Managing the Replication Policy- Understanding Disaster Recovery

To manage the replication policy, perform the following:

1. In the Manage options, as shown in Figure 17.49, enter the following:

FIGURE 17.49 Enable Replication – Manage

Under Replication Policy:

Replication Policy— Select the replication policy.

Replication Group— Create a replication group to replicate VMs together to generate multi- VM consistent recovery points.

Under Extension Settings:

Select Update Settings and Automation Account.

2. When done, click Next.

Review the VM Settings

On the Review tab, review all the VM settings and select Enable Replication. The VMs that you enabled will appear in the Vault on the Replicated Items page.

Implement VM Replication to Secondary Datacenter or

Azure Region

In this section, I discuss how to set up Site Recovery on an Azure VM by replicating it to a secondary Azure region.

Enable Replication for the Azure VM

To enable VM replication to a secondary location, perform the following:

1. Sign into the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com.
2. On the Azure portal, from the Home page, go to the Virtual Machines menu, and select the VM you want to replicate.
3. In Operations, select Disaster Recovery, as shown in Figure 17.50.

4. From Basics, go to the Target region and choose the target region.

5. To view the replication settings, select Review + Start Replication. If you need to change any defaults, click Advanced Settings.

6. Click Start Replication to start the VM replication.

Configure Azure Site Recovery Policies

Azure Policies help enforce rules on your Azure resources and checks the compliance of those resources. You can enable Site Recovery through a process called remediation for all the VMs already existing in the resource group. A scope determines the resources or the grouping of resources where the policy assignment is enforced. The scope of this policy can be at a subscription level or a resource group level. An assignment is a policy that has been assigned to run on a specific scope.

Create a Policy Assignment

To create a policy assignment for the built- in Azure Site Recovery policy that enables replication for all newly created VMs in a subscription or resource group, perform the following:

1. Sign into the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com.
2. In the Azure portal, go to Azure Policy.
3. Select Assignments on the left side of the Azure Policy page.
4. Select Assign Policy from the top of the Policy – Assignments page, as shown in Figure 17.51.

FIGURE 17.51 Azure Policy – Assignments

5. On the Assign Policy page, set the Scope information by clicking the ellipsis, selecting a subscription, and optionally selecting a resource group. Then, click Select at the bottom of the Scope page.

6. Open the policy definition picker by clicking the ellipsis next to Policy Definition. Search for disaster recovery or site recovery. You’ll find a built-i n policy titled Configure Disaster Recovery On Virtual Machines By Enabling Replication Via Azure Site Recovery. Select it and click Select, as shown in Figure 17.52.

FIGURE 17.52 Azure Policy – Available Definitions

7. The assignment name is automatically populated with the policy name that you selected, but you can change it. It might be helpful if you plan to assign multiple Azure Site Recovery policies to the same scope.
8. Click Next to configure Azure Site Recovery properties for the policy.