SERVER CLOUD RECOVERY. User Guide

Transcription

1 SERVER CLOUD RECOVERY User Guide

2 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION PRODUCT OVERVIEW GETTING STARTED Sign up ACCOUNT SETUP Overview Steps to create a new IAM User Service Instance Creation SERVER BACKUP SETUP AND START Steps to configure the Avlor DR Agent to start backup and upload of server images HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SERVERS? Dashboard Failover Groups Backup Sets Reports Settings START FAILOVER INSTANCES (VIRTUAL SERVERS) APPENDIX AWS Cloud Formation Script- Create IAM User Steps AVLOR REQUIREMENTS AVLOR LIMITATIONS STEPS TO INSTALL AVLOR DR AGENT INSTRUCTIONS TO USE THE EXPORT OPTION IN AMAZON CLOUD WITH AVLOR LOCAL RECOVERY IMPLEMENTATION OF PLAN B FOR SERVER CLOUD RECOVERY HOW TO START MY FAILOVER INSTANCES? TROUBLESHOOTING SUBNET ID OPTIONS REFERENCES

3 List of Figures Figure 1: Overview diagram... 5 Figure 2: Online Login... 5 Figure 3: Create Trial Account... 6 Figure 4: Registration Successful... 7 Figure 5: How it works?... 7 Figure 6: Account Setup Overview... 9 Figure 7: Choose Region and complete IAM User Creation Figure 8: Enter access and secret key Figure 9: Service Instance Creation Figure 10: Instance Types Figure 11: Create Key Pair Figure 12: Key Pair Name Figure 13: Classic-Security group id Figure 14: Enter Classic-Security group id Figure 15: VPC-Security Group Id Figure 16: Enter Classic-Security group id Figure 17: VPC-subnet id Figure 18: Enter VPC-subnet id Figure 19: Choose VPC as EC2 instance Platform Figure 20: Click to download Agent Figure 21: Create Additional Service Instances Figure 22: Compatibility Checklist Figure 23: Agent Login Figure 24: How the agent works? Is your data secure? Figure 25: Where is your disk image files stored? Figure 26: Source Drive Selection Figure 27: Select local Storage Folder Figure 28: Choose Network UNC path Figure 29: Enter Network Details Figure 30: Enable Read/Write permission Figure 31: Advanced Sharing Settings Figure 32: Select Options Figure 33: Failover Instance Options- Choose Classic Platform Figure 34: Failover Instance Options- Choose VPC Platform Figure 35: VPC id and Security Group id Figure 36: Thank you Figure 37: Dashboard Figure 38: Failover Groups Figure 39: Create Instance Figure 40: Backup Sets Figure 41: Server Reports Figure 42: Audit log Report Figure 43: Backup Sets Reports

4 Figure 44: Failover Points Report Figure 45: Profile Settings Figure 46: Settings Advanced Figure 47: Service Instance Figure 48: Start Failover Instances Figure 49: Instance Status Check Figure 50: Select Template Figure 51: Specify Parameters Figure 52: Review Figure 53: Refresh Figure 54: Copy access key and secret key Figure 55: Enter access key and secret key Figure 56: Setup Wizard Figure 57: Accept terms and conditions Figure 58: Create a desktop icon Figure 59: Ready to Install Figure 60: Installing Figure 61: Restart your computer Figure 62: Upload only incremental images to S Figure 63: Take Backup Later Figure 64: Current Backups Figure 65: Mount/Unmount Volume Figure 66: Mounted Drives Figure 67: Unmounted Volume Figure 68: File Recovery Figure 69: Virtualization Figure 70: Volume Recovery Figure 71: Restore Selected Volume Figure 72: Restart Now

