SERVER CLOUD DISASTER RECOVERY User Manual
1 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION... 3 2. ACCOUNT SETUP OVERVIEW... 3 3. GETTING STARTED... 6 3.1 Sign up... 6 4. ACCOUNT SETUP... 8 4.1 AWS Cloud Formation Script... 9 4.2 AWS Management Console... 11 5. SERVER BACKUP SETUP AND START... 13 6. HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SERVERS?... 23 6.1 Failover Groups... 23 6.2 Backup Sets... 24 6.3 Reports... 25 6.4 Settings... 27 7. HOW TO CREATE FAILOVER INSTANCES OF YOUR SERVERS?... 29 7.1 Steps to configure the EC2 instance creation Agent.... 29 8. LAUNCH EC2 INSTANCES (VIRTUAL SERVERS)... 33 A. Select AWS Cloud Formation Script- Create IAM User Steps... 34 B. Select AWS Console- Create IAM User Steps... 37 C. Steps to download and install Avlor s Server Cloud Disaster Recovery Agent... 43 D. EC2 Instance Creation Agent- Installation Steps... 49 List of Figures Figure 1: Account Setup Overview... 5 Figure 2: Online Login... 6 Figure 3: Sign up.... 7 Figure 4: Create Trial Account... 7 Figure 5: Registration Successful... 8 Figure 6: Account Setup... 9 Figure 7: Select AWS Cloud Formation Script... 10 Figure 8: Enter access and secret key (in case of selecting automated script)... 10 Figure 9: Select AWS Management Console... 11 Figure 10: Enter Access Key and Secret Key... 12 Figure 11: Click to download Agent... 12 Figure 12: Agent Login... 15 Figure 13: How the agent works? Is your data secure?... 16
2 Figure 14: Where are your disk image files stored?... 17 Figure 15: Source Drive Selection... 18 Figure 16: Select local Storage Folder... 19 Figure 17: SCS Service Migration Service Properties... 20 Figure 18: Select Options... 22 Figure 19: Thank you... 23 Figure 20: Failover Groups.... 24 Figure 21: Backup sets... 25 Figure 22: Server Reports... 26 Figure 23: Backup Sets Reports... 26 Figure 24: Failover points report... 27 Figure 25: Settings... 27 Figure 26: Profile Settings... 28 Figure 27: Advanced Settings... 29 Figure 28: Login... 30 Figure 29: Server Selection... 31 Figure 30: Instance Options... 32 Figure 31: Thank you... 33 Figure 32: Select Template... 35 Figure 33: Specify Parameters.... 36 Figure 34: Click Refresh... 36 Figure 35: Access Key and Secret Key... 37 Figure 36: Create a New Group of Users... 38 Figure 37: Enter the Group Name... 38 Figure 38: Set Permissions... 39 Figure 39: Edit S3 Permissions... 40 Figure 40: Edit EC2 Permissions... 41 Figure 41: Create new Users... 42 Figure 42: Amazon AWS Access Key Id and Secret Key Id... 43 Figure 43: Setup Wizard... 44 Figure 44: Accept terms and conditions... 45 Figure 45: Create a desktop icon... 46 Figure 46: Ready to Install... 47 Figure 47: Installing... 48 Figure 48: Restart your computer... 49 Figure 49: Setup Wizard... 50 Figure 50: Create a desktop Icon... 51 Figure 51: Ready to Install... 52 Figure 52: Installing... 53 Figure 53: Restart your computer... 54
3 1. INTRODUCTION This paper describes an overview and working of the online server cloud disaster recovery solution from Avlor. Avlor s automated online service provides full server cloud disaster recovery solution to Amazon AWS cloud in just seconds. It is based on the leading bare metal disk imaging technology with incremental snapshots encrypted with high security. 2. ACCOUNT SETUP 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 Agent running on the server being backed up performs the backup of server(s) and stores the backup images in your AWS account S3 storage. 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. To complete the above 2 steps, you need to create a new IAM (Learn more) User Account in your AWS account with required permissions to access to your S3 Bucket and store your server images and create EC2 instances (virtual servers). After creating IAM user, you need to enter the access keys to complete the account setup. The IAM user creation can be done in 2 ways: 1) Using AWS Cloudformation Script (automated and recommended) 2) AWS Management Console (manual) AWS Cloud Formation Script: 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. Choosing AWS Cloud Formation Script is the recommended option, since the script automates the process of creating the IAM user and is fast. You should download the script
4 template from our application and run it in your AWS Account to create IAM User Account for DR purpose. AWS Management Console: Choosing AWS Management console will allow you to do the creation of IAM User Account manually. Please refer the following flowchart to have a clear view on the Account Setup.
