vm DR/backup plan

[khaliqamar]

hello,

Need suggestions,

I am building a recovery/backup plan.

my virtual environment spread over 2 datacenters.

as a basic plan i am keeping backup storage of datacenter 1 into datacenter 2 and datacenter 2 storage will go to datacenter 1 .

i need suggestions, diagrams or guide, please share your ideas...

Thanks

[Alistar]

By backup storage do you mean the environment's daily/on-demand backups are stored on the remote array (vaulted) or tapes? How far apart are the Data centers? Do you have any replication solution set up so far? And what storage controllers are you using?

[khaliqamar]

First of thanks

I mean a full virtual machine recovery stored on SAN for fast recovery.

I have in placed vranger but I would like to re-plan it.

Yes, both datacenters are connected ..

[Alistar]

If you do not use any replication (mirroring) techniques I fear that restoring the VMs from a backup - not from a replicated clone managed by VMware Site Recovery Manager can be quite tedious if you have many virtual machines. You'd have to restore them and then register them on your ESXi hosts one-by-one in your clusters.

The reason why I asked you how far apart are the Data Centers is if you would eventually consider investing in either a storage array that supports mirroring (for example NetApp) or do it via software with VMware vSphere Replication: Efficient Virtual Machine Replication | United States for a proper DR plan - if the connection between these two could handle 30minute-1hour windows. depends on how your metric like Time To Recover and Time To Repair are defined by the application owners.

If you'd like to try Site Recovery Manager in a cloud-based lab environment, use VMware Hands-On Labs that can be found at this site VMware - NEE - look for lab HOL-SDC-1405 - IT Outcomes – High Availability and Resilient Infrastructure and give it a shot.

There are many aspects of DR - ask away if you'd like

[khaliqamar]

Thanks Alistar,Yes this is a true disaster recovery stuff ...

But we dont want to invest more on it even time to recovery is also not much important here .. as long as we can deliver the VM..

i have to make something from only on what we have .. i have vranger which can restore VMs on both datacenters.

do you refer any martial on this stuff .. ( i have seen virtual machine backup guide)

[Alistar]

Ah all right Ray, I forgot to take a look at vRanger - if you are really happy with it then I say you are prepared for the VM restore - just don't forget to test it out a few times in the year.

Also I suggest having the most critical VMs backed up on tapes and have them stored somewhere else outside of the Data Center - if something were to happen to it even the tapes would be lost.

I guess if you are completely new to the thematic and want to invest some coin, try IT Disaster Recovery Planning For Dummies:Book Information - For Dummies to get a better understanding of what DR is all about - proper planning, ready infrastructure, management and app owner support, etc.