5 1. INTRODUCTION As with many organizations today, your server houses critical data and applications that your business depends on. Are your servers completely secure and protected from potential disasters? Your server data and apps depend on many factors that may be unrelated to your IT environment, including natural disasters, intruders, or other interruptions. While many organizations are not planning to be victims of any potential disaster, their goal should be to mitigate the risk if one such disaster occurs. Therefore it is essential for every organization to setup an effective Disaster Recovery (DR) solution to protect their business servers from potential disasters. To solve these challenges, we present Avlor s Online Server Cloud Recovery Solution. This paper describes an overview and working of the server cloud disaster recovery solution from Avlor. Avlor s automated Server Cloud Recovery solution replicates existing physical and virtual servers from anywhere to the AWS cloud. You can protect your Windows Servers with automated bare metal backups with ready-to-launch virtual servers in the AWS Cloud. Incremental backups ensure that the failover servers in the cloud are always an exact clone of your on premise servers. 2. PRODUCT OVERVIEW Avlor s automated online service provides full-server cloud recovery to the Amazon Cloud in just seconds. There are 2 main steps: 1) The Avlor s Disaster Recovery (DR) Agent running on the server being backed up performs the backup of server(s) and stores the backup images in your AWS S3 storage account. 2) These backup images from S3 storage are used to prepare the failover virtual servers (EC2 instances), which are ready to launch with a single click (Refer the overview diagram below). 4

6 Note that, it is mandatory to have an AWS account before you proceed to setup your Account. Figure 1: Overview diagram 3. GETTING STARTED 3.1 Sign up Go to and click on the Login link (Fig 2) Figure 2: Online Login 5

7 You will now be directed to the Login page. If you don t have an account with Avlor, please click on the Sign up button to create a new account. You will be directed to the registration page, where you should register your details to create a new trial account. Enter all the details, accept to the terms and conditions and then click on the Create trial Account button. Figure 3: Create Trial Account You will get a message in new window as Registration Successful! 6

8 Figure 4: Registration Successful Now click on the Log In link to sign in to your account. Your login Credentials will be sent to your mail once you have registered with Avlor. After successful login, you can watch the Avlor How it Works video before getting started. This video gives a basic idea on how Avlor works. Figure 5: How it works? Click on the Got it, Continue button after watching the video. 7

9 4. ACCOUNT SETUP 4.1 Overview In account setup, you need to create a new IAM (Learn more) User Account with required permissions for Avlor to access your S3 Bucket, to store your server backup images and to create EC2 instances (virtual servers). AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) enable you to manage and control access to AWS resources for your users in a secure way. IAM is required to manage permissions for users to access your AWS Account. You can create new users in IAM and assign them with individual security credentials (for e.g. access keys, passwords, and secret keys) to provide access to AWS resources and services. You can also manage permissions and control specific operations that a user can perform in your AWS Account. Avlor requires few S3 and EC2 permissions (as shown below) to upload backup images and to create EC2 instances of your servers respectively. S3 permissions: s3:createbucket, s3:deleteobject, s3:getbucketlocation, s3:getobject, s3:getobjectacl, s3:listallmybuckets, s3:listbucket, s3:putobject, s3:putobjectacl EC2 permissions: ec2:attachvolume, ec2:cancelconversiontask, ec2:createvolume, ec2:createtags, ec2:deletevolume, ec2:describeaccountattributes, ec2:describeavailabilityzones, ec2:describeconversiontasks, ec2:describeinstances, ec2:describekeypairs, ec2:describeregions, ec2:describesecuritygroups, ec2:describesubnets, ec2:describevolumes, ec2:detachvolume, ec2:importinstance, ec2:importvolume, ec2:modifyinstanceattribute, ec2:runinstances, ec2:startinstances, ec2:stopinstances, ec2:describevpcs We provide an AWS Cloud Formation script, which automates the creation of IAM User Account. AWS Cloud Formation is an AWS Web service that provides an easy way to create collection of related AWS resources to the developers and businesses. 8

10 You should download the script template from our application and run it in your AWS Account to create IAM User Account for Avlor (Refer figure below). Figure 6: Account Setup Overview 9