5 Figure 1: Account Setup Overview
6 3. GETTING STARTED 3.1 Sign up Go to www.avlor.com and click on the Login link (Fig 2) Figure 2: Online Login 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.
7 Figure 3: Sign up. You will be directed to the registration page, where you should register your details to create a new trial account as shown in Figure 4. Enter all the details, accept to the terms and conditions and then click on the Create trial Account button. Figure 4: Create Trial Account
8 You will get a message in new window as Registration Successful. Now click on the Log in link to sign in to your account. Figure 5: Registration Successful Your login Credentials will be sent to your mail once you have registered with Avlor. Please enter your login details to start setting up your account. 4. ACCOUNT SETUP After successful login, you will be redirected to the Account Setup page, where you have two options to select. You can either choose AWS Cloud Formation Script or AWS Management Console to setup your account.
9 Figure 6: Account Setup Note: It is recommended for you to choose AWS Cloud Formation Script to setup your account, since it is simple, automated and enables the creation of IAM User Account in a fast manner. 4.1 AWS Cloud Formation Script AWS CloudFormation is an AWS Web service that provides an easy way to create collection of related AWS resources to the developers and businesses. 1. Select AWS Cloud Formation Script 2. Select the appropriate EC2 Region. (EC2 Region is the Geographical Region, where your backup server images are stored and where the virtual servers (EC2 Instances) are created.) 3. Click on Instructions link to start creating your IAM User account.
10 Figure 7: Select AWS Cloud Formation Script Please refer Appendix A to find the instructions to be followed in case of selecting AWS Cloud Formation Script to setup server cloud recovery. Once you complete all the instructions, you will get the access and secret keys of your Amazon storage account. Check the box, I did this and enter your access and secret keys. Click on the Finish button to complete your account setup with AWS Cloud Formation script Figure 8: Enter access and secret key (in case of selecting automated script)
11 Your account setup with AWS Cloud Formation Script has been completed successfully. The following section explains the steps to be followed in case of choosing AWS Management Console for completing the account setup. 4.2 Select AWS Management Console AWS Management Console allows users to access and manage the Amazon Web Services with a simple Web UI. The following figure shows the details to be entered if the users select the AWS Management Console to setup cloud recovery of your servers. 1. Select AWS Management Console 2. Select Region 3. Click on the Instructions link to view the steps for creating IAM User Account in case of selecting AWS Console. Figure 9: Select AWS Management Console Please refer Appendix B to find the instructions to create IAM User Account in case of selecting AWS Management Console to setup server cloud recovery. Once you complete all the instructions check the box I did this and enter your IAM Access and Secret keys.
12 Figure 10: Enter Access Key and Secret Key Click on the Finish button once you enter the details. Your account setup with AWS Management Console has been completed successfully. Once you complete your account setup either using AWS Cloud Formation Script or using AWS Management Console, the following screen will show up. Figure 11: Click to download Agent
13 Click on the Click here link as shown in the above figure. Note that, you should download and install the Avlor DR agent on the server, which you need to backup for DR purpose. This agent sends the backup images of your servers to your AWS S3 storage account. Please refer Appendix C to find the steps for installing the Avlor DR Agent on your server. 5. SERVER BACKUP SETUP AND START Once the agent is successfully installed (Refer installation process in Appendix C) on your server, you need to configure the agent in order to start the backup of your server images. Start launching the Agent by clicking on the icon created on the desktop after completing the agent installation. The data collection and image creation of your servers will be started and stored in your S3 bucket as chosen by you. Note: The images will also be recovered on your local server, if you choose the local recovery option, while launching the agent. Please read the prerequisites before you get started. The following are the basic requirements that you should know before backing up your server instances to Amazon AWS. Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise). Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise). Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise). Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Datacenter, Enterprise). Important Notes: Multiple network interfaces are not currently supported by Amazon, while migrating your server instances. When your instance is converted and imported, it will have a single virtual NIC that uses DHCP for address assignment.
