Setting up a Disaster Recovery Standalone ESXi host

[zachm@abmay.com]

Hello everyone. I am fairly new to the Veeam product. Here is some background on my environment. I have three ESXi 5.5 hosts in a cluster with 20 VM's. All of my hosts are connected to my SAN via iSCSI and this is my primary storage for all VMware files. We have a NAS in place as our backup repository (Iomega px4-300d). We have a primary Veeam server that backs up all of our servers. I also have a secondary Veeam server that backs up the primary server. Here is my question. We are moving to a new building soon. I have a standalone host (ESXi 5.5) that I want to restore 6 critical servers and run them in our new network at the new building for a couple of days so we can have a small set of workers operate in order to maintain business continuity while we move the rest of our production environment. Currently, the standalone server only has local storage on it. I am trying to figure out two things: 1. What's the best way to get the vm's restored and up and running on the host and 2. Do I need to have another SAN or NAS set up on the standalone set up to replicate or copy backup files to in order to restore?

I have attempted to take the backup files (.vbk) and run the extract tool, however, this is very time consuming. So I was wondering if anyone has some suggestions of how to achieve this in a more efficient way. Thank you for any and all information!

I did open a case on this issue but I thought I would ask here as well. The Case ID for that is 00522850.

[veremin]

Hi, Zach,

Probably, the best option would be run corresponding VMs directly from backup files, using Instant VM Recovery functionality. Once VMs are published, you can start migrating them to production host (Quick Migration), without affecting users' operations.

Thanks.

[zachm@abmay.com]

Thanks for your Reply v.Eremin. Do you know if I would have to have a NAS or SAN in this scenario on the standalone host? Also, I would just build a new veeam server on the standalone host in order to do an instant recovery from the backup files? And I assume I would just use the instant recovery vm's for the two days and then migrate the changes into production?

Thank you for the information...

[veremin]

If there is a stable and acceptable connection between given ESX(i) host and the NAS device backup data is currently being stored, then, you can perform Instant VM Recovery from there, using existing VB&R server.

As to the migration process, there is no way to wait for several days, as it can be started it right after VM are published.

Thanks.

[foggy]

Zach, why don't you consider migrating VMs directly between hosts, instead of restoring them from the backup? This will allow for minimum downtime and completely eliminate the data loss between the time VM is backed up and restored.

[zachm@abmay.com]

Foggy,

Thank you for the reply. In my current environment, I have three production hosts licensed with VMWare Essentials Plus which allows for 3 hosts. Does that make a difference if I introduce a 4th DR host (outside of VSphere using evaluation period) to Veeam in order to replicate the VM's to it? The issue is I have a hard cut over from my broadband service from the old building to the new building so setting up the DR equipment in the new building and replicating over a connection is not an option. Therefore, I was curious if I can put the DR host on the network and replicate to it right before we move. Then when the production network is in place at the new building, I could use Veeam to replicate the critical VM's from the DR host back into production.

Thank you!

[veremin]

Therefore, I was curious if I can put the DR host on the network and replicate to it right before we move. Then when the production network is in place at the new building, I could use Veeam to replicate the critical VM's from the DR host back into production.

You can replicate existing VMs to DR site before the network goes down. Then, failover to the replica VMs and keep them working for some time. Once the connection is available, you will failback replica VMs to production environment.

Thanks.