Azure Site Recovery Tutorial

Introduction to Azure Site Recovery

Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is a service offered by Microsoft Azure that ensures business continuity by keeping business apps and workloads running during outages. ASR replicates workloads running on physical and virtual machines (VMs) from a primary site to a secondary location. When an outage occurs at the primary site, you fail over to the secondary location, and access apps from there. After the primary location is running again, you can fail back to it.

Setting Up Azure Site Recovery

Follow these steps to set up Azure Site Recovery:

Step 1: Create a Recovery Services Vault

The first step is to create a Recovery Services vault. A Recovery Services vault is a storage entity in Azure that houses the data and configurations needed for Azure Site Recovery.

Example:

# Create a Recovery Services vault
az backup vault create --resource-group MyResourceGroup --name MyRecoveryServicesVault --location eastus

Step 2: Set Up the Source Environment

Next, you need to set up the source environment. This involves preparing the machines you want to replicate to Azure.

Example:

# Install the Azure Site Recovery Provider on the source machine
# Execute the following command in PowerShell on the source machine
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://aka.ms/ASRSetup" -OutFile "ASRSetup.exe"; Start-Process -FilePath ".\ASRSetup.exe"

Configuring Replication

After setting up the source environment, you need to configure replication. This involves selecting the machines to replicate and specifying the target resources in Azure.

Step 1: Enable Replication for VMs

Enable replication for the virtual machines that you want to protect.

Example:

# Enable replication for a VM
az site-recovery replication-protection-container-mapping create --resource-group MyResourceGroup --vault-name MyRecoveryServicesVault --fabric-name MyPrimaryFabric --protection-container MyPrimaryContainer --replicated-protection-container MySecondaryContainer --policy-name MyReplicationPolicy

Step 2: Monitor Replication Health

Once replication is enabled, you can monitor the health and status of the replication.

Example:

# Check replication health
az site-recovery replication-protection-container show --resource-group MyResourceGroup --vault-name MyRecoveryServicesVault --fabric-name MyPrimaryFabric --protection-container MyPrimaryContainer

Failover and Failback

In the event of a disaster, you can initiate a failover to the secondary site. Once the primary site is available again, you can fail back to it.

Step 1: Initiate Failover

To initiate a failover, use the following command:

Example:

# Initiate failover
az site-recovery failover-execute --resource-group MyResourceGroup --vault-name MyRecoveryServicesVault --fabric-name MyPrimaryFabric --protection-container MyPrimaryContainer --recovery-plan MyRecoveryPlan

Step 2: Initiate Failback

Once the primary site is back, you can fail back using the following command:

Example:

# Initiate failback
az site-recovery failback-execute --resource-group MyResourceGroup --vault-name MyRecoveryServicesVault --fabric-name MySecondaryFabric --protection-container MySecondaryContainer --recovery-plan MyRecoveryPlan

Conclusion

Azure Site Recovery is a powerful service that provides business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions. By following this tutorial, you have learned how to set up, configure, and use Azure Site Recovery to protect your workloads. Remember to regularly test your disaster recovery plan to ensure that you are prepared for any outages.