11 4.2 Steps to create a new IAM User Step 1: Go to the Account Setup tab and select the appropriate AWS Region (It is the Geographical Region, where your backup server images are stored and virtual servers (EC2 Instances) are created.) Step 2: Click on Click to Create button and follow the steps to create your IAM User account in AWS (Refer Appendix 8.1 for instructions). Figure 7: Choose Region and complete IAM User Creation Step 3: Once you complete all the instructions, you will get the access and secret keys of your Amazon account. Check the box I have created a new IAM user and enter the keys in the relevant fields. Click on the Next button (Refer screen below). Figure 8: Enter access and secret key 10

12 Now you will be navigated to the Service Instance Creation page. 4.3 Service Instance Creation Service instance is an EC2 instance, which is launched with an EC2 instance creation Agent. This service instance initially creates the failover instance using first two failover points/restore points. The EC2 instance creation Agent will automatically create the failover instance of your server. Upon downtime, these failover instances can be launched via Avlor Online portal. Figure 9: Service Instance Creation To create a new service instance, Avlor requires few details 1. Availability Zone: Each region in AWS has multiple, isolated locations known as Availability Zones. The drop down displays the list of availability zones based on the region selected. Please choose the required availability zone. 2. Instance type: Instances are virtual servers that are optimized to fit for different use cases. Amazon EC2 provides a wide range of instance types that are optimized to fit for different use cases. Select any of the listed instance types from the dropdown. Click here to learn more about instance types. Select the Instance Type as per your requirements. Note: Amazon supports only the listed instance types for server migration. You can change the instance type once failover is launched 11

13 Figure 10: Instance Types 3. Instance Name: Enter the service instance name for better identification of your instance in the AWS Console. NOTE: Instance Name should not exceed 100 characters. 4. Key Pair Name: Enter the Key Pair Name. To log in to your instance, you must create a new key pair to get the password (See screenshot). Figure 11: Create Key Pair You can also enter the existing key pair name for the service instance with respect to the region selected in the account setup (See screenshot). To find the existing Key Pair name, 12

14 login to your AWS Console and navigate to your EC2 dashboard. Click on the Key Pairs link on the left panel and choose the respective Key Pair name available for the selected region. Figure 12: Key Pair Name 5. EC2 Instance: Choose the required EC2 Instance platform. You can either choose Classic or VPC platform to launch the EC2 instances. Learn more on EC2-Classic and EC2-VPC platforms. Follow the steps below if you choose Classic platform: If you choose Classic platform, enter only the security group id and click on the Finish button. A security group acts as a virtual firewall that controls traffic for one or more instances. You can add rules to each security group that allow inbound and outbound traffic to that instance. Security group id should be in the format of "sg-xxxxxxxx" To get the security group id for your account, please do the following: 1. Login to your AWS management console and select the appropriate AWS region (chosen already in the first step of Account Setup-Refer section 4.2-Step1). 2. Now navigate to the EC2 dashboard and click on security groups on the left panel. The list of security groups available for your AWS account with respect to the selected region will be displayed (Refer screen below). 13

15 Figure 13: Classic-Security group id Note: Make sure that you enter the security group id from the EC2 security groups in case you have chosen EC2 classic as the instance platform. Copy and paste the security group id in the appropriate field in Avlor Portal as shown below: Figure 14: Enter Classic-Security group id Click Finish to complete the Service Instance Creation. In case if you choose VPC as your EC2 instance platform please do the following: 14

16 If you choose VPC as your EC2 instance platform, you need to enter both the subnet id and security group id to create a new service instance. To find the security group id for your VPC, follow the steps shown below: 1. Login to your AWS management console and select the appropriate AWS region (chosen already in the first step of Account Setup-Refer section 4.2-Step1). 2. Now go to the VPC dashboard and choose the VPC available for that particular region. 3. Click on the Security Groups link on the left panel. 4. A list of security group ids available for your account will be displayed. Figure 15: VPC-Security Group Id Copy the necessary security group id and paste in the Avlor Portal. Figure 16: Enter Classic-Security group id 15

