For today’s mission I was tasked with building a DR Site for Hyper-V using Veeam Backup and Replication 7.x. I wanted to walk you through the steps that I took in order to accomplish this task.

 

The Current Configuration consists of the following:

 

First of all let’s talk a little bit about the hardware for the new DR Site

 

I was given a couple of re-purposed servers:

HP DL 380P Gen 8 Server

128 GB RAM

2 x Processors

2 x 4(x) NIC’s one BroadCom and one Intel

    1 x 4 Port – HP Ethernet 1 Gb 4-port 331FLR

    1 x 4 Port – HP NC365T PCIe Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter

Currently Running Windows 2008 R2

 

Well first of all I had already upgraded this farm to Server 2012 with Hyper-V so step one will be to simply:

Upgrade the Operating System to Server 2012

Install the latest Support Packs from HP

Install all of the Hyper-V Hotfixes and Patches

Run all of the Windows Updates

 

The design that I envision will look like below:

 

It will include 2 x standalone Hyper-V Servers that will run in this companies DR Location.

 

For the Provisioning I used the HP Intelligent Provisioning Software that was embedded in the server.

 

A couple of notes for this configuration are:

QUICK Configs: Changed from Balanced Power to Maximum Performance

System Software Update: Update before OS Install

Array Configuration: Keep Current (I only had 2 x 146 GB SAS Drives) à We will connect the final storage to a QNAP array. Drives are already configured in a RAID-1 Mirror

 

 

Well Pass #1 was a failure it appears that Intelligent Provisioning doesn’t work well for this version of Server 2012. SO I found a nice thread here:

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/DL380p-Proliant-Intelligent-Provisioning-Failure/td-p/6274413#.U07mB3nn_yc

That pointed me in the right direction.

 

Now I am going to try to download Intelligent Provisioning v1.60 (I checked and I currently have v1.100.158)

You can grab it from here:

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/server-software/product-detail.html?oid=5219984#!tab=features

 

 

I also downloaded the HP USB Key Utility for Windows: (Which unfortunately doesn’t run on Server 2012 R2)

 

 

Once downloaded I simply stepped through the utility to create a bootable USB Drive that had the Intelligent Provisioning 1.6 on it.

 

I then Rebooted my Server and proceeded with the upgrade. The purpose of the steps above are for general information

When upgrading older HP Server to Server 2012 or Server 2012 R2.

 

My Steps to configure this server are as follows:

 

#1 – Configure the Drive Array: For this configuration we will use 2 x 146GB 15K for the OS and 4 x 1 TB 7200 RPM the Replica VM’s

    Drives are configured as follows:
    RAID 1 – 2 x 146 GB – Drive C:

    RAID 5 – w/ Hotspare 4 x 1TB – Drive E:

#2 – Run the Proliant Support Pack

 

First we needed to download the latest version: HP Service Pack for ProLiant 2014.02.0 / spp_2014.02.0

It is 3 GB so be prepared to wait a while……

 

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/try.do?productNumber=spp_2014.02.0&lang=en&cc=us&hpappid=PDAPI_PRO_SWD

 

 

I am not documenting all of the steps below because most of them are really straight forward.

#3 – Enable Remote Desktop

 

#4 – Download and install all critical Windows Updates (Right now there are 79 of them out of box)

 

#5 – Join to the Domain / Rename Machine if not already Done

 

#6 – Install the Hyper-V Role – DO NOT CONFIGURE the VSWITCHES or LIVE MIGRATION…..

 

#7 – Locate / Download / Install all applicable Hyper-V Hotfixes (AUTOMATED)

 

Because I am lazy and don’t want to download these myself I use the an automation script that downloads them for me from:

http://vniklas.djungeln.se/2013/06/28/hotfix-and-updates-check-of-hyper-v-and-cluster-with-powershell/

 

Now I get all of my Hyper-V Hotfixes nicely downloaded for me… Any of you that have done this know this takes a long time

To grab all of these à Cudos to the authors and contributors of this script.

 

 

I have made a few modifications and set this up so now it will not only download the hotfixes it will extract them to c:\hotfixes

 

And Install them.

 

Here is a sneak peek at it….

 

 

It can be downloaded from here:

 

http://1drv.ms/1eU7sSu

 

This saves a TON of time for me now!!!

 

Now all that is required is download that zip file and ensure you run the script from that path:


 

#8 – Stress Test the Array’s using SQLIO

 

We will follow the same process as listed in my SQL IO testing Blog Posting:

 

From an Administrative Powershell Prompt

Run:

 

.\SQLIO.ps1
-TestFileName
test.dat
–TestFileSizeInGB
1
-TestFilepath
C:\VMs
-TestMode
Get-LargeIO
-FastMode
True
-RemoveTestFile
True
-OutputFormat
Out-GridView

 

This script can be downloaded from:

http://1drv.ms/1hNT6Je

 

Remember you need to have downloaded SQLIO and placed SQLIO.exe in the same working

Directory as the script.

 

#9 – Run my Production NIC Configuration Scripts

 

Here is what our configuration looked like before we run the script….

 

 

What we can see is 8 x 1 GB Ports à We want to turn all of those into one Team.

