Disaster recovery orchestration for the Enterprise (formerly Veeam Availability Orchestrator)
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msteffes
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Virtual Lab Static Mapping Confusion

Post by msteffes »

I have been struggling with static mapping in virtual labs used in VAO. We are running VBR version 9.5 U4 and VAO version 2.0.1.1403. I will list 3 scenarios I have tried and note my results and are all using the datalabs in VAO.

Scenario 1
Use DC as DHCP and DNS server
DC has static IP 1.2.3.4 in production and same static IP 1.2.3.4 in datalab with access IP 1.2.3.5
usermachine1 has DHCP IP 1.2.3.6 in production and should have same DHCP IP in datalab but doesn't (I will get to this) with access IP 1.2.3.7
usermachine2 has DHCP IP 1.2.3.8 in production and should have same DHCP IP in datalab but doesn't (I will get to this) with access IP 1.2.3.9

I have the static mapping setup as below
isolated IP Access IP Notes
1.2.3.4 1.2.3.5 DC
1.2.3.6 1.2.3.7 usermachine1
1.2.3.8 1.2.3.9 usermachine2
all the machines come up as expected and scripts will run on the DC but always fail on usermachine1 and usermachine2 also I can access DC with IP address 1.2.3.5 from a machine on a different network outside the datalab, can't access either usermachine with access IPs

Scenario 2
Use DC as DHCP and DNS server
DC has static IP 1.2.3.4 in production and same IP 1.2.3.4 in datalab with access IP 1.2.3.5
usermachine1 has IP 1.2.3.6 in production and should have same IP in datalab but doesn't (I will get to this) with access IP 1.2.3.7
usermachine2 has IP 1.2.3.8 in production and should have same IP in datalab but doesn't (I will get to this) with access IP 1.2.3.9

I have the static mapping setup as below
isolated IP Access IP Notes
1.2.3.4 1.2.3.5 DC
1.2.3.6 1.2.3.7 usermachine1
1.2.3.8 1.2.3.9 usermachine2
The one thing I have different in this scenario is I have a script that runs on the DC during datalab setup that sets the DHCP reservation for usermachine1 and usermachine2 to their replica MAC addresses so usermachine1 gets IP 1.2.3.6 and usermachine2 gets IP 1.2.3.8 in the datalab
All the machines come up as expected and scripts will run on the DC and usermachine1 and usermachine2 also I can access DC with IP address 1.2.3.5, usermachine1 with IP address 1.2.3.7 and usermachine2 with IP address 1.2.3.9 from a machine on a different network outside the datalab

Scenario 3
Use datalab as DHCP server DC is still DNS server
DC has static IP 1.2.3.4 in production and same IP 1.2.3.4 in datalab with access IP 1.2.3.5
usermachine1 has IP 1.2.3.6 in production and should have same IP in datalab but doesn't (I will get to this) with access IP 1.2.3.7
usermachine2 has IP 1.2.3.8 in production and should have same IP in datalab but doesn't (I will get to this) with access IP 1.2.3.9

I have the static mapping setup as below
isolated IP Access IP Notes
1.2.3.4 1.2.3.5 DC
1.2.3.6 1.2.3.7 usermachine1
1.2.3.8 1.2.3.9 usermachine2

All the machines come up as expected and scripts will run on the DC and usermachine1 and usermachine2 also I can access usermachine1 with IP address 1.2.3.7 and usermachine2 with IP address 1.2.3.9 but can't access the DC with IP address 1.2.3.5 from a machine on a different network outside the datalab

Scenario 2 works like I want I'm just confused on how the Static Mapping is supposed to work. From my experiments the replicas that come up in the datalab need to have the isolated IP defined in the Static Mappping. If they have those IPs scripts successfully run locally on the machine and external access works, except if you are using a statically assigned IP (scripts still run though) on a machine when using datalab for DHCP server. The only information I find on static mapping outside of a few discussions is https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100. It seems to be lacking some detail on what else needs to happen for it to actually work.

How do others get static mapping to work and scripts to successfully run on machines in the datalab during setup? Is there other documentation I'm not seeing that has more detail on what else needs to happen for static mapping to work?
tsmith_co
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Re: Virtual Lab Static Mapping Confusion

Post by tsmith_co »

Powershell scripts that you add into VAO don't require static mappings to be setup within the datalab. There are 2 locations that VAO can execute the scripts - Guest OS, and VBR Server. When they are set to be executed on the VBR server, they use the static route to access the VM from the outside of the lab. When the datalab starts, your masqurade IP scheme is setup, and each VM is accessible via that subnet. So, If your VM is 192.168.1.10 in production, and the masq scheme is 192.168.255.x, then the VBR server will access that VM via 192.168.255.10.
Tim Smith
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@tsmith_co
msteffes
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Re: Virtual Lab Static Mapping Confusion

Post by msteffes »

How is it supposed to work when running scripts directly on the VM in the data lab. It only seems to work on VMs I setup static mapping and create a DHCP reservation for the _replica MAC address in the data lab DHCP server running on the DC to get the isolated IP address. If I let VAO take care of it scripts fail to run on the VM because it fails to connect. I try not to run scrips on the VBR server to further prevent accidentally running the script against production. The scripts we run are for getting the datalab ready to run our apps and verify we could bring up production if needed and would break production if it made the same settings there.
tsmith_co
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Re: Virtual Lab Static Mapping Confusion

Post by tsmith_co »

Scripts in VAO that are set to run in "guest OS" can use VIX to connect to the guest and run the script inside the guest. the VBR server handling the datalab already has a route setup into the datalab via the masquerade IP's. So, Whatever IP the VM gets in the datalab, the VBR server connects to it's masq IP for things like ping, etc.
A static mapping is for devices other than the VBR server to access VMs inside the datalab via a production lan IP mapped inward, instead of using the masq IP.
Tim Smith
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@tsmith_co
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