14 Ensure that you uninstall the Citrix Tools for Virtual Machines from the VM when you backup server instances of your virtual machine from Citrix Xen. Your server instance migration/backup will fail if you do not uninstall the tools. Ensure that your configured host Windows firewall allows access to RDP. If not, you could not be able to access your instance once after the conversion is complete. Ensure that all your user accounts including administer accounts use secure passwords. Ensure all accounts have passwords, or else the instance will fail. Ensure that you disable any intrusion detection software or antivirus on your virtual machine that you are going to migrate. You can re-enable these services after the server instance backup process is complete. Ensure that the size of your server instance is less than or equal to 1TB. Ensure that you disconnect all CD-ROM drives either from your virtual or physical server. The following sections explain the steps to be performed to configure the Avlor Agent after the installation of the agent on your server. 5.1 Steps to configure the Avlor DR Agent Each time the agent is launched, the user will be shown a Login screen. Please provide the credentials that you gave at the time of registration. Once you are successfully logged in (if this is your first time), you will be shown a wizard to configure your server details to set up your migration. Please read the information shown on the wizard setup before clicking on Next. Continue clicking on Next until you reach the screen where you have the options to select the source drives you want to backup for DR purpose. The agent displays all the drives within the server with the option to include/exclude specific drives, while migrating the server to Amazon AWS. Step 1: Login
15 Please enter your online account credentials that you gave at the time of registering with Avlor and click on the Login button to login to your account. Figure 12: Agent Login Step 2: How the agent works? Is your data secure? The server cloud recovery Agent performs full-server disaster recovery to the Amazon AWS cloud in just seconds. It automatically takes image of your complete server disk (including OS, apps and data) and moves it securely with AES-256 bit encryption to the AWS Cloud. Click on Next to continue.
16 Figure 13: How the agent works? Is your data secure? Step 3: Where are 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.
17 Figure 14: Where are your disk image files stored? Step 4: Source Drive Selection. Select the source disk, where the backup images of your server will be stored. You can change the server name and backup set name as per your requirements. Please select appropriate folders for backup and click on next.
18 Figure 15: Source Drive Selection Note: You must select the operating system volume to create the failover instance of your server. Step 5: Select local storage folder Select the storage folder to store the images locally and then click on Next to continue
19 Figure 16: Select local Storage Folder Note: You can also select a mapped network storage for storing server images or select the 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. Go to Start -> Run and then type "services.msc" and click on "OK". 1) Stop the service called "SCSServerMigrationService". 2) Select the service and right click then go to Properties. 3) Go to Log On tab.
20 4) Select the option "This account". 5) Enter user name and password of the system. Figure 17: SCS Service Migration Service Properties 6) Click on "OK". 7) Start the service. Step 6: Select Options Frequency: You can also choose the Frequency of the incremental backups of your servers to hourly, daily, weekly or monthly
21 Internet Bandwidth Limit: Your migration/ backup speed will be decided depending on the Internet Bandwidth limit chosen by you in this step. Local Recovery: Local Recovery allows you to recover your server using the backup images stored in the local folder through our Local Recovery Agent. AWS Import/Export Option: See Instructions: 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 Click Here to learn more on Amazon Import Export options. Click on the Finish button once you choose appropriate options.
22 Figure 18: Select Options The backup of your server images will start shortly once you complete the agent configuration. A thank you message will be shown as shown in the following screen. Click on the Close button.
23 Figure 19: Thank you 6. HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SERVERS? Once you have configured the Avlor Disaster Recovery agent, please login to our application to start the disaster recovery of your servers. After login, you will be directed to the Failover Groups Page, where you can view the status of your server backup process 6.1 Failover Groups This page displays the details of the servers and the restore points of your servers. Every incremental backup from the server is referred as Restore points.
24 On the left hand side of the page, the backup sets of servers is displayed. The failover groups of the respective backup set is displayed on the right hand side of the page. Click on the Details link, to view the status of the incremental backups of the respective server. 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. Figure 20: Failover Groups. 6.2 Backup Sets Click on the backup sets tab to view the status of your server backup set. The backup sets will show you the backup sets of servers, where the backup of server images takes place. The backup sets for each server backup is 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. Frequency : Frequency of incremental backups such as hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly is displayed here as chosen by you.
25 Created Date : This displays the date and time in which your backup has been created. Status : You can enable or disable the backup process whenever you require and also view the status of the process by clicking here. Delete : You can delete the Backup sets by clicking on the Delete link Figure 21: Backup sets 6.3 Reports Click on the Reports tab to view the status of the 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, email id, and number of servers backed up and the audit log reports.
