Azure Site Recovery

  • Author: Ronald Fung

  • Creation Date: 30 May 2023

  • Next Modified Date: 30 May 2024

A. Introduction

As an organization, you need to adopt a business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy that keeps your data safe, and your apps and workloads online, when planned and unplanned outages occur.

Azure Recovery Services contributes to your BCDR strategy:

  • Site Recovery service: Site Recovery helps ensure business continuity by keeping business apps and workloads running during outages. Site Recovery replicates workloads running on physical and virtual machines (VMs) from a primary site to a secondary location. When an outage occurs at your primary site, you fail over to a secondary location, and access apps from there. After the primary location is running again, you can fail back to it.

  • Backup service: The Azure Backup service keeps your data safe and recoverable. Site Recovery can manage replication for:

  • Azure VMs replicating between Azure regions

  • Replication from Azure Public Multi-Access Edge Compute (MEC) to the region

  • Replication between two Azure Public MECs

  • On-premises VMs, Azure Stack VMs, and physical servers

Note

The Azure Site Recovery functionality for Public MEC is in preview state.

B. How is it used at Seagen

As a biopharma research company that uses Microsoft Azure, Azure Site Recovery can be used to protect your critical applications and data by providing disaster recovery capabilities. Here are some ways that Seagen can use Azure Site Recovery:

  1. Replicate virtual machines: Azure Site Recovery can be used to replicate virtual machines running in your on-premises data center or another Azure region to a secondary location, ensuring that your applications and data are protected in the event of a disaster.

  2. Automate failover: Azure Site Recovery can be used to automate the failover process, reducing the time required to recover from a disaster. This can help to minimize downtime and ensure that your critical applications and data are back up and running as quickly as possible.

  3. Test disaster recovery: Azure Site Recovery can be used to test your disaster recovery plan, allowing you to identify and address any issues before a disaster occurs. This can help to ensure that your disaster recovery plan is effective and can be executed quickly and efficiently in the event of a disaster.

  4. Monitor replication health: Azure Site Recovery provides monitoring and reporting tools that allow you to monitor the health of your replication process. This can help you to identify and address any issues before they become a problem.

  5. Integrate with other Azure services: Azure Site Recovery can be integrated with other Azure services, such as Azure Backup and Azure Virtual Network, to provide a comprehensive disaster recovery solution.

Overall, Azure Site Recovery can be a valuable tool for Seagen to protect its critical applications and data, ensuring that they are available in the event of a disaster. By using Azure Site Recovery to replicate virtual machines, automate failover, test disaster recovery, monitor replication health, and integrate with other Azure services, Seagen can ensure that its critical applications and data are protected and available when they are needed most.

C. Features

Azure Site Recovery is a disaster recovery solution provided by Microsoft Azure that helps protect your critical applications and data in the event of a disaster. Here are some of the key features of Azure Site Recovery:

  1. Replication: Azure Site Recovery allows you to replicate virtual machines running in your on-premises data center or another Azure region to a secondary location, ensuring that your applications and data are protected in the event of a disaster.

  2. Automated failover: Azure Site Recovery can be used to automate the failover process, reducing the time required to recover from a disaster. This can help to minimize downtime and ensure that your critical applications and data are back up and running as quickly as possible.

  3. Disaster recovery testing: Azure Site Recovery allows you to test your disaster recovery plan, allowing you to identify and address any issues before a disaster occurs. This can help to ensure that your disaster recovery plan is effective and can be executed quickly and efficiently in the event of a disaster.

  4. Health monitoring: Azure Site Recovery provides monitoring and reporting tools that allow you to monitor the health of your replication process. This can help you to identify and address any issues before they become a problem.

  5. Integration: Azure Site Recovery can be integrated with other Azure services, such as Azure Backup and Azure Virtual Network, to provide a comprehensive disaster recovery solution.

  6. Multi-platform support: Azure Site Recovery supports a wide range of platforms, including Windows and Linux virtual machines running in Hyper-V, VMware, and physical servers.

