Hello and welcome to the Dell Power Protect Data Manager appliance video demonstrating a business continuity solution that helps users to get their protection environment back online quickly from a remote appliance. The DM5500 Power Protect Data Manager appliance is an integrated solution that offers industry-leading duplication, software-defined data protection, automated discovery, operational agility, self-service, and IT governance for physical, virtual, and cloud environments. DM5500 has been designed for ease of use. The appliance can also perform flexible and reliable upgrades. It supports a single license model based on backend usable capacity from 12 terabytes to 96 terabytes in 12-terabyte increments.
In case of disaster, DM5500 supports multiple business continuity solutions to continue the business and get the appliance back online with minimal RTO. Among these solutions is quick recovery after a disaster. This recovery feature enables users to restore assets and data that they replicated to a destination DM5500 system at a remote site, allowing business to continue until the source DM5500 comes back online. When there is a loss of protected assets at the source side, the quick recovery feature can restore the assets from destination storage. In this video, we demonstrate the restoration of an asset from the destination DM5500.
Quick recovery is powerful because it supports multiple topologies. Users can configure quick recovery for one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-one replication. Quick recovery supports the recovery of three types of assets: virtual machines, file systems, and Kubernetes. In this video, we demonstrate the recovery of virtual machines from a remote DM5500.
Log into the Power Protect Data Manager appliance by providing the admin credentials, which brings you to the appliance's dashboard. Before enabling the quick recovery feature in DM5500, ensure that the source and destination DM5500 appliances are on a connected network and can ping a fully qualified domain name or IP address. The DM5500 versions must be identical at both the source and destination. Make sure asset sources can be discovered from both systems. The assets in the source DM5500 must be protected as part of a policy with replication enabled.
In this appliance, multiple VM assets are protected, meaning asset sources are enabled, and replication can be enabled once the replication target is ready. We will add the destination DM5500 as a replication target to the source DM5500 by selecting infrastructure storage, choosing the replication targets tab, and adding the destination DM5500’s details. Enabling the sync option allows for a quick recovery sync of the metadata from source to destination. After enabling this option and clicking save, go to system jobs to verify that the configuration and discovery of replication target jobs are successful.
We see that the initial configuration of the replication target has completed successfully. Going back to the replication targets tab, we confirm the replication target is added to the source DM5500. Ensure that quick recovery to the replication target is enabled automatically by navigating to settings, disaster recovery, remote systems, and verifying that quick recovery is enabled.
Now, let's edit one of the policies protecting virtual machines and add a replication stage. After selecting replicate, add the replication target, configure the necessary details, and click finish. We are ready for a backup. Make sure a scheduled or manual backup runs after configuring the replication target. Since backup copies are already present, replicate these copies to the destination.
Select view details at the bottom to confirm that the replication job is successful. Next, go to restore and ensure the assets enabled for replication have replication copies. At this point, backup copies are present on both the source and destination systems. The metadata must also be synced to the replication partner so users can restore protected assets from the destination DM5500. The sync metadata operation has completed successfully, as shown in the details tab.
Now, in case of disaster, the destination DM5500 is ready with all the necessary data and metadata to restore the source DM5500’s asset data. In the right top corner of the destination appliance, click the remote system icon and select the source DM5500, shown as the remote system at the destination. The remote view only allows options like restore, alerts, and jobs. Choose one of the assets, select view copies, and confirm the backup copies are available for restoration from the replication target (destination DM5500). Click restore to invoke the restore wizard, select the instant access VM restore option, and provide the necessary details.
Log into the VCenter server that hosts the VM to verify whether the VM has been restored to the specified destination. In the meantime, check the remote DM5500’s restore jobs to confirm the restore was successful. Logging into the VCenter server is successful, and the recent task logs show that the VM restore (QR restore) was successful. Navigating to the destination ESX server selected during the restore shows the restored VM.
This is how quick recovery helps users immediately access their protective copies on a remote appliance when the source appliance cannot be reached. Thanks for watching.
