Learn how to implement Azure Site Recovery

Implementing Azure Site Recovery (ASR) involves configuring and replicating your infrastructure to ensure business continuity during outages.

ASR enables disaster recovery for Azure VMs, on-premises machines, and workloads by replicating data to another Azure region or on-premises location.

Here's a step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Prepare Your Environment

1. Identify Recovery Objectives:

   • Define your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).

   • Identify the workloads and VMs to be protected.

2. Review Prerequisites:

   • Ensure all Azure resources, such as virtual networks and storage accounts, are in place.

   • Verify region compatibility for disaster recovery.

3. Plan Network Configuration:

   • Prepare a failover virtual network in the target Azure region.

   • Configure subnets, NSGs, and routing as per your requirements.

Step 2: Set Up Azure Site Recovery

1. Create a Recovery Services Vault:

   • In the Azure Portal, search for Recovery Services Vaults.

   • Click + Create, specify the subscription, resource group, and region.

   • Click Review + Create and then Create.

2. Enable Site Recovery:

   • Open the Recovery Services Vault and select Site Recovery under Getting Started.

   • Click Prepare Infrastructure to begin the setup.

Step 3: Configure Replication

1. Source Settings:

   • Specify the source location (Azure or on-premises).

   • For on-premises, download and install the Site Recovery Configuration Server.

2. Target Settings:

   • Select the target region for replication.

   • Choose the recovery virtual network where VMs will fail over.

3. Replication Policy: Use the default policy or create a custom one specifying:

   • Recovery Point Retention: Number of hours to retain data.

   • App-Consistent Snapshots: Frequency of consistent recovery points.

Step 4: Enable Replication for Resources

1. Add Virtual Machines:

   • For Azure VMs: Select the VMs you want to protect.

   • For on-premises VMs: Add VMs by connecting to the Configuration Server.

2. Start Replication:

   • ASR will perform an initial replication of the source VM or workload to the target region.

3. Monitor Replication:

   • Check the replication status in the Replicated Items section of the vault.

Step 5: Perform a Test Failover

1. Initiate Test Failover:

   • In the Recovery Services Vault, go to Replicated Items.

   • Select a VM and click Test Failover.

   • Choose the recovery point and target network for testing.

2. Validate Recovery:

   • Confirm that the application or workload is functional in the failover environment.

3. Clean Up:

   • After testing, complete the failover test and clean up resources.

Step 6: Perform Failover and Failback (During Disaster)

1. Failover:

   • In the vault, initiate a failover for selected VMs.

   • Specify the recovery point to use for failover.

   • Validate that the workloads are functional in the secondary region.

2. Failback:

   • After resolving the issue in the primary region, initiate a failback.

   • ASR supports Reverse Replication to sync data back to the primary region.

Step 7: Monitor and Optimize

1. Monitor ASR:

   • Use Azure Monitor to track replication health, failover readiness, and recovery point objectives.

   • Set up alerts for any replication issues.

2. Optimize Costs:

   • Review storage and compute costs for replicated VMs.

   • Use reserved instances or scale-down strategies to manage failover resource costs.

Key Considerations for ASR Implementation

Summary

Azure Site Recovery ensures business continuity by replicating workloads to a secondary location.

Implementing ASR involves setting up a Recovery Services Vault, configuring replication, testing failovers, and ensuring ongoing monitoring and optimization.

This approach provides a robust disaster recovery solution tailored to your organization’s needs.