The recovery plan using backup copies fails.

[i3uln]

Hello,
I have created Case #08079930.

My client intends to use VRO for the disaster recovery (DR) configuration of Site A.

Site A is the production site, hosting VMware VMs and physical Windows servers. Backups are performed on these resources, and the backup copies are transferred to the VRO server at Site B.
Site B is a disaster recovery site running VMware vSphere. The backup data received as a backup copy from Site A has been added to the backup repository via VRO’s built-in VBR, and the disk has been imported.

In Veeam ONE, I have added Site A’s vSphere and VBR, as well as Site B’s vSphere and its built-in VBR.
In Veeam ONE’s Business View, I added Site B’s ESXi and Datastore as categories, and added the VMware VMs and physical Windows servers to the Recovery Plan for testing.

In the Recovery Location, I added Site B’s ESXi and Datastore, which were created as categories in the Veeam ONE Business View. I set the Restore Point Source to Backup Copies and checked the boxes for “Use Instant VM Recovery” and “Enforce Data Sovereignty.”

I created two Recovery Plans: one for VMware VMs (vSphere) and one for physical Windows servers (Agent).
I configured the Restore settings to vSphere and the Veeam Agent to the DR recovery location.

veeam-recovery-orchestrator-f50/failed- ... 74667.html
I configured this based on the information on the site above, but it is not working as intended.

If Site A’s VBR is functioning normally, running the Recovery Plan triggers an IR from Site A’s VBR.
My client does not want an IR to occur on Site A during DR drills, as they are simulating a scenario where Site A has failed.
Following the instructions on the Veeam forum site mentioned above, I removed Site A from the VRO, waited, and then executed the Recovery Plan, but the following error message appeared: '[Backup existence] Failed to find the backup file. Make sure the source VM is included in a backup job on at least one of the connected Veeam Backup & Replication servers.'

Additionally, if you remove Site A’s VBR from the VRO, there is no way to add the Veeam Agent backup to be restored in the Business View of Veeam ONE. (This is likely because the backup is performed on Site A’s VBR, and the built-in VBR on Site B cannot detect the Agent backup from Site A.)

Can the Recovery Plan in Site B’s VRO still be triggered if Site A’s VBR is removed from VRO or if Site A’s VBR is unavailable?

[Alec King]

Hello! Apologies for the delay in responding, your post slipped through the net somehow.

VRO can of course, perform recovery even if the source VBR is unavailable. VRO does not require any source/production infrastructure at all, in the DR scenario.
We call this a "cleanroom" recovery, and it's currently not straightworward - although we are improving this process in upcoming versions.

On that note, we have in recent versions already improved the internal logic, so please use the latest version of VRO (the post you referenced is 5 years old...!)

Regarding VMware VMs - if you attach the backup copy repository to the VBR on Site B (the VBR that's co-installed with VRO), and rescan the repo so that the backups are available, then VRO should find them. The error message you are getting indicates that this has not worked.
A workaround we used in previous versions was to actually remove the VRO agent from the production VBR, as a method to force VRO to search for the backups on it's own embedded VBR. However this should not be required any more.

Regarding Agent backups, I will have to check on the status of support for Agents - not all hypervisors and platforms are fully supported yet for cleanroom recovery.

It might be simpler for you to raise a support case, so that our team can gather all the logs and then pass them to R&D.

If you do prefer to troubleshoot here, I would have a couple of questions -
- how long have you waited before attempting to execute the plan? Because even after the repo is attached and rescanned, there is a latency while the internal Veeam ONE discovers the new backups, and passes that to VRO. VRO will not know about those backup copies the moment that VBR finishes scanning - VRO still has to build it's inventory, which comes from the internal ONE.
By the way - You don't need to keep trying to Run the plan to see if it works - you can run the Readiness Check. This will report the exact same error you pasted above - until the backups have been imported into VRO (not just VBR)

- what kind of VM Group are you using in this plan? Is it a group auto-discovered by VRO (such as "VBR Job"), or is it a custom group in Veeam ONE? (and if so, are you using the ONE installed on the VRO server?)

- I would suggest setting the restore point in the Recovery Location to 'automatic'. VRO might not be recognising those backups as "copies" because they are imported. Automatic setting should work, because those backups files are the only files related to the VMs in your plan anyway.

Let us know more details on the configuration - or raise a support case, and they will gather everything we need with the logs.

Thanks!