Disaster Recovery as a Service

Abiquo 5.2 introduces the DRaaS feature with an initial integration of Zerto into the multi-cloud platform to provide self-service disaster recovery on demand for your users.
This will complement the existing Backup as a Service feature and enable you to provide a more complete Managed Services platform. 

Introduction to DRaaS - Disaster recovery as a service

The DRaaS feature uses a separate Zerto plugin and requires a separate license to enable you to load the plugin in your platform.

In Abiquo 5.2 the Zerto DRaaS plugin supports private cloud environments with VMware vCenter. 

The administrator can configure a Zerto environment with a protected datacenter and a separate recovery datacenter and register them in Abiquo. 

To control access to this feature, there are two new privileges, and by default only the Cloud administrator role has these privileges.

Dashboards

The Abiquo dashboard displays the number of VMs the tenant has protected with disaster recovery.

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Dashboard with DR protected VMs

As usual administrators can set limits for the DRaaS feature.
In this case they can set limits at the tenant, tenant in datacenter, and VDC levels on the number of VMs that users can protect with disaster recovery as a service.

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Limits for virtual datacenters include DRaaS

And of course, you can set prices for VM disaster recovery protection with DRaaS.

The platform will include the new DR protected VM attribute in your accounting data and in the pricing estimates for deploying VMs.

DRaaS in infrastructure

To start working with the DRaaS feature, in the Infrastructure view, you can define the Protection managers. 
For each protection manager, you will also need a recovery protection manager.

It is easy to configure Abiquo to use a standard DRaaS configuration of Zerto Protection Managers for vCenter.

When a VM fails over, it should be replicated from the production vCenter to the recovery vCenter.

Each protection manager works with a single vCenter and each Abiquo virtual datacenter works with a single vCenter.
This means that administrators do not need to link protection managers with virtual datacenters in Abiquo.
Each protection manager can cover the group of Abiquo virtual datacenters with VMs in the same vCenter.
For configuration reasons, the administrator should assign Available datacenters.
The platform will use the NARS remote service from an available datacenter to manage Zerto.

You can later edit the protection manager if you need to make changes.

Tenant networks

For the recovery vCenter, the administrator should create a network for each tenant to use for recovery and failover testing.
To enable a multi-tenant Zerto environment, the administrator should create all the networks with the same base name and a tenant suffix for each tenant.
An administrator must configure the base name of the network in abiquo.properties.
The Cloud administrator should then edit each Abiquo enterprise and add an enterprise property with the key "DR-code" and a value of the tenant's network suffix.

Cloud users protect VMs with the disaster recovery service

In the cloud, on the VM control panel, there is a new button to Enable DR protection or Disable DR protection for the VM.

To protect a VM with the disaster recovery service, the user just clicks the shield DR protect button.

Behind the scenes, the platform creates Zerto Protection Groups.

The Zerto Protection Group are transparent to the Abiquo user and initially, Abiquo creates one Protection Group for the VMs in each Abiquo virtual appliance.
Abiquo does not make changes to protection groups and the user cannot move a DR protected VM to another Virtual appliance.

On the VM icon, if the VM is protected, the DRaaS shield symbol is drawn with a darker line.

Failovers and failover testing

In this version, the administrator must perform failover tests and failovers directly in Zerto.
After a failover, the administrator may capture the VM into Abiquo in the recovery datacenter.
In order to do this, the administrator must configure the use of duplicate VM names in the abiquo.properties file.
Before the administrator captures a recovered VM, they may also wish to create an external network in Abiquo to represent the tenant's recovery network.

Related links:

• Abiquo and Zerto test environment

• Configure disaster recovery as a service with Zerto