Configure disaster recovery as a service with Zerto

This page describes the steps to set up the Abiquo multi-cloud platform for Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) with Zerto in private cloud.

Prepare Zerto environment

A typical Zerto test environment for private cloud DRaaS would contain two vCenter clusters: a protected cluster and a recovery cluster. For a quick guide, see Abiquo and Zerto test environment. This guide has not been updated for Zerto 9.7 U2.

Check the requirements and limitations of the Zerto product, which also apply in Abiquo. For example, for VM protection see Zerto limitations.

Abiquo uses the Zerto API so it cannot filter folders by cluster. All folders of all clusters in the vCenter are shown, so multiple root folders may display. If this happens, rename your datastore folders to give them unique names. And in your configuration, for the abiquo.draas.recovery.folder.name property, set a unique folder name.

Your Zerto clusters should be added as hosts in different Abiquo datacenters.  See https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652332134.

Abiquo properties

To configure Abiquo properties on the Abiquo Server and the Remote Services server:
1. See Configure properties for disaster recovery as a service with Zerto.
2. To apply the changes, restart the abiquo-tomcat process on the servers.

Networks

To use Zerto in a multi-tenant environment, you will need separate recovery and failover networks for each tenant.

For recovery and failover test networks, create these networks for each tenant in vCenter with a base name (from abiquo.properties) and a tenant suffix.

To be able to easily capture recovered VMs into Abiquo, create networks in Abiquo to represent the recovery and failover networks, for example, external networks.

Save the details of the tenant networks to register in Abiquo in the next steps.

• Network name, address, mask, gateway, tag

• Tenant name, tenant network suffix

Set up DRaaS in Abiquo

To set up DRaaS in Abiquo, log in as the cloud administrator and do these steps: 

1. Configure Zerto. Abiquo 6.1.x supports Zerto 9.7 U2 on Linux only

2. Add Zerto DRaaS plugin license.

3. Create protection managers to register Zerto entities in Abiquo.
   For Available datacenters, select at least one datacenter where the plugin will use the NARS remote service to connect to Zerto. Reference: Protection managers

   Open

   

   Create a protection manager for Zerto 9.7 U2

4. To be able to easily capture recovered VMs, create networks in each tenant in Abiquo to register the recovery networks and failover test networks. Use the details from the "Networks" step above.
   Reference: https://abiquo.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ABI61/pages/652305305

5. Optionally configure pricing and accounting

   1. Set prices for VMs with DR protection in tenant pricing models in Datacenter resource prices.
      The platform will include these prices in VApp cost estimates on deploy and on demand.
      Reference: Create a new pricing model. In Abiquo accounting, the default is to include DR protected VMs. See Abiquo accounting services integration.

6. Edit each tenant enterprise:

   1. Create the DR-code enterprise property and set the value to the tenant's network name suffix.
      For example, for the vCenter recovery network DraasnetEnt1, where Draasnet is the recovery network base name, create a DR-code property with a value of Ent1. Reference: Set enterprise properties to store tenant details and metadata.

   2. Optionally, set limits on the number of DR protected VMs for the enterprise, or for the enterprise in a datacenter, and for each virtual datacenter. Reference: Manage enterprise policies to set Allocation limits.

7. Assign the Manage VM disaster recovery protection privilege to cloud user roles. Reference: Modify the privileges of a role.