Basic Verification – User Traffic Is Not Run against the Recovered VMs

Basic testing that the virtual machines can recover is done using either a Failover Test operation or an uncommitted Move operation, using the Rollback setting.

Use a Failover Test operation if recovering the virtual machines in a sandbox. Using the test network specified in the VPG definition for network isolation, is sufficient for a test.

The Failover Test operation is described in detail in Starting and Stopping Failover Tests. The following highlights specific steps to enable using the Failover Test when recovering the virtual machines in a sandbox.

1. Change the VPG Failover Test Network to the production network used at the recovery site.

2. Manually shut down the virtual machines in the VPG.

3. Insert a new checkpoint. This avoids potential data loss since the virtual machines are shut down and the new checkpoint is added after all I/Os have been written to disk.

4. Optionally simulate a disaster, for example by disconnecting the two sites.

5. Perform a test failover on the VPG, choosing the checkpoint you added in step 3.

6. Verify that the test machines are recovered as expected.

7. Run user traffic against the new virtual machine in Azure.

8. Stop the failover test.

9. Reconnect the sites.

■ You do not have to shut down the protected virtual machines, and changes from the test phase are not kept or applied to the protected applications.

■ You can recover to a specific point-in-time.

■ You can use an isolated network to enable testing in a sandbox environment and not a live DR environment. This is the recommended practice.

■ At the end of the test, you can power on the virtual machines in the protected site and continue to work without the need to save or replicate back any data changed during the test.

You can also use a Failover Test operation if you want to simulate an actual disaster for around an hour or less and do not want to save any changes on the recovery site.

Use a Move operation with the commit/rollback policy set to rollback after the test period, if you need to test the recovery of virtual machines in the recovery site production environment.

The Move operation is described in detail in “”, on page 152. The following procedure highlights specific steps to enable using the Move functionality for a DR test.

1. In the Move wizard, in the EXECUTION PARAMETERS tab, for commit policy, select None.

2. Either power off the relevant virtual machines or check the Force Shutdown checkbox, in the EXECUTION PARAMETERS tab, to make sure that the virtual machines are shut down, if they cannot be powered off using Microsoft Integration Services.

3. After testing the new virtual machines in the recovery site you can roll back the Move operation, which will return the virtual machines to their pre-test state.

■ Changes from the pre-commit phase are not kept or applied to the protected applications.

■ The new virtual machines are connected to the network for a full test of the environment.

■ The protected machines are turned off until the end of the test, ensuring that there are no conflicts between the protected site and recovery site.

■ You can only recover to the last checkpoint written to the journal, at the start of the Move operation.