17 To find the subnet id for your VPC, please do the following: A subnet is termed as a range of IP addresses in your VPC. You can launch AWS resources into the selected subnet. Use a public subnet for resources that should be connected to the Internet, and use a private subnet for resources that should not be connected to the Internet. To find the subnet for your VPC, please do the following: 1. Login to your AWS console and navigate to the VPC dashboard. 2. Select the respective VPC from the dropdown. 3. Now click on the subnets link on the left panel and choose the required subnet id (See screenshot). Figure 17: VPC-subnet id Copy and paste the subnet id in the appropriate field as shown below: 16

18 Figure 18: Enter VPC-subnet id Note: Make sure that both subnet id and security group id are from the same Region, VPC, and Availability zone. Subnet Id is in the format of subnet-xxxxxxx and Security Group Id is in the format of sg-xxxxxxx Figure 19: Choose VPC as EC2 instance Platform After you enter all the details, a new S3 bucket will be created in your AWS account and your backup server images will be uploaded to that bucket. The S3 bucket name (for e.g. avlor availabilityzone) can be found under Settings Advanced tab of our application. Your account setup is completed successfully. Now download the Avlor DR Agent to start the backup and recovery of your server(s). 17

19 Note: Make sure you do not make any changes to the details that you provided during account setup. Figure 20: Click to download Agent Note: You can create additional service instances from the Settings tab of Avlor portal, if you wish to run each failover server on a separate service instance. However, you can run multiple servers on a single service instance. Follow the steps below. Go to the Settings Service Instance tab Click on the Create button to create new service instance. Enter the required details (as shown above in section 4.3) and click on create button to create service instance. 18

20 Figure 21: Create Additional Service Instances Once you complete Account Setup, you should download and install the Avlor DR agent on the server that you need to backup for DR purpose. This agent sends the backup images of your servers to your AWS S3 storage account. You can click on the Help Video button to know how to install the Avlor DR Agent (Refer figure 20). Refer to Appendix 8.4 and find the steps for installing the Avlor DR Agent on your server. Note: Please read the requirements and limitations of Avlor Server Cloud Recovery Solution from Appendix 8.2 and Appendix 8.3 respectively, before you install the DR Agent on your server. 5. SERVER BACKUP SETUP AND START Once the Agent is installed on your server, you must configure the Agent to start the backup of your server images to the Cloud. The DR Agent starts the data collection and image creation of your servers and these images will be stored in your local folder and then uploaded to the AWS S3 bucket. The DR Agent automatically takes image of your complete server drives (including OS, apps and data) and then uploads it securely with AES-256 bit encryption to the AWS Cloud. 5.1 Steps to configure the Avlor DR Agent to start backup and upload of server images 19

21 Step 1: Compatibility Checklist The following screen shows all the prerequisites to start your server backup and recovery. Please check all the requirements and click on Next to continue. Figure 22: Compatibility Checklist Step 2: Login Please enter your online account credentials that you gave at the time of registering with Avlor and click on the Login button. 20

22 Figure 23: Agent Login 21

23 Step 3: How the agent works? Is your data secure? Click on Next to continue. Figure 24: How the agent works? Is your data secure? 22

24 Step 4: Where is your disk image files stored? The disk image files are stored in a local folder on your server and then moved to your AWS account with encryption. Click on Next to continue. Figure 25: Where is your disk image files stored? 23

25 Step 5: Source Drive Selection. A default server name and backup set name will be displayed on this screen. You can change/edit these details as per your requirements. Select the Source Drives to be backed up. Click on Next. Figure 26: Source Drive Selection Note: You must select the operating system volume to create the failover instance of your server. 24

