Practical Operation Seminar

First Edition

1. What is vStandby?

2

New concept design of Virtual Standby Availability Solution Standby Availability Solution to configure standby virtual machine originated from source machine (physical or virtual) and bootable to provide an immediate switch-over recovery in the event of a failure of the source machine. Incremental changes made on the source machines are transferred to the host datastore so that the standby virtual machine can be started in the virtual environment from any specific bootable point-in-time snapshot.

NetJapan’s in-house developed product vStandby is one of NetJapan’s in-house developed products following after ActiveImage Protector and vmGuardian. Copy engine built in vStandby and running in background is compatible with ActiveImage Protector. It has a solid reputation for its high performance and reliability.

No need of standby hardware for standby virtual machine Standby virtual disk is created in virtual environment running on ESXi host. Standby hardware is not required for standby virtual machine. Also, multiple standby virtual replicas originated from multiple source machines can be consolidated into a single virtual Environment.

2. System Requirements

3

OS

<Server Edition> Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 R2 Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012 R2 <Desktop Edition> Windows XP Windows Vista Windows 7 Windows 8.x

VMware vSphere Hypervisor Versions 5.1 and 5.5

Main Memory 1024MB is required (2048MB or more is recommended)

Available Hard Disk Space

300MB or more hard disk space is required.

DVD-ROM Drive Required to install the product and boot into boot environment

3. Main Features of vStandby

4

Standby Availability Solution provides affordable data protection using virtual replica of source machine Virtual standby availability solution, designed to create standby virtual replica of source mission critical server, provides affordable data protection, leveraging Vmware ESXi virtualization infrastructure’s capabilities.

Schedule incremental P2V boot point snapshot Virtual Standby Availability Solution creates standby virtual replica of source physical or virtual machines, takes latent scheduled incremental snapshots of P2V updates made on the source machine and transfers them to the destination host that standby virtual machine is running on. The standby virtual replica is bootable in virtual environment from a specific boot point prior to the source machine failure.

Easy to Use Switchover Recovery Solution Standby virtual replica is bootable from the latest boot point prior to the source machine failure, ensuring business continuity with minimal system downtime.

3-1 Specifications and Main Features of vStandby -①

3. Main Features of vStandby

5

Physical to Virtual Migration of Windows Servers vStandby can be used to seamlessly migrate physical Windows Server machines to VMware ESXi virtual environments. Supports Windows Server 2003 and above.

Restore vStandby Virtual Machines back to the Physical Machines A vStandby virtual machine, including all the changes made while in operation on the ESXi host, can be restored back to the original source physical machine once reparations are complete.

3-1 Specifications and Main Features of vStandby - ②

Support for the free-license edition of VMware ESXi ESXi free license edition can be used as the host target destination for creating and maintaining a vStandy VMDK.

3. Main Features of vStandby

Source machine failing In the event of a failure of the source machine, standby virtual machine can be started in the virtual environment from any specific bootable point-in-time snapshot, ensuring continuous operation with minimal system downtime.

ESXi

HW

AP OS

SV1 SV2 SV1 SV2

HW

AP OS

VM

AP OS

VM

AP OS

ESXi HW

AP OS

SV1 SV2 SV1 SV2

HW

AP OS

VM

AP OS

VM

AP OS System

Failure Boot up

vStandby

vStandby

3-2 How vStandby works - ①

Normal Operation Configures a standby virtual replica on an ESXi host using an existing physical or virtual machine as the source. Schedules can be configured to take incremental snapshots of changes made on the source machine, every one hour at the shortest time interval, and transfer them to the host that standby virtual machine is configured on.

3. Main Features of vStandby

7

Restore back to the source physical machine A standby virtual machine can be restored back to the original source machine once reparations are complete. The machine is booted into vStandby BE and restored. The standby virtual machine, including all the changes made while in operation can also be restored back to the source machine.

ESXi

SV1

SV1

VM

AP OS

Restoration completed

SV1

HW

AP OS

Restored by using vStandby BE.

3-2 How vStandby works - ②

4. Functional Comparison

8

vStandby 5

ActiveImage Protector 3.5

vmGuardian 3.0

Support for physical environment ○ ○ ×

Support for virtual environment ○ ○ ○

Support for VMware ESXi ○ ○ ○

Support for Microsoft Hyper-V △（※) ○ ×

Scheduled Snapshot ○ ○ ○

P2V ○ ○ ×

Cold Backup × ○ ○

Installation Required Required Not Required

Command Line Interface × ○ ×

Generation Management ○ ○ ○

E-Mail Notification ○ ○ ○

※Support for source machine of boot point. The creation of standby virtual machine is only available on ESXi.

5. Installation

9

Typical and Custom Installation Custom Installation does not allow you to select components to install or installation folder. To complete installation, you need to restart Windows.

10

① Select source disk Select the source disk to create standby virtual replica.

6. Schedule Setting – 1 (vStandby)

② Target destination to create the standby virtual machine Type in the IP address for the target ESXi host. Select destination datastore to create the standby virtual machine.

11

③ Standby virtual settings Default settings are configured. You can configure target destination and replica standby virtual machine settings.

6. Schedule Setting – 2 (vStandby)

④ Configure schedule settings Flexible weekly or monthly schedules can be configured to take incremental snapshots of changes made on the source machine and create boot points for synchronization.

12

⑤ Option Specify scripts to run before / after taking boot point snapshots. You can also select performance levels.

6. Schedule Setting – 3 (vStandby)

⑥ Summary You can review the settings you configured. Click on [Finish] button to start creating standby virtual machine.

7. Schedule Setting – 3 (vSphere Client)

13

Incremental boot point snapshots taken by vStandby Incremental boot point snapshots are taken according to the schedule you specified and standby virtual machine is bootable from a specific boot point. Up to 30 bootpoints When the bootpoints are created over 30, the second oldest bootpoint is integrated into the oldest one.

8. Console

14

8-1 Console window

Main Menu

Current Status and History

Boot Points

Log Information

Schedule Information

15

Logs and E-Mail Notification You can configure the settings for logs and E-mail notification.

8. Console 8-2 Preferences

16

Connect to vStandby on remote host Connected to vStandby on remote machines over network. Console function may be installed on system administrator’s desktop PC, which enables to provide remote management capabilities of vStandby on remote PC’s.

8. Console 8-3 Network Console

17

Generate support information You can get the software version information on Support window. You can also access [Generate Support Info] function on the same window. In the event that you experience any problem with this product, please send the support information via E-Mail to NetJapan’s Technical Support Service.

8. Console 8-4 Help and Support

18

① Boot into boot environment using DVD media Boot into Linux based boot environment (vStandby BE) using DVD media.

9. Restore vStandby Virtual Machines back to source machine - 1

② Connect to ESXi host Enter IP address, user name and password for ESXi host which standby virtual machine is configured on.

19

③ Select restore target Select standby virtual machine and point-in-time boot point to restore to.

9. Restore vStandby Virtual Machines back to source machine - 2

④ Start restoring Select target disk to restore and destination disk to start restore processing.