vRanger 7.7.1 - User Guide

Performing a failover

Performing a failover

If the production site becomes unavailable, or you need to move the workload to the disaster recovery (DR) site, you can perform a failover operation from the vRanger UI.

A failover operation consists of the following actions:

•	Turning on the production VM.

•	[Optional] Performing a final synchronization between sites. This action ensures that no data is lost during a failover. If you do not want to synchronize changes — in the event of a virus, perhaps — or cannot (if a hardware failure occurred), data changed since the last replication pass is lost.

•	Turn on the DR VM.

•	Reverse the replication job, with the DR VM now acting as the source.

 

NOTE: The first replication pass after failing over sends the entire image, not just the changed data.

To perform a failover:

1	In the My Jobs view, select a replication job.

2	Click the Failover icon.

3	When the confirmation message appears, click Yes.

4	When the Confirm Synchronization dialog box appears, select one of the following:

▪	Yes: This option shuts down the production VM and perform a final synchronization to the DR site. This option ensures that no data is lost, but also transfers any virus or corruption to the replica VM. View the replication progress in the Running Tasks section of the vRanger UI.

 

NOTE: If you are using differential replication, this option causes vRanger to perform a complete scan of the VM disks, as it does for every replication pass, but only changed data is sent to the replica VM.

▪	No: The production VM is turned off, but no changes are sent to the DR replica.

After the failover completes, the Destination of the original replication job is now the Source, and the original Source is now the Destination. In other words, the job is now set to replicate from the DR site to the Production site. This change is not reflected in the vRanger UI. Jobs that have been failed over are indicated by a failover icon and tool-tip message.

5	If the production site is unavailable, or you do not want to replicate changes, disable the replication job.

Performing failback

Performing failback

When the production server has been returned to proper operation, you usually need to failback the replicated VM to the production site. A failback is simply a failover back to the production site.

A failback operation involves the following events:

•	Turning off the disaster recovery (DR) VM.

•	[Optional] Performing a final synchronization between sites. This action ensures that any data changed on the DR VM is replicated back to the production site. If you do not synchronize changes, data changed since the last replication pass is lost.

•	Turn on the production VM.

•	Reverse the replication job — return to the jobs original configuration — with the DR VM now acting as the target.

•	If the job is enabled, replication continues, sending changes from the source production VM to the DR target.

 

NOTE: The first replication pass after failing back re-scans the entire image to identify changed blocks. Only changed data is sent.

To perform a failback:

1	In the My Jobs view, select a replication job.

2	Click the Failback icon.

3	When the confirmation message appears, click Yes.

4	When the Confirm Synchronization dialog box appear, select one of the following:

▪	Yes: This option ensures that any data changed on the DR VM is replicated back to the production site. If you do not want to synchronize, data changed since the last replication pass is lost. View the replication progress in the Running Tasks section of the vRanger UI.

▪	No: The DR VM turned off, but no changes are sent to the Production site.

After the failback completes, the direction of replication reverses again, this time returning to the original configuration. The Failover icon is no longer shown.

Reports

About vRanger reports

The My Reports view is a gateway to creating, editing, and distributing custom reports. There are several report types:

•	Backup Job Summary Report

•	Backup Task Report

•	Replicate Job Summary Report

•	Replicate Task Report

•	Restore Job Summary Report

•	Restore Task Report

As you create reports, the documents nest under the node of the relevant report type. When you create a backup job, you can configure a report to display in the body of an email. The report indicates which jobs were run, which succeeded, and which failed. You can also schedule a report to run, save it as a PDF, and send it as an email attachment.

Report information is organized by VM and includes when backups, replicates and restores were run, who ran them, and the status of each. You can create a report for results from one or multiple VMs. Reports can contain customized metrics — for example, date range (day, month), status (successful, failed, stopped). You can run reports when you create them or you can schedule them to be generated later.

For information on the layout of the My Reports view, see My Reports view.

Generating a report using the Report Wizard

Generating a report using the Report Wizard

Through the Report Wizard, you can generate reports that are filtered by date/time and status. For example, you can generate a report that includes only backup or restore tasks or jobs that failed over the last 10 days.

Complete the steps in the following procedure to schedule a report using the Report Wizard.

To use the Report Wizard:

1	In the main vRanger UI, click the My Reports view.

2	Start the Report Wizard by doing one of the following:

▪	Right-click one of the nodes, and click Add.

▪	Select one of the nodes, and then click the Add icon on the View toolbar.

3	On the Report Filter page, enter the information as described in the following table.

 

Option	Description
Date Range	Narrow report data using these fields: • Over the last: Enter the number in the first field and select Days or Months from the drop-down list — the default is 30 days. • Between: Click this option button to enable the two drop-down date lists. Click each to display a calendar from which you can select a date range.
Machine/Source Repository	• Machine: Select a machine type — to restrict report data. • Source: From this drop-down list, you can select All or any individual source. All licensed, available sources are listed here. • Repository: This drop-down list allows you to filter the report results by repository.
Duration	In this section, you can enter a number in the Greater than or equal to __ minutes field. The value you enter restricts the report to include only jobs that occurred within that time limit —  the default is 0.
Job Status	The check boxes available in this section refer to the status of any job that you might include in reports. Available values are: Completed, Failed, Aborted, and Cancelled. NOTE: Because Jobs cannot fail (Tasks within Jobs can), searching for Job Status - Failed yields no results. To generate a list of unsuccessful activities, search for Task Status - Failed.