26 Figure 22: Server Reports Audit Log Reports: Audit logs displays the actions performed by the user within the application. Backup Sets Reports: 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 23: Backup Sets Reports
27 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, a new pop up window appears, where you can view the failover Points reports of your server images. Figure 24: Failover points report 6.4 Settings Click on the Settings tab to manage your profile settings and advanced settings. Figure 25: Settings
28 Profile Settings: You can change your profile password and send the log reports under the profile settings tab. Figure 26: Profile Settings Advanced Settings: Under advanced settings you can view the AWS account details such as access key, secret key and the bucket name. You can download the EC2 instance creation service from the advanced settings tab. This agent will create the Failover Instances (Virtual servers) of your server. The EC2 Instance Creation service should be installed only on the Amazon EC2 instance (called as Service instance). This instance should run continuously and must be rebooted many times while the process takes place.
29 Figure 27: Advanced Settings 7. HOW TO CREATE FAILOVER INSTANCES OF YOUR SERVERS? Download the EC2 instance creation service from our application, install and configure it to start the creating the failover instances of your servers. Please refer Appendix D to find the steps to install the EC2 instance creation service. 7.1 Steps to configure the EC2 instance creation service. After installing the EC2 instance creation service on the Amazon instance, you need to setup the service to create the failover instances of your servers. Please follow the steps below to start creating the failover instances using the AWS EC2 Instance creation Wizard. Step 1: Login Please enter your online account credentials that you created at the time of registering with Avlor and click on the Login Button as shown in the figure below.
30 Figure 28: Login Step 2: Server Selection After login, you need to select the server. Select the appropriate server name, in which you need to create your failover instances. Select the Backup set name with respect to the server name that you have selected in the previous step. Click on Next to continue.
31 Figure 29: Server Selection Step 3: Instance options After selecting the required server, you need choose the instance options. 1. Select the instance type as per your requirements. Instances are virtual servers that are optimized to fit for different use cases. Click here to learn more about instance types. 2. Enter Subnet Id and Security Group Id (optional) in order to create the failover instances under a virtual private cloud. Note: Subnet id is used for the creation of fail over instances under virtual private cloud. Enter Subnet Id (e.g. subnet-70f7c61f) of your virtual private cloud in order to create the failover instances under a controlled access.
32 Security Group Id is used for creating fail over instances under the virtual private cloud. Enter the Security Group Id (e.g.: sg-b3bf61dc) of your virtual private cloud in order to create the failover instances under a controlled access. 3. Choose the destination, in which the server images from your Amazon S3 account will be stored. 4. Click on the Finish button to start creating the failover instances of your servers. Figure 30: Instance Options Thus, your failover instances will be created shortly. Please check your online account to monitor the reports.
33 Figure 31: Thank you 8. LAUNCH EC2 INSTANCES (VIRTUAL SERVERS) Once you have configured the EC2 instance creation agent, your backup images are converted to EC2 Instances (virtual servers) in the AWS cloud. Upon downtime, you can select any instance and launch via our online application in just a single click (virtual servers can be launched via the failover tab of our application-refer fig below).
34 APPENDIX A. Select AWS Cloud Formation Script- Create IAM User Steps Please follow the steps below to Create IAM User Account. 1. Create Stack Go to https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/home by giving your AWS login credentials Click on the Create new Stack or Create Stack button. 2. Select Template Enter the stack name as SysCloud-Server-DR Click on the Click here link to download the Template file Click on Upload a Template File (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. Click on Continue (See Screenshot below).
35 Figure 32: Select Template 3. Specify Parameters 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. Click on the Continue button (See figure below).
36 Figure 33: Specify Parameters. Add tags (Optional) Click on the Continue button. Review Review the information and click on continue. It takes 2 minutes for the script to complete. Click on the refresh button (See Screenshot). Figure 34: Click Refresh
37 Go to the outputs tab to see the access key and secret key of your stack. (See Screenshot). Copy both access key and secret key and enter it into the next step to complete Account Setup. Figure 35: Access Key and Secret Key B. Select AWS Console- Create IAM User Steps Step 1: Create new group of users Go to https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/home and click on Create a New Group of Users button to manage IAM user permissions for particular group of users (See Screenshot).