26 Step 6: Select local storage folder Click on Browse and select the local storage folder (destination drive) to store the server backup images. Figure 27: Select local Storage Folder Click Next to continue. Note: You can also select mapped network storage or network UNC path or a local folder of your server for storing the server images for local recovery. If you choose Network UNC path to store the backup server images, please do the following. 1. Choose Network path as your destination folder and click Next. 25

27 Figure 28: Choose Network UNC path A pop up appears as shown below. Please enter the network credentials and click Ok. Figure 29: Enter Network Details 26

28 Note: In case if your server is configured under Active directory (AD), follow the steps below: 1. Make sure you have created user account with admin rights in the AD 2. Choose the network UNC path and click on Next (as shown in figure 18) 3. A pop up appears, where you should enter the network credentials and click on OK (as shown in figure 19). In case if your server is configured under Active directory (AD), username should be as shown in the following format: domainname/username Note: Before you choose network storage path to store the backup images, make sure you do the following: 1. Enable Read/Write permission for everyone in your network (shared path/folder). Figure 30: Enable Read/Write permission 27

29 2. Go to Control Panel Network and Internet Network and Sharing Center Advanced sharing settings. Turn on Network Sharing as shown in the figure below. Figure 31: Advanced Sharing Settings Note: The above figure shows the file sharing settings for Home network. You need to make similar change for Public as well as Domain networks. Step 7: Select Options Initial Backup Time: It is the initial time taken to perform complete backup of your server images in your local folder. This backup speed depends on your system hardware specifications. The initial backup time of your server should be set slightly ahead of the system time. Incremental Frequency: Incremental frequency provides backup of your server images that have changed since the last incremental backup. You can choose the frequency of 28

30 incremental backups of your servers to hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. You can edit the incremental frequency whenever required in the future. This new frequency will be updated for subsequent incremental backups. Internet Bandwidth Limit: It decides the upload speed of backup images to your S3. This is completely based on the internet bandwidth speed of your server. Local Recovery: Local Recovery allows you to store the server backup images in your local folder. You can enable this option to store the backup images locally. Make sure you have enough disk space to store the files before you choose this option. Refer Appendix 8.2 to learn more on Local Recovery. These images can be later used for recovery through the Local Recovery Agent. Refer Appendix 8.6 on how to do this. AWS Import/Export Option: Users are given options to Upload all images to S3 or Upload only incremental backups to S3 to enable reliable and redundant data storage. Uploading all images to S3 becomes complex if the backup storage size is large. Therefore, users can upload only the incremental images to S3 if the server storage is large. In case of choosing upload only the incremental images to S3, users need to transport their server data through portable storage devices. AWS Import/Export allows users to move huge amounts of data in and out of AWS through the usage of portable storage devices (Like a small hard drive or data storage device) for transport. AWS will transfer your entire data directly using Amazon s high-speed internal network. Please refer Appendix 8.5 to learn more on AWS Import/Export options. Storage media destination: This is the portable storage device, where your backup server images are stored. Its acts as a secondary storage destination folder and images from this folder will be saved in your S3 bucket of AWS cloud. [Note: Follow similar procedure shown in step 6, in case if you choose network UNC path as your storage media destination] Click Next once you complete choosing appropriate options (Refer figure below). 29

31 Figure 32: Select Options Step 8: Failover Instance Options Enter the following details to create failover instance of your server. 1. The list of service instance names created either during Account Setup or from the Settings tab will be displayed here. Choose appropriate service instance name from the dropdown as per your requirements. 2. The Availability zone will be changed with respect to the service instance name that you have chosen in the previous step. 3. Select the instance type. Instances are virtual servers that are optimized to fit for different use cases. Refer to Appendix 8.2 on the supported instance types. Click here to learn more about instance types. 4. Choose the EC2 Instance platform. Learn more on EC2-Classic and EC2-VPC platforms. If you choose Classic platform, enter the security group id and click Finish. [Note: Check the EC2 dashboard of your AWS Console for more details on the supported EC2 platforms.] 30

