This is the third instalment of my VMware and Azure Site Recovery series. In the last two posts I covered how to prepare for the service and installing the components within the cloud and private infrastructure to setup ready to make magic happen!

In this post, I’m going to go through client installation for a Windows and Linux box and setup replication jobs via the ASR interface online.

This process can be achieved in a number of ways: the Process Server can push out the client to servers you want to protect, you can install centrally (SCCM, GPO, Puppet, etc) or you can install manually. I decided to install it via the Process Server for the Windows server (this requires an account with local admin) and for the Linux server I installed manually as I didn’t trust the automated mechanism and the permissions model I have for Linux at work isn’t easy to have an account that isn’t root install things. (Easy life).

Windows Client:

1. Within the online ASR portal, via Site Recovery. Select a source of replication (vCenter Server and Process Server already configured).





2. For target, set the right accounts and then select the network that you want to fail-over into (as created previously).





3. Select a VM that you want to replicate from your inventory list. This is pulled directly from the vCenter Serve via the Process Server.





4. On the configuration properties, select the account that has permissions. In my case, the “AD VC PoC Account” is an account with vCenter permission and is also configured as local admin via GPO for this box. Purely for PoC purposes.





5. Select your replication policy for the VM. For me this was the default policy I created earlier.





6. Important! Before you proceed to step 7. Make sure the firewall on your server is set to allow traffic through from the process server or the next steps will fail! You need: Firewall & Print Sharing,









7. Last step is to enable replication.





8. Now the Process Server will contact the server and install the right components (agent) and enable replication.





9. After about 15 minutes, the installation should be complete! Replication should now start up.





Linux Client:

The Linux client requires two installs. One is the agent that talks/registers to the Process Server on site, the other is the replication agent.

1. On the process server get the appropriate Linux Agent file from: F:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Azure Site Recovery\home\svsystems\pushinstallsvc\repository and SCP it to the Linux box.





2. Navigate to your Process Server C:\ProgramData\Microsoft Azure Site Recovery\private. Open the “connection” file and copy the phrase down.





3. Unzip the installer and also create a “passphrase.txt” file and insert your passphrase.





4. Install/Register the agent from the zip file:

./install -t both -a host -R Agent -d /usr/local/ASR -i "IP_OF_PROCESS_SERVER" -p 443 -s y -c https -P "PASSPHRASE.TXT" 1 . / install - t both - a host - R Agent - d / usr / local / ASR - i "IP_OF_PROCESS_SERVER" - p 443 - s y - c https - P "PASSPHRASE.TXT"





5. Download the latest “WALinuxAgent” for replication to your Linux Box.

wget https://github.com/Azure/WALinuxAgent/archive/master.zip 1 wget https : //github.com/Azure/WALinuxAgent/archive/master.zip





6. Unzip the file





7. Install and register the replication service:

python setup.py install --register-service 1 python setup . py install -- register - service





8. Check that services are running:

ps -ef | grep wa 1 ps - ef | grep wa





After some private->cloud replication time (process server refresh) it should be possible to select the Linux VM from your inventory and replicate it, similar to how the Windows Server above was configured – minus the agent push.

I’m going to stop the post here and leave the replication/test fail-over for another post which should be the final one. The good thing about ASR is that once configured correctly it provide a “Test DR/Fail-over” option where you can run multiple simulations whilst maintaining replication!

Until next time!