4	On the Column Selection page, customize your report by doing the following:

▪	Under Selected Columns, select any column you do not want to include in the report, and then click Clear Column to move it to the Available Columns field and remove it from the report. Columns include the following:

▫

Job Name

▫

Source

▫	Repository

▫	Job Status

▫	Machine Type

▫	Start Time

▫

End Time

▫	Duration (minutes)

▫

# Success

▫

# Failed

▫	# Canceled

▫

# Aborted

▪	To move all columns to the Available Columns field and select the columns you want to appear in the report, click Clear All, select the column you want to include from the Available Columns field, and then click Add Column.

5	On the Header and Footer Style Selection page, select the Body Style, Header Style, and Footer Style as described in the following tables, and then click Next.

 

Body style
Font	Click the browse (…) button to open the Font dialog box; select your preferred Font, Font style, Size, and Effects for the body of the report; and then click OK. NOTE: The default is Arial, 8, Regular.
Even Row Color	To increase readability, select a color in which you want the even rows of the report to appear by clicking the browse (…), selecting a color, and clicking OK.
Odd Row Color	To increase readability, select a color in which you want the odd rows of the report to appear by clicking the browse (…), selecting a color, and clicking OK. NOTE: For best readability, the color selected for the odd rows should be in contrast with the color selected for the even rows.

 

Header style
Logo	[Optional] Browse to select an image to display in the header.
Text	[Optional] Enter any text that you want displayed in the header.
Font	Click the browse (…) button to open the Font dialog box; select your preferred Font, Font style, Size, and Effects for the report header; and then click OK.
Show Time and Date in the report header	Select this option if you want the header to include the current date and time.

 

Footer style
Logo	[Optional] Browse to select an image to display in the footer.
Text	[Optional] Enter any text that you want displayed in the footer.
Font	Click the browse (…) button to open the Font dialog box; select your preferred Font, Font style, Size, and Effects for the report footer; and then click OK. NOTE: The footer refers to the status of any job that you might include in reports. Available values are: Completed, Failed, Aborted, and Cancelled.
Show Time and Date in the report header	Select this option if you want the footer to include the current date and time.

6	On the Recurrence Schedule Selection page, select a schedule for generating the report or make the report available on demand using the options described in the following table, and then click Next.

 

Option	Description
This will be an On Demand job…	If you select this option, no schedule for the report is set; it occurs on demand. When the page appears, this option is selected by default and all other options are disabled. Clearing this option enables the other options and lets you schedule a report based on a specific time frame.
Start Time	The time of day at which to run the report.
Recurrence Pattern	In this section, you establish how often the report should be generated. There are five options within this section: • Daily: The daily option can be scheduled to run the report every weekday or every x number of days. • Weekly: vRanger can be configured to run on weekly intervals, from every week to every 99 weeks. The day of the week on which to run reports can be configured. • Monthly: The monthly option offers the following configurations: ▪ Day [x] of every [y] month: x can be any value from 1 to 31. This value determines the day of the month on which the job occurs. y can be any value from 1 to 99. This value determines the monthly interval — for example, every two months sets the job to run every other month. ▪ The [f] [d] of every [y] month(s): f can be either: first, second, third, fourth or last. d can be: weekday, weekend day, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. y can be any value from 1 to 99. This value determines the monthly interval — for example, every two months sets the report to run every other month. • Yearly: The yearly option offers the following configurations: ▪ Every [m] [x]: m is any month of the year. This value determines the month of the year in which the report occurs. x can be any value from 1 to 31. This value determines the day of the month on which the report occurs. ▪ The [f] [d] of [m]: f can be either: first, second, third, fourth, or last. d can be: day, weekday, weekend day, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. m is any month of the year. This value determines the month of the year in which the report occurs. • Interval: The interval option lets you select the number of days, hours, and minutes that should pass between report jobs. NOTE: The interval selected must be greater than or equal to five minutes.
Range of Recurrence	Select the start and end date for running the report. • No end date: The report continues to run until it is stopped. • End after: Select the number of occurrences. • End by: Select the date by which to end the recurrence.

7	If you opted to run the report on demand, skip to Step 9.

8	If you scheduled a time for the report to recur, configure the email settings on the Report Publication page described in the following table, and then click Next.

 

Option	Description
To	Use the browse button to select one or more email addresses from the vRanger Address Book to whom you want to send the report. NOTE: For more information about adding addresses to the Address Book, see Setting up the SMTP server.
Subject	Enter the text you want to appear in the Subject line of the email that is sent with the report.
Body	Enter the message you want to appear in the body of the email that is sent with the report.
Send as	Select the format in which you want the report to appear. Options include the following: • PDF • Excel

9	On the Report Summary page, verify that the information is correct, and then click Finish.