38 Figure 36: Create a New Group of Users Step 2: Enter the Group name. Enter new name for your group (e.g. SysCloud-Group) Click on continue to proceed (See Screenshot) Figure 37: Enter the Group Name
39 Step 3: Set Permissions To set permissions for the group, Click on Policy Generator and then Click on the Select button (See Screenshot). Figure 38: Set Permissions Step 4: Edit S3 permissions You should now edit the Amazon S3 permissions for the group you created. This step allows you to edit selected privileges for your group. Perform the following steps to edit S3 permissions. 1. Click Allow in the Effect field. 2. Select Amazon S3 in AWS Service field. 3. Select "CreateBucket, DeleteObject, GetObject, GetBucketLocation, ListAllMyBuckets, ListBucket and PutObject" in the Actions field (Confirm as seen in screenshot that 6 actions are selected). 4. Enter ARN Value as arn:aws:s3:::*
40 5. Click on the Add Statement button. (See Screenshot) Figure 39: Edit S3 Permissions Step 5: Edit EC2 Permissions. Once you edit the Amazon S3 Permissions for the group, you should now edit Amazon EC2 Permissions for the group, which you created in the previous steps. 1. Select Amazon EC2 in AWS Service field. 2. Select "AttachVolume, CancelConversionTask, CreateVolume, DeleteVolume, DescribeConversionTasks, DescribeInstances, DescribeVolumes, DetachVolume, ImportInstance, ImportVolume, StartInstances and TerminateInstances" in Actions field (Confirm as seen in screenshot that 12 actions are selected). 3. Click on Add Statement and then click continue. (See Screenshot)
41 Figure 40: Edit EC2 Permissions Step 6: Create New Users Click on the Create New Users tab and enter IAM user names. Click on Continue. (See Screenshot)
42 Figure 41: Create new Users Step 7: Review Information Verify all information and then click Continue. Step 8: Get the Amazon Access Key and Secret Key. Click on Show User Security Credentials to view Access key and Secret key of this IAM user Copy both Access Key Id and Secret key Id and enter into next step. (See Screenshot)
43 Figure 42: Amazon AWS Access Key Id and Secret Key Id C. Steps to download and install Avlor s Server Cloud Disaster Recovery Agent The Avlor Software Agent performs the backup of server(s) and stores the backup images in your AWS S3 account. System Requirements to Install the Agent Windows Server 2003/ Windows Server 2003 R2/ Windows Server 2008/ Windows Server 2008 R2.NET Framework 4.0 Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package x86 and x64 operating system platforms Steps to Install the Agent Step 1: Start Installation Once the Agent is downloaded, extract the zip file, right click on the setup and click open. Click on Next to continue.
44 Figure 43: Setup Wizard Step 2: Accept the terms and conditions Please accept the terms and conditions and click on next.
45 Figure 44: Accept terms and conditions Step 3: Create a desktop icon Select the check box if you want to create a desktop shortcut icon. Click on Next to continue.
46 Figure 45: Create a desktop icon Step 4: Ready to Install Click on the Install button to install the agent on your server system.
47 Figure 46: Ready to Install Step 5: Installing This will install all required files, services and drivers.
48 Figure 47: Installing Step 6: Restart your Computer Once the Agent is installed, please restart your computer for the agent to work on your server system. Click on the Finish button to restart your computer.
49 Figure 48: Restart your computer D. EC2 Instance Creation Service- Installation Steps Once you download the EC2 Instance Creation Service, install it on the Amazon instance (temporary instance) to start creating the failover instances of your servers. Please follow the steps below to install the EC2 Instance Creation service. Step 1: Setup Wizard Once the service is downloaded, extract the zip file, right click on the setup and click open. Click on Next to continue.
50 Figure 49: Setup Wizard Step 2: Create a desktop Icon Deselect the check box Create a desktop Icon if you do not want to create a desktop shortcut icon. Click on Next to continue.
51 Figure 50: Create a desktop Icon Step 3: Ready to Install Click on the Install button to install the agent on your server system.
52 Figure 51: Ready to Install Step 4: Installing This will install all required files, services and drivers.
53 Figure 52: Installing Step 4: Restart your computer Click finish to restart your computer.
54 Figure 53: Restart your computer References http://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsec2/latest/userguide/vmimportprerequisites.html http://aws.amazon.com/importexport/ http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/ http://aws.amazon.com/iam/ http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-templates/