

1. In Protected Items, click Replicated Items > VM.
2. In the Replicated item pane, there’s a summary of VM information, health status, and the latest available recovery points. Click Properties to view more details.
3. In Compute and Network, you can modify the Azure name, resource group, target size, availability set, and managed disk settings
4. You can view and modify network settings, including the network/subnet in which the Azure VM will be located after failover, and the IP address that will be assigned to it.
5. In Disks, you can see information about the operating system and data disks on the VM.

Step14: Disaster Recovery Drill or Testing a DR

1. In Settings > Replicated Items, click the VM > +Test Failover.
2. Select a recovery point to use for the failover:

• Latest processed : Fails the VM over to the latest recovery point that was processed by Site Recovery. The time stamp is shown. With this option, no time is spent processing data, so it provides a low RTO (recovery time objective).
• Latest app-consistent: This option fails over all VMs to the latest app-consistent recovery point. The time stamp is shown.
• Custom: Select any recovery point.

3. In Test Failover, select the target Azure network to which Azure VMs will be connected after failover occurs.
4. Click OK to begin the failover. You can track progress by clicking on the VM to open its properties. Or you can click the Test Failover job in vault name > Settings > Jobs > Site Recovery jobs.
5. After the failover finishes, the replica Azure VM appears in the Azure portal > Virtual Machines. Check that the VM is the appropriate size, that it’s connected to the right network, and that it’s running.
6. You should now be able to connect to the replicated VM in Azure.
7. To delete Azure VMs created during the test failover, click Cleanup test failover on the recovery plan.

Step15: Understanding and Preparing for failover and failback

Objective 1: Run a failover to Azure

1. In Settings > Replicated items click the VM > Failover.
2. In Failover select a Recovery Point to fail over to. You can use one of the following options:

1. • Latest (default): This option first processes all the data sent to Site Recovery. It provides the lowest RPO (Recovery Point Objective) because the Azure VM created after failover has all the data that was replicated to Site Recovery when the failover was triggered.
   • Latest processed: This option fails over the VM to the latest recovery point processed by Site Recovery. This option provides a low RTO (Recovery Time Objective), because no time is spent processing unprocessed data.
   • Latest app-consistent: This option fails over the VM to the latest app-consistent recovery point processed by Site Recovery.
   • Custom: Specify a recovery point.

3. Select Shut down machine before beginning failover to attempt to do a shutdown of source virtual machines before triggering the failover. Failover continues even if shutdown fails. You can follow the failover progress on the Jobs
4. If you prepared to connect to the Azure VM, connect to validate it after the failover.
5. After you verify, Commit the failover. This deletes all the available recovery points.
6. Don’t Cancel the Task. Seat back, relax, take a coffee break. If you cancel a failover in progress, failover stops, but the VM won’t replicate again.

Objective2: Re-protect Azure VMs

Note: This procedure presumes that the on-premises VM isn’t available and you’re re-protecting to an alternate location.

1. In Settings > Replicated items, right-click the VM that was failed over and Re-Protect.
2. In Re-protect, verify that Azure to On-premises, is selected.

3. Specify the on-premises master target server, and the process server.
4. In Datastore, select the master target datastore to which you want to recover the disks on-premises. Use this option when the on-premises VM has been deleted, and you need to create new disks. This settings is ignored if the disks already exist, but you do need to specify a value.

1. Select the master target retention drive. The failback policy is automatically selected.
2. Click OK to begin re-protection. A job begins to replicate the virtual machine from Azure to the on-premises site. You can track the progress on the Jobs tab.

Objective3: Run a failover from Azure to on-premises

Note: To replicate back to on-premises, a failback policy is used. This policy is automatically created when you created a replication policy for replication to Azure:

1. On the Replicated Items page, right-click the machine > Unplanned Failover.

2. In Confirm Failover, verify that the failover direction is from Azure.
3. Select the recovery point that you want to use for the failover. An app-consistent recovery point occurs before the most recent point in time, and it will cause some data loss. When failover runs, Site Recovery shuts down the Azure VMs, and boots up the on-premises VM. There will be some downtime, so choose an appropriate time.

1. Right-click the machine, and click Commit. This triggers a job that removes the Azure VMs.
2. Verify that Azure VMs have been shut down as expected.

Objective4: Re-protect on-premises machines to Azure

Note: Data should now be back on your on-premise site, but it isn’t replicating to Azure. You can start replicating to Azure again as follows:

1. In the vault > Settings >Replicated Items, select the failed back VMs that have failed back, and click Re-Protect.
2. Select the process server that is used to send the replicated data to Azure, and click OK.