  7. Flexible recovery plans: Azure Site Recovery allows you to create flexible recovery plans that can be customized to meet the specific needs of your business. This can help to ensure that your critical applications and data are recovered in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

Overall, Azure Site Recovery is a powerful tool that can help businesses like Seagen protect their critical applications and data in the event of a disaster. Its replication, automated failover, disaster recovery testing, health monitoring, integration, multi-platform support, and flexible recovery plans make it a comprehensive and effective disaster recovery solution for businesses of all sizes and industries.

D. Where Implemented

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E. How it is tested

Testing Azure Site Recovery involves verifying that your disaster recovery plan is effective and can be executed quickly and efficiently in the event of a disaster. Here are some steps you can take to test Azure Site Recovery:

  1. Verify replication: Verify that your virtual machines are being replicated to your secondary location by checking the replication health status in Azure Site Recovery. You can also test replication by making changes to your virtual machines and verifying that the changes are replicated correctly.

  2. Test failover: Test the failover process by initiating a failover from your primary site to your secondary site. Verify that your virtual machines are successfully started in the secondary site and that your applications and data are available. You can also test failover by simulating a disaster, such as shutting down your primary site, and verifying that failover is successful.

  3. Test failback: Test the failback process by initiating a failback from your secondary site to your primary site. Verify that your virtual machines are successfully started in the primary site and that your applications and data are available.

  4. Test recovery plan: Test your recovery plan by running a test failover. This allows you to test your entire disaster recovery plan, including replication, failover, and failback, without impacting your production environment.

  5. Monitor health: Monitor the health of your replication process and your virtual machines in Azure Site Recovery to identify and address any issues before they become a problem.

  6. Review documentation: Review the Azure Site Recovery documentation to ensure that your disaster recovery plan is up to date and that you are using the most recent version of Azure Site Recovery.

Overall, testing Azure Site Recovery involves verifying that your disaster recovery plan is effective and can be executed quickly and efficiently in the event of a disaster. By verifying replication, testing failover and failback, testing your recovery plan, monitoring health, and reviewing documentation, you can ensure that Azure Site Recovery is effectively protecting your critical applications and data and that your disaster recovery plan is up to date and effective.

F. 2023 Roadmap

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G. 2024 Roadmap

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H. Known Issues

As a cloud-based disaster recovery solution, Azure Site Recovery may have some known issues that users should be aware of. Here are some of the known issues for Azure Site Recovery:

  1. Replication issues: Azure Site Recovery may experience replication issues, which can result in data loss or extended downtime in the event of a disaster. These issues can be caused by network connectivity problems or other technical issues.

  2. Failover issues: Azure Site Recovery may experience failover issues, which can result in extended downtime or data loss in the event of a disaster. These issues can be caused by configuration issues or other technical issues.

  3. Compatibility issues: Azure Site Recovery may experience compatibility issues with certain virtual machine configurations, operating systems, or applications. These issues can impact the ability of businesses to effectively protect their critical applications and data in the event of a disaster.

  4. Performance issues: Azure Site Recovery may experience performance issues, which can impact the speed and efficiency of replication and failover processes. These issues can be caused by resource constraints or other technical issues.

  5. Security concerns: As with any cloud-based service, there may be security concerns related to Azure Site Recovery. Businesses must take appropriate measures to protect sensitive data and ensure that their disaster recovery plan is properly secured.

  6. Limited platform support: While Azure Site Recovery is designed to work across multiple platforms, there may be some limitations when it comes to platform support. This can impact the ability of businesses to provide a seamless disaster recovery solution to users on all platforms.

Overall, while Azure Site Recovery is a powerful disaster recovery solution for businesses looking to protect their critical applications and data, users must be aware of these known issues and take steps to mitigate their impact. This may include carefully monitoring the performance of Azure Site Recovery, carefully configuring the service to meet the specific needs of their business, providing training and support to users to effectively use and manage Azure Site Recovery, and carefully integrating Azure Site Recovery with other Azure services and third-party services to minimize the risk of compatibility issues.

[x] Reviewed by Enterprise Architecture

[x] Reviewed by Application Development

[x] Reviewed by Data Architecture