Source VM shutdown before failover for Failover Plan

[wjching]

Hi All,

I am testing some of the many failover options that is available on veeam.

Planned Failover : Shuts down the VM on source server and powers on VM on the target server. Applicable to 1 VM at a time only.
Failover Now : Does not shut down the VM on source Server and powers on VM on the target server. Applicable to 1 Vm at a time only.
Failover Plan : Allows the Veeam administrator to select multiple VM's and allows for sequential boot sequence on selected VM's, however this option does not shut down Vm on source server.

For a Failover Plan, would it be possible to incur a shut down on the source VM before powering it up on the Target Hosts? I did see some scripting options that can be applied, can this only be achieved via scripting ?

As always thanks in advance

Regards,
Wen Jun.

[veremin]

I don't have console handy, but can't you multi-select replica VMs and execute failover or planned failover for them? Thanks.

[wjching]

Hi Eremin,

Yes that can be done. However, I was thinking of automating the failover using a failover plan. However, if i configure failover plan as it is. During failover the Source VM's do not shut down automatically such as how a planned failover would work. Is there anything I can do to make the source server shut down during the failover?

Lets just say i want to cater failover for say 50 - 100 VM's for example, and execute the failover in a timely manner.

As always thanks in advance everyone

Regards,
Wen Jun

[veremin]

If you multi-select replica VMs and execute planned failover, source VMs will be shutdown.

If you want to stick with failover plan, then, you will need to write a PS script. The script will shutdown production VMs and execute failover plan afterwards.

Thanks.

[wjching]

Hi Eremin,

Thanks for the insight on this. However, I have added my source VM's via v-centre, not too sure if PS has the commands to execute this. A quick lookup online PS for executing VM shut down indicates that PS is only capable on shutting down VM's on HYPER-V platform.

Regards,
Wen Jun.

[veremin]

You need to leverage PowerCLI, Stop-VM cmdlet or similar. Thanks.

[wjching]

Hi Eremin,

Thanks for tip. I will be sure to look into testing it in my lab prior to actual implementation on customer DR Drill. Wonder if there are any script repository where we can reference on this.

Regards,
Wen Jun.

[veremin]

Most of the examples can be found in the corresponding subforum. Also, we have repository on a github. Thanks.

[o0BackupDude0o]

I wanted to ask why is this feature not possible to run from VBR console for so many years? Adding PLANNED FAILOVER PLAN
Can this be pushed to development? Doesn not seem to be very hard since almost everything is in place already...

Why we prepare a Planed failoverplan? THe reason is pure business related. Customer want to have options to start either a classic DR with no source check, and Planned Failover when are forced to do it but have some time to prepare.
Secondly the Failover plan is replicated to VCC, thus using VSPC, you can start it from portal without having to access console and do all manually which is prone to human error.
Imagine doing that for 100ths of VMs.. are you really thinking this should be that manual process?
This is many times stated as flaw during technical preentations and business talks with clients.