32 Figure 33: Failover Instance Options- Choose Classic Platform 1. If you choose VPC as your EC2 instance platform, enter both subnet id and security group id and click Finish. Figure 34: Failover Instance Options- Choose VPC Platform 31

33 1. Vpc id: The list of Vpc id with respect to the selected region will be displayed here. Please choose the appropriate Vpc id from the dropdown. To find the Vpc id for your account, go the AWS management console with your login credentials. Navigate to the VPC dashboard and find the respective VPC id with respect to the selected region (Refer figure 35). 2. Subnet Id is used for the creation of failover instances under a Virtual Private Cloud. Select Subnet Id (e.g. subnet-70f7c61f) of your virtual private cloud from the dropdown in order to create the failover instances under a controlled access (Refer figure 17). 3. Security Group Id is used for creating failover instances under the virtual private cloud. Select the Security Group Id (e.g.: sg-b3bf61dc) of your virtual private cloud from the dropdown in order to create the failover instances under a controlled access (Refer Figure below). Figure 35: VPC id and Security Group id The backup of your server images will start shortly once you complete the agent configuration. A thank you message will be displayed as shown in the figure below. Click on the Close button. 32

34 Figure 36: Thank you 6. HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SERVERS? After you configure the Avlor DR agent, please login to our application to monitor the status of your backup process, completed backups, and upload status of server images to S3. After login, you will be directed to the DASHBOARD Page, where you can view the status of your server backup process. 6.1 Dashboard You can check the status of your server backup process from the Avlor Dashboard. Total servers backed up, past incremental backups, number of failover servers, and active and completed backup lists will be displayed in the dashboard. The dashboard displays the following. a. Search Option 33

35 You can use this option to search the status of a particular server. b. Status: Backup: Status of backup completed, backup in progress and backup error will be displayed in the chart. Upload: Upload status (such as complete, upload in-progress and upload error) of server images to your AWS S3 bucket will be displayed here Failover: Status of the failover instances will be displayed (such as Instance completed, Instance in progress and Instance not started.) c. Incremental Backup data: This graph represents the amount of data uploaded to S3 in the last 30 days. d. Server Status Status of servers backed up to AWS is displayed in this table. The status table displays the backup, upload and failover status of each server. You can hover on each button/titles to know its functionalities. e. Recent Errors View the 5 recent errors that occurred during the DR process. Errors with respect to each server will be displayed here. Click on a particular error for troubleshooting steps. You can click on View more logs button to view all the errors that occurred during the backup process. 34

36 Figure 37: Dashboard 35

37 6.2 Failover Groups This page displays the failover details and the restore points of your servers. Every incremental backup from the server is referred as Restore points. On the left hand side of the page, the backup sets of servers are displayed. The failover groups of the respective backup set are displayed on the right hand side of the page. Click on Show More Restore points to view the status of the completed restore points that are ready to be converted as virtual servers in the cloud. Here you can check the status of instances created, uploads completed and also start creating instances of your server images. Figure 38: Failover Groups Create Instance: Create Instance option can be used to create point in time failovers of your source server based upon the restore points (Incrementals) To launch a failover of the particular restore point, you can click on the Create Instance button corresponding to that restore points and start creating a failover. 36

38 Note: 1. Point in time failover of a particular restore point will be created with the configuration of the failover instance 2. The create instance option for the particular restore points can be used only once. 3. The instance once terminated cannot be launched. 4. Specific configurations are not required to create or launch this instance. 5. You can use the username and password of your source server to login to this instance. Figure 39: Create Instance 6.3 Backup Sets Click on the backup sets tab to view the details of your server backup set. This page displays the backup sets of servers, where the backup of server images takes place. The backup sets for each server backup are displayed and can be managed here. Backup Set Name : Name of your Backup sets with respect to the server name is displayed here. Description : This describes the drives that you are migrating from your server(s) to Amazon account. 37

