Protecting From Amazon Web Services - To a Microsoft Azure Recovery Site

To create a virtual protection group (VPG) to recover in Azure:

1. In the Zerto User Interface, select ACTIONS>CREATE VPG.

The GENERAL step of the Create VPG wizard is displayed.

2. Specify the name of the VPG and the priority of the VPG.
VPG Name: The VPG name must be unique. The name cannot be more than 80 characters.
Priority: Determine the priority for transferring data from the protected site to the recovery site when there is limited bandwidth and more than one VPG is defined on the protected site.
High Priority: When there are updates to virtual machines protected in VPGs with different priorities, updates from the VPG with the highest priority are passed over the WAN first.
Medium Priority: Medium priority VPGs will only be able to use whatever bandwidth is left after the high priority VPGs have used it.
Low Priority: Low priority VPGs will use whatever bandwidth is left after the medium priority VPGs have use it.

Updates to the protected virtual machines are always sent across the WAN before synchronization data, such as during a bitmap or delta sync.

During synchronization, data from the VPG with the highest priority is passed over the WAN before data from medium and low priority VPGs.

3. Click NEXT.

The VMs step is displayed.

The list of unprotected VMs includes VMs that were in the ZCA’s account and region during installation.
A VPG can include virtual machines that are already protected by another ZCA in the same account and region.
The size of the disk is defined by data disks and the OS disk.
AWS Instance Store disks (Temp disks) are not included in the list of unprotected VMs.
4. From the Unprotected VMs list, select the VMs to include in this VPG and click the arrow to move them to the Selected VMs.
When using the Search field, you can use the wildcards; * or ?
5. Click NEXT.

The REPLICATION step is displayed.

6. Select the Recovery Site to which you want to recover the virtual machines.

7. After selecting the recovery site, define the following parameters:
Parameter Field Description
SLA Journal History Specify the time-frame in which information is saved in the journal for the group, and which will apply to every virtual machine in the group.

The longer the information is saved in the journal, the more space is required for each journal in the VPG.

Select one of the following time-frames:
Number of hours: From 1 to 24
Number of days: From 2 to 30

For additional journal-related fields, click ADVANCED, and proceed to step For additional journal-related fields, click ADVANCED..
Target RPO Alert The maximum desired time between each automatic checkpoint write to the journal before an alert is issued. Default value is X hours.
Test Reminder The time recommended between testing the integrity of the VPG.

A warning is issued if a test is not done within this time frame.
8. Click NEXT.

The STORAGE step is displayed. By default the storage used for the virtual machine definition is also used for the virtual machine data. For each virtual machine in the VPG, Zerto displays its storage-related information.

9. Specify whether the protected volume is a temp data disk.

Temp Data: If the virtual machine to be replicated includes a temp data disk as part of its configuration, mark the recovery disk for this disk as a temp data disk. In this case, data is not replicated to the temp data disk after initial synchronization.

10. Click NEXT.

The RECOVERY step is displayed. Recovery details include the networks to use for failover, move, and for testing failover, and whether scripts should run as part of the recovery operation.

11. Select the default recovery settings. There are applied to every virtual machine in the VPG.
VNet: The virtual network dedicated to your Azure subscription.
Subnet: The subnet or the VNet network.
Network Security Group: The Azure network security to be associated with the virtual machines in this VPG. You can associate one network security group with the virtual machines. The NIC will be associated with the network security group defined at the virtual machine level.
Recovery Disk Type: Select the Azure recovery storage type to which the selected virtual machines will be recovered to; Managed Premium SSD, Managed Standard SSD or Managed Standard HDD. The Virtual Machine Series and Virtual Machine Size fields are updated with the relevant options based on the selected Recovery Disk Type.
Virtual Machine Series: The virtual machine series from which to select the size. Azure virtual machine series are optimized for different types of applications. The default is set to DSv2. You can choose the virtual machine series appropriate for the application being protected in the VPG.
Virtual Machine Size: The virtual machine size, within the virtual machine series, to assign to recovered virtual machines. Different sizes within a virtual machine series vary, for example in a number of cores, RAM, and local storage size. The default is set to Standard_DS1_v2. You can choose the virtual machine size appropriate for the application being protected in the VPG. The price per virtual machine is related to the virtual machine configuration.
12. For additional settings, click ADVANCED VM SETTINGS.

The Advanced VM Settings window is displayed, which shows the recovery network settings for failover and move for virtual machines in the VPG. You can view the recovery network settings for failover tests by clicking TEST.

13. To edit information in one field, click the field and update the information.
14. To edit information for several virtual machines at the same time, select the virtual machines and click EDIT SELECTED.

The Edit VM Settings window is displayed.

15. Update the values for VNet, Subnet, Network Security Group, VM Series, Series Size, and Private IP as necessary.
Note: Only private IPs specified for Windows machines are assigned during a recovery operation. For Linux machines, the IP is assigned from the specified subnet range.

Clearing the values in the Private IP field results in an IP being automatically assigned from the subnet range during a recovery operation.

Refer to the Zerto Interoperability Matrix for the list of operating systems for which Zerto supports re-IP.

16. Click OK twice to return to the main page of the RECOVERY step.
17. To run pre and post recovery scripts, enter the path to the script to run.
Pre-recovery Script: The information about a script that should run at the beginning of the recovery process.
Post-recovery Script: The information about a script that should run at the end of the recovery process.

For both types of scripts, enter the following information:

Text Box Description
Script path The full path to the script. The script must be located on the same machine as the Zerto Virtual Manager for the recovery site.
Params The parameters to pass to the script. Separate parameters with a space.
Timeout The time-out, in seconds, for the script to run.
If the script runs before executing a failover, move, or test failover, and the script fails or the timeout value is reached, an alert is generated and the failover, move, or test failover is not performed.
If the script runs after executing a failover, move, or test failover, and the timeout value is reached, an alert is generated.
The default time-out value is specified in Site Settings > Throttling tab.
Note: Pre and post recovery scripts run in parallel. Therefore, ensure that the pre and post recovery scripts don’t use common resources.
18. Click NEXT.

The SUMMARY step is displayed. It shows a summary of the VPG configuration you defined in the previous steps.

19. Click DONE.

For details of what happens after saving the VPG, see What Happens After the VPG is Defined.