Getting Started With Zerto-Part 6: Move VPG from Protection Site to Recovery Site

In last post of this series we learnt how to test failover a VM from protected site to recovery site. We also had a look on series of events that are triggered when a test failover is initiated. At last we learnt how to stop (test cleanup) a failover.

If you have landed directly on this page by mistake, then I encourage you to read earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Zerto Architecture and Components

2: Installing Zerto Virtual Manager

3: Installing Zerto Virtual Replication Appliance

4: Creating Virtual Protection Group

5: Performing Test Failover

In this post we will learn about how to move a VPG from one site to another. But before doing this lets understands what happens when a move VPG operation is performed. The series of events which takes place can be summarized as:

1: VMs contained in a VPG are moved from protection site to recovery site. Move VPG operation is useful when you need to perform maintenance work in your protected site. If you have ever used vSphere Replication, then move VPG can be compared as planned migration. In planned migration it is assumed protected and recovery sites are operational.

2: The moved VMs can be re-protected by reversing the direction of replication. Remember the reverse replication feature of vSphere Replication?

3: In move VPG operation, VMs at source site are automatically shutdown. You can’t restore the VM’s to just any checkpoint. They are restored only to last known checkpoint. Final checkpoint is taken to ensure data integrity.

Note: Move VPG operation can be initiated from both protected site and recovery site UI.

Note: If reverse replication is not configured, there is no protection for the recovered machines.

Lets dive into lab now and see how to perform move VPG operation.

1: Loginto ZVM interface and select “Move VPG” from Actions tab as shown below.

MVPG-1.PNG

2: Select the VPG’s which you want to move and hit Next.

MVPG-2

3: Make sure VM is marked as “Reverse Protection” enabled. If not then you can click on “Reverse Protect All”, which will enable reverse replication for all VM’s of this VPG. Hit Next to continue.

MVPG-3

4: Click on “Start Move” to initiate move VPG operation.

MVPG-4

5: On recovery site vCenter server, you will see following tasks triggered. The moved VM will be registered in inventory and will be brought online.

MVPG-5

6: At the protected site vCenter server, you will see following tasks triggered. The VM which is moved will be first shutdown and then deleted from the protected site.

MVPG-6

7: In the VPG dashboard, you will see delta sync getting initialized.

MVPG-7.PNG

8: Also the direction of replication has been reversed. Its now pointing from recovery site to –> Protected site.

MVPG-8

How to bring back Moved VM’s back to protected site?

Simply login to recovery site ZVM interface and initiate the Move VPG process and VM’s will failback from recovery to protected site and again direction of replication will be reversed.

Thats it for this post. In next post of this series, we will learn how to perform actual failover when the protected site has encountered some issue and is not avaialable.

I hope you find this post informational. Feel free to share this on social media if it is worth sharing. Be sociable 🙂

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