39 Frequency : Frequency of incremental backups will be displayed here as chosen by you previously while configuring the DR Agent. Scheduled Time : It is the time scheduled for your backup set to start the backup based on the Frequency when it is configured as Hourly and daily. Internet Bandwidth : It decides the upload speed of backup images to your S3. Status : Shows whether the backup set is currently enabled or disabled. Enable : Backup set is currently disabled. If you want to enable, click this option. Enabling the backup set will come into effect for upcoming restore points Disable : Backup set is currently enabled. If you want to disable, click this option. Disabling the backup set will come into effect for upcoming restore points Edit : Click to edit the frequency and internet bandwidth limit. The changes will come into effect only from the subsequent restore points. Delete : Deletes the backup set and also the backup images stored in your S3 Bucket. This option will not be shown when Failover instance creation is in progress. Figure 40: Backup Sets 38

40 6.4 Reports You can click on the Reports tab to view the status of the server backup process. Server Reports: Server Report displays the user details and the server details. User details displays the details of the user such as username, id, and number of servers backed up and the audit log reports. Figure 41: Server Reports Audit Log Reports: Audit log report displays the actions performed by the user within the application. 39

41 Figure 42: Audit log Report Backup Sets Report: Click on the Backup Sets reports icon (see above fig) to view the reports for your backup sets. A backup set report is shown below. Figure 43: Backup Sets Reports Failover Points Report: Click on the Failover Points Reports icon (see above fig), to view the reports and status of your restore points/fail over instances. Once you click on the icon, 40

42 a new pop up window appears where you can view the Failover Points Report of your server images. Figure 44: Failover Points Report 6.5 Settings Click on the Settings tab to manage the account settings Profile Settings: You can change your profile password and send the log reports under the profile settings tab. Figure 45: Profile Settings Settings Advanced: Under this tab, you can view the AWS account details such as access key, secret key and the bucket name. 41

43 Figure 46: Settings Advanced Service Instance Settings: Here you can create new service instances if you require creating and launching EC2 instances in different availability zones. Figure 47: Service Instance 7. START FAILOVER INSTANCES (VIRTUAL SERVERS) Once your failover instances are created, you can start these instances whenever you encounter downtime. Go to the Failover Groups tab in our application. Upon downtime, you can select any instance and click on the Start button as shown in figure below. 42

44 Figure 48: Start Failover Instances Click on the Learn more button to find the steps on how to start your failover instance. (Refer Appendix 8.8 to find the steps to be followed after starting your failover instance.) Note: Check your instance status under the status check tab of your AWS account (refer figure below). If any of these instances have failed, please reboot your server and check the instance status. 43

45 Figure 49: Instance Status Check NOTE: Boot failure error may occur during the launch of failover instances. This error is caused in AWS while launching the failover instances of your servers. Click here to know how to solve this error. If the error still persists and the failovers failed to launch in AWS, we have an alternate solution to be followed to mitigate the situation, which is described in APPENDIX

46 8. APPENDIX 8.1 AWS Cloud Formation Script- Create IAM User Steps Please follow the steps below to Create IAM User Account. Step1: Create Stack Go to with your AWS login credentials Click on the Create new Stack or Create Stack button (see screenshot below). Step 2: Select Template 1. Enter the stack name as Avlor-Server-DR (You can choose any name as per your requirements). Click here to download the template file. 2. Click on Upload a template to Amazon S3 (Upload the script template file that you downloaded from previous step). This template script, when run on the AWS Console, creates IAM User for Disaster Recovery (DR) purpose. 3. Click Next (See Screenshot below). Figure 50: Select Template 45

47 Step 3: Specify Parameters 1. Enter a new password. This password allows you to login to the IAM User Account via AWS Console in future. Note: The username will be automatically created. Therefore, you need to enter only the password. 2. Click Next. (See figure below) Figure 51: Specify Parameters Step 4: Add Tags (Optional): Click Next to continue Step 5: Review 1. Review the Information for stack creation 2. Check I acknowledge that this template might cause AWS CloudFormation to create IAM resources checkbox 3. Click on the Create Button. 46