 

Once the Team is created – Several Virtual Adapters will be created for:

Management HOST OS = VLAN 1000

ISCSI = VLAN 2500

CSV = VLAN 2510

Live Migration = VLAN 2510

 

You can download the script from here the link below.

http://1drv.ms/1eTCeuI

 

 

 

#9 – Add new Hyper-V DR Server in the Veeam Management Console and add a local proxy

 

Remember that this is what we are looking for with our new configuration for the DRSite:

 

 

  1. Logon to your Veeam Backup and Replication Server
  2. Open the Veeam Backup and Replication Console
  3. Browse to Backup Infrastructure Node
  4. Expand Managed Server/ Hyper-V / Standalone Hosts

  1. Right Click on Standalone Hosts and click Add Server

  1. On the New Hyper-V Server Page Type the name of your new Hyper-V Server for the DR site

  1. On the Type page select Microsoft Hyper-V Server (Standalone)

  1. On the Credentials Page type credentials that have rights to access the new Hyper-V Host. If this is a Veeam Backup and Replication Server Such as ours. It would already have the credentials that we need.

  1. On the Apply screen just leave the defaults and click next

  1. The Results pane should show a successful deployment

   

 

 

#11 – Configure Production and DR Hyper-V Servers as Backup Proxies

 

  1. In Backup Infrastructure in the Veeam Backup and Replication Console… we can see that we do not yet have any backup proxies. We will need one on each side. So I will configure the Primary Datacenter Hyper-V Host that is running the Veeam Server as the first one.
  2. Right Click on Backup Proxies and select Add Hyper-V Offhost Backup Proxy

  1. Change to the Hyper-V Host Server that is housing the Veeam Backup and Replication Server à In our case Hyper12-1

  1. As we are not concerned about throttling at this time we will leave everything as defaults.

  1. Review the settings and proceed.

  1. Repeat the process for the 2 x DR Hyper-V Host Servers

   

 

 

#12 – Configure Veeam Storage Repositories at the DR Site

 

  1. As we were not quite ready for production tonight as I wrote this – We won’t be provisioning the QNAP at the DR Site as the primary Storage Repository for Veeam. Instead we will be using some DAS storage for now just for testing.
    1. Right Click on Backup Repositories and select Add Backup Repository

  1. Give the Storage Repository a friendly name like:

     

     

    DR Hyper-V12-1 – DAS Storage RAID5

  1. Select Microsoft Windows Server

  1. Select the E:\

    You may need to select Populate to make the drive letters show up.

     

    Change the Server to the DRHyper12-1 Server

  1. Leave all of the defaults on the Repository Screen. As we are just setting this up in a test lab at the moment we won’t worry about limiting the Ingestion rate.

  1. Under VPower NFS Leave all of the defaults and click next

  1. On the Review Screen leave all defaults and click next.

  1. Repeat the Steps above for the 2nd DR Hyper-V Host Server
  

 

 

#13 – Configure Veeam WAN Acceleration for the Primary and DR Datacenter

 

  1. Now we will configure the WAN Acceleration portion of the Veeam Backup and Replication
  2. Right Click on WAN Accelerators and select Add WAN Accelerator

  1. On the Server Pane type the Primary Hyper-V Host Server to act as a Bridge for the Replication / Acceleration
  2. Leave All Defaults and click next


 

  1. Choose the E: In our case we are going to leave a large cache as we do have room on our existing SSD Array

  1. Review the configuration and click next

  1. Validate that the VeeamWANSvc_x64.msi package was successful delivered and installed
  2. Repeat the process on the first DRHyper-V Host Server
  

 

 

#14 – Create 1st DR-Replication Job to remote site

 

  1. In the Veeam Backup and Replication Console browse to Backup and Replication
    1. Right Click on Jobs and select Replication
    2. For this replication test we will be using a Virtual Machine that is called TEST-2012-DR at the Primary Datacenter running Windows 2012

  1. Call the job Replication Test 1

    Do not configure any of the advanced options for the DR Site at this time. Once in production we will have to Re-IP our VM’s once they get to DR.

  1. On Virtual Machines browse for our Test VM and add it in. Note: I have added this VM to the domain so we don’t have to worry about special configurations and permissions for the job to work.

  1. On the Destination Tab select the DRHyper-V12-1 Server and ensure that you change the path to e:\Replicas

    Veeam wants to default to c:\Replicas and this needs to be changed

  1. Under Job Settings leave all defaults at this time and click next

  1. Under Guest Processing Select Enable Application-Aware image processing and setup credentials for the job. Note that the default settings for replica jobs do not prune log files on the source like Application Aware Backup Jobs

  1. Do not set a schedule at this time as we are just testing.
    1. Click Create

  1. Select Run the job when finished and click Finish

  1. In the console you can see the replication job kick off.
    1. Double click on Replication Test 1

      Note the environment that I have setup for this LAB is on a 100 MB Switch and thus my transfer rate of 9 MB/Sec

      This will actually be a very good way for me to test things as I only have a 20 MB/Sec MPLS Connection between this primary site and the DR Site.

 

 

#13 – Validate Veeam DR Replication Status of VM

 

#14 – Test Failover of VM in the DR Site

 

#15 – Validate functionality of VM at the DR Site

 

#16 – Fail Back to Production

 

#17 – Validate the functionality of VM post Fail Back Scenario

 

 

It was getting late tonight so I will update this Blog Posting Further in the coming days with my results.