Virtual Lab from Replica

[johntnavi]

I am sure this has been asked quite a few times but I would like to create a virtual lab from our replication job, is this possible? We need to test our DR site and would like to use the replica job.

Thanks in advance.
J

[veremin]

If I’ve understood you correctly, you’re willing to test your replica VM that resides on DR site. If so, please be aware that there is no need to create a Virtual Lab in order to do it, you can just simply isolate its network from the production network, power it up and test manually.

Moreover, such scenario is even covered in our sticky FAQ.

Or can it be that I missing something obvious here?

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[johntnavi]

thanks, can I setup a proxy for that as well?

[Vitaliy S.]

Can you please elaborate on why do you want to do that? Not sure I'm following you.

[johntnavi]

We need to power up the replica site and have users from the Production site connect to it and confirm that all apps and connections are working correctly and that data is being fed\read into the correct systems.

[Vitaliy S.]

Oh, ok! Yes, you can setup any routing proxy for the isolated environment and route all requests from the production site to the lab.

[johntnavi]

One more on this subject. Will those VM's be in read only mode? thanks for your assistance and we love VEEAM.

[veremin]

Machine will be in read-only state, while all of the changes will be written to the delta-file.

So, in the end of you testing process, you need to shutdown replica VM and discarded changes by reverting to current snapshot.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[johntnavi]

I would like to throw one more thing into the mix here. We have Prod Site and DR site, I Backup everything in Prod site to local storage then back it up to tape. I would like to restore the tape to my DR site and create a virtual lab there and utilize the ESX servers there as well. What would be the steps to accomplish this and is this possible? Thanks.

[veremin]

I would like to restore the tape to my DR site and create a virtual lab there and utilize the ESX servers there as well. What would be the steps to accomplish this and is this possible?

Providing I’ve understood you correctly the steps should be as the following. DR: Restore backup files from tape, using native tape software.

1) Connect your DR hosts to VB&R console. If it’s already connected, proceed to step 2.
2) DR: Create new virtual lab, choosing in the virtual lab settings DR host.
3) DR: Using VB&R, restore corresponding VMs to the virtual lab created at step 2.
4) Test restored VMs there.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[johntnavi]

Do I need to import the backups first before using them in the DR Site?

[veremin]

Yep. For doing it: right-click “Backups” node -> Import Backup -> and choose a location of restored backup-files.

Otherwise, you can use a standalone utility called extract.exe, which comes with every Veeam B&R installation and allows to restore VMs from any VBK file created by Veeam B&R, even without the product installed.

For more information regarding it please see corresponding User Guide (p.317).

Hope this helps.
Thanks.