48 Figure 52: Review It may take 2 minutes for the creation of stack. Click on Refresh button (See Screenshot). Figure 53: Refresh Select the newly created stack and go to the outputs tab to see the access key and secret key (Refer figure below). 47

49 Figure 54: Copy access key and secret key Copy both access key and secret key and enter in the appropriate field on "Account Setup" page and then click Next to continue. Figure 55: Enter access key and secret key Note: Enter the user access key and secret key of the same IAM User account. Make sure you did not include any empty spaces while entering the keys. 48

50 8.2 AVLOR REQUIREMENTS >> System and Software Requirements.NET Framework 4.0 Microsoft Visual C Redistributable Package x86 and x64 operating system platforms Open 1336 port on your firewall. >> Supported Servers Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard) Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Datacenter) Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise) with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later >> Supported Instance Types: General purpose: m3.medium m3.large m3.xlarge m3.2xlarge Compute optimized: c3.large c3.xlarge c3.2xlarge c3.4xlarge cc2.8xlarge Memory optimized: cr1.8xlarge Storage optimized: hi1.4xlarge hs1.8xlarge i2.xlarge i2.2xlarge i2.4xlarge GPU: cg1.4xlarge >> Local Recovery Requirements We use advanced disk imaging technology to create backup image files of your server disks. These backup images are exact copy of your original disks, which will be compressed to 40% (approximately) of your used disk space in the server. 49

51 Therefore, if local recovery option is selected, make sure that you have enough disk space in your destination server to store the backup image files. Backup files can be either stored in a local disk or network drives for local recovery. If local recovery is not selected, all the backup image files will be deleted once when the backup is complete. These backup files will be stored in the destination folder temporarily since at least one backup image is required to take the next incremental backup of your server. These backup image files will be deleted once after the next incremental backup is complete. >> EC2 instance creation Avlor s EC2 Instance Controller runs on a service instance in the cloud to incorporate the incremental backups into standby instances. This EC2 Instance controller will manage these instances keeping them up-to-date and ready to be launched when needed. The service instance is responsible only for creating the failover instances of your servers and should not be used for any storage purposes. This instance should not be stopped or terminated before the failover instance is launched. Please read the AWS EC2 Prerequisites to learn more. 8.3 AVLOR LIMITATIONS This agent can be installed only on Windows server 2003, 2003 R2, 2008 and 2008 R2. Active Directory/Domain Controller servers cannot be migrated for backup (Note: Servers under the AD can be migrated) Servers installed with AD/DC could not be migrated. We can allow only up to 7 backup sets for each server. OS drive should be selected as source drive to create failover instance. Users cannot use the same drive as source and destination (For example, if C and D are selected in source drives, these drives cannot be used as destination). After installing and uninstalling the Avlor agent, users must reboot the server. Dual boot operating system is not supported. 50

52 It is possible to add only 11 drives per failover instance. The EBS volume attached on the service/failover instance should not be disturbed or interrupted. The service instance should not be stopped or terminated, since it is responsible for applying the incremental backups to the failover instances of your servers. 8.4 STEPS TO INSTALL AVLOR DR AGENT The Avlor DR Agent sets up backup and recovery for your servers and stores the server backup images in your AWS S3 account. Follow the steps below to install the Avlor DR Agent. Step 1: Start Installation Once the Agent is downloaded, extract the zip file, right click on the setup and click open. A setup wizard appears; click on Next to continue. Figure 56: Setup Wizard Step 2: License Agreement 51

53 Please accept the terms and conditions and click on next. Figure 57: Accept terms and conditions Step 3: Select Additional Tasks Select the check box if you want to create a desktop shortcut icon. Click on Next to continue. 52

54 Figure 58: Create a desktop icon Step 4: Ready to Install Click on the Install button to install the agent on your server system. 53