Replication Group Options for Amazon

When you configure a replication group for an Amazon destination, identify source VMs or instances, and then provide Amazon-specific values for replication operations to the destination site.

Content Options

• Name: Enter a descriptive name for the replication group, or change the name.

• Source hypervisor: Select the hypervisor for the source VMs.

  To create a new hypervisor, click Create new.

  When you edit an existing replication group, you cannot change this value.

• Contents: Click Add virtual machines, and then select the virtual machines that you want to to include in the replication group.

Target Options

• Recovery target: Select a previously defined recovery target. To create a new recovery target, click Create new. When you edit an existing replication group, you cannot change this value.

  When the recovery target for replication operations uses an Amazon instance as the access node, you must provide guest instance credentials for each guest instance on the Override Options page.

  • Continuous: To configure a replication group that keeps the source and destination machines continuously in sync, select this option.

  • Periodic: To configure a replication group that keeps the source and destination machines in sync periodically (every few minutes, hours, or days), select this option, and then configure the frequency of replication operations.

    • Frequency: Select the frequency for replication operations. The default frequency is 4 hours.

• Warm site recovery (Restore destination VM at the time of failover): Move this toggle key to the right to create a destination VM only during a failover.

Advanced Options

• Disable replication after group creation: To disable replication operations after the creation of this replication group, move this toggle key to the right.

  After the replication group is created, when you are ready to start replication, go to the replication group, click Manage content and on the Target tab, move the Disable replication after group created toggle key to the left.

• Validate destination VM (Power ON and OFF): Select this option to verify that the destination VM is bootable by powering it on and then powering off. Changes resulting from the power on are not preserved. If guest tools are not installed on the source VM, validation is skipped even when this option is selected.

  If validation fails, the destination virtual machine reverts back to its last valid (bootable) state.

• Unconditionally overwrite if VM already exists: Select this option to delete an existing virtual machine that has the same name and replace it with the restored VM.

• Transport mode: Select the transport mode for VMware to AWS periodic replication operations:

  • Automatic: This option selects the best transport mode for your environment and the type of operation that you're performing.

  • Commvault HotAdd: Uses the Commvault HotAdd transport mode for all restores to AWS when the access node and destination are in the same zone.

  • Amazon EBS direct: Uses the EBS Direct transport mode for cross-zone and cross-region full VM and attach disk restores.

  • AWS VM Import/Export: Uses the AWS VM Import/Export transport mode for cross-region VM conversions.

    Note

    Requires Windows guest credentials to be provided for HotAdd VM conversion (driver injection).

• Failover delay between different priority machines (in mins): Enter a value in minutes to specify how long the failover or failback operation should wait between processing VMs that are assigned different priorities.

  This setting can be used to enable higher priority machines to start before processing the next set of machines.

• Continue to next priority on failure: To continue failover or failback operations when a VM cannot be included in the operation, move this toggle key to the right.

  If you do not enable this option, the failover or failback operation stops when a VM cannot be processed successfully.

Customization Scripts Options

To configure options for pre and post failover and failback scripts, click the Actions menu, click Configure script, and then choose the script that you want to configure.

Prerequisites

• IAM role

• SSM agent

Supported Scripts

• Windows: Powershell

• Linux: Shell scripts

Options

• Pre-failover script: This script is run on the source VM before failover.

• Post-failover script: This script is run on the destination (recovery) VM after failover.

• Pre-failback script: This is will run on the destination (recovery) VM before failback.

• Post-failback script: This script is run on the source VM after failback.

To use sample scripts to validate VMs that run applications, see Scripts for Application Validation.

Script Options

• Path type: Select UNC.

• Path: Enter the location of the script file.

  • UNC Credentials: Enter credentials or use a set of saved credentials:

    • Enter credentials: To manually enter the user name and password for the UNC network, select this option.

      Username: Enter the user name for a user account that has permissions to access the network path for the script.

      Password: Enter the password for the user account.

    • Use saved credentials: To use a set of credentials that were previously saved for the UNC network, select this option.

      Credentials: Select a saved set of credentials.

      Add button : Click this button and then enter and save a set of credentials.

      Note

      For UNC network path, the script output is saved in the source location. Commvault does not automatically delete output files. If the output files are not necessary after script execution, you may delete them.

Configure Priority

To configure the priority of a script, click the Actions menu, click Change priority, and specify the priority of the script. 1 is the highest priority.

Recovery Options

• Storage: Select the storage pool to use as a recovery store for source data to replicate to the destination site.

• Replicate using secondary copy: To replicate from a secondary copy, select this option.

  • Storage: Select the storage pool to use for secondary copies of source data to replicate to the destination site.

Override Options

To change the destination settings for specific VMs, select the VM, click Override replication options, and then enter the following information:

General settings

• Name: Enter the display name for the destination instance, or enter a prefix or suffix to apply to multiple instances.

  You can only change this value when adding a new instance or if the replication group is a warm site.

• Availability zone: Select the destination zone.

  You can only change this value when adding a new instance.

• Instance type: To specify a specific instance type, clear this selection and from the Instance type list, select an instance type that provides the available CPU cores and memory for the instance.

  You can only change this value when adding a new instance or if the replication group is a warm site.

• Iam role: Select the IAM role for destination instance.

Network settings

• Network: Select a network interface for the destination instances.

  You can only change this value when adding a new instance or if the replication group is a warm site.

• Private IPv4 address: Select Auto-assign or Custom.

  • Auto-assign: Sets the automatic private IP for the VM according to IP address availabilty in subnet.

  • Custom: Allows you to specify an IP address within valid range provided by subnet.

• Security groups: To specify a specific security group, clear this selection and, from the Security groups list, select a security group for the destination instances.

  If you select an existing network, the security group will be automatically selected and not enabled.

  You can only change this value when adding a new instance or if the replication group is warm site.

• Volume type: To select a volume type for the instance, clear this option, and then select a volume type that is optimized for transactional workloads or streaming workloads, for the instance.

  The auto volume type used for conversion to AWS is General Purpose SSD (gp2), and for conversion from AWS to AWS, the volume type of the source instance is used.

  By default, the volume type that is set in the recovery target appears.

  The following volume types are available:

  • General Purpose SSD (gp2)

  • General Purpose SSD (gp3)

  • Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1)

  • Throughput Optimized HDD (st1)

  • Cold HDD (sc1)

  • Magnetic (standard)

• KMS key: To select an encryption key for the instance, clear this option, and then select the required encryption key.

  The auto encryption key used for conversion to AWS is No encryption, and for conversion from AWS to AWS, the encryption key of the source instance is used.

  By default, the encryption key that is set in the recovery target appears.

  The following encryption keys are available:

  • default (aws/ebs)

  • Custom encryption keys

  • No encryption

• Specify guest credentials (only used for replication operations from VMware): To enable required drivers to be installed on the Amazon guest instance, move this toggle key to the right, and then provide values for the Domain / Computer name, Username, and Password boxes.

  Note

  When replication uses an Amazon instance as the access node, you must provide guest instance credentials for each guest instance.

Test failover settings

• Network: Select a network for test failover.

• Private IPv4 address: Select Auto-assign or Custom.

  • Auto-assign: Sets the automatic private IP for the VM according to IP address availabilty in subnet.

  • Custom: Allows you to specify an IP address within valid range provided by subnet.

• Security groups: Select the security group(s) for the test failover instance.

• Instance type: Select an instance type for the test failover instance.