 

Comparing VMware vSwitch with SCVMM Network Virtualization

Feature	VMware vSphere		System Center VMM 2012 R2
	Standard vSwitch	DV Switch
Switch Features	Yes	Yes	Yes
Layer 2 Forwarding	Yes	Yes	Yes
IEEE 802.1Q VLAN Tagging	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multicast Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Network Policy	–	Yes	Yes
Network Migration	–	Yes	Yes
NVGRE/ VXLAN	–	Procure NSX or Cisco Appliance	Yes
L3 Network Support	–	Procure NSX or Cisco Appliance	Yes
Network Virtualization	–	Procure NSX or Cisco Appliance	Yes
NIC Teaming	Yes	Yes	Yes
Network Load Balancing	–	Procure NSX or Cisco Appliance	Yes
Virtual Switch Extension	–	Yes	Yes
Physical Switch Connectivity
EtherChannel	Yes	Yes	Yes
Load Balancing Algorithms
Port Monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes
Third party Hardware load balancing	–	Yes	Yes
Traffic Management Features
Bandwidth Limiting	–	Yes	Yes
Traffic Monitoring	–	Yes	Yes
Security Features
Port Security	Yes	Yes	Yes
Private VLANs	–	Yes	Yes
Management Features
Manageability	Yes	Yes	Yes
Third Party APIs	–	Yes	Yes
Port Policy	Yes	Yes	Yes
Netflow	Yes*	Yes*	Yes
Syslog	Yes**	Yes**	Yes
SNMP	Yes	Yes	Yes

* Experimental Support

** Virtual switch network syslog information is exported and included with VMware ESX events.

References:

VMware Distributed Switch

VMware NSX

Microsoft System Center Features 

Related Articles:

Understanding Network Virtualization in SCVMM 2012 R2

Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch for Microsoft Hyper-V

How to implement hardware load balancer in SCVMM

Understanding VLAN, Trunk, NIC Teaming, Virtual Switch Configuration in Hyper-v Server 2012 R2

vSphere 5.5 is Catching Up with Hyper-v 2012 R2

Is VMware catching up with Microsoft? Yes you heard correct. I said “VMware is catching up with Microsoft” VMware released a latest update vSphere 5.5 to catch up with Microsoft Windows server 2012 R2. Here is a short comparison of VMware improvement to catch up with Hyper-v 2012 R2.

Options	vSphere 5.5	Hyper-v 2012 R2
Host CPU Core	320 (Previous version 160)	320
vCPU/Host	2048	2,048
vCPU/Guest	64 (Previous version 8)	64
Host Memory	4TB (Previous version 2TB)	4TB
vRAM/VM	1TB (Previous version 32GB)	1TB
VM/Host	2048 (previous version512)	2048
Maximum Node	32	64
Max VM/Cluster	4000	8,000
Networking	Link Aggregation Control Protocol Enhancements Traffic Filtering Quality of Service Tagging SR-IOV Enhancements Enhanced Host-Level Packet Capture 40GB NIC support 10GigE Simultaneous Live Migrations is only for 8 Vms	Support for SR-IOV networking devices Dynamic Virtual Machine Queue (D-VMQ) Accelerating Network I/O IPsec Task Offload for Virtual Machines Metering virtual machine use in a multitenant environment IP Address Management (IPAM) Hyper-V Network Virtualization Hyper-V Extensible Switch Quality of Service (QoS) Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) WAN Optimizations WebSocket Protocol Server Name Indicator (SNI) Direct Access and VPN Private VLANS (PVLANS) Trunk Mode to Virtual Machines Unlimited 10GigE Simultaneous Live Migrations Site-to-site network connections using private IP address Cisco NVGRE (Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation)
Storage	Support for 62TB VMDK MSCS Updates vSphere 5.1 Feature Updates 16GB E2E support PDL AutoRemove vSphere Replication Interoperability vSphere Replication Multi-Point-in-Time Snapshot Retention vSphere Flash Read Cache 64TB VMFS 64TB RDM	64TB VHDX VHD de-duplication high availability, performance, reliability, and scalability features on inexpensive commodity storage Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) Resilient File System Deploy large NTFS volumes Thin Provisioning and And Trim Cluster Shared Volume version 2 iSCSI Software Target Support for VMware Virtual Machines and NFS 4.1 High Performance Highly Available Storage with SMB SMB Scale-Out Virtual Fiber Channel 256TB+ pass through disk (RDM)
Local Storage	64TB (Previous version 2TB)	64TB
Dynamic Memory	Yes	Yes
Resource Metering	Yes (Previous version No)	Yes
Hardware GPU	Yes (Previous version No)	Yes
Unified VDI	No. Buy VMware View	yes
Guest OS Application monitoring	Yes (Previous version No)	yes
Incremental Backups	Yes (Previous version No)	yes
VM Replication	Yes (Previous version No)	yes
Guest Clustering with Dynamic Memory	No	yes
Multi-tenant	No (Buy VMware vCloud)	yes

VMware goes after biz critical apps with vSphere 5.5

VMware what’s New

Windows Server 2012 R2 what’s New