CloudBoost Disaster Recovery

Published   Read time 6 min(s) 15 sec(s)   (3046 views).  NetWorker  

If the CloudBoost virtual appliance encounters a failure, you must deploy a second CloudBoost virtual appliance to restore the metadata from backups stored in the cloud. Backups of the CloudBoost metadata are automatically taken every 12 hours and stored in the same object store as the data. The recovery process requires this metadata to be restored to the newly deployed CloudBoost virtual appliance.

Deploy a second CloudBoost appliance

For disaster recovery testing, you must deploy a second CloudBoost appliance using the test recovery mode. A CloudBoost virtual appliance deployed using the test recovery mode is read only. You cannot use it to clone backups to the cloud. It can only be used for restores from cloud to verify backups as part of the disaster recovery testing process. The workflow is similar to the standard disaster recovery except for the recovery mode.

WARNING: Disaster recovery requires the encryption key file for system backups. Immediately after the original CloudBoost virtual appliance was deployed, you should have downloaded and safeguarded the encryption key and its password to be prepared for disaster recovery. You can download this key any time after deployment. For details on how to perform this task, see my post on Download the CloudBoost encryption key

Testing CloudBoost disaster recovery

You can test the disaster recovery process for the CloudBoost virtual appliance.

  1. Install a CloudBoost virtual appliance and configure it using CLI commands. The new deployment can have a different name and IP from the original deployment. For more information, review Provision and Deploy the Cloudboost Virtual Appliance (page 13) in the EMC NetWorker with EMC CloudBoost Integration Guide.
  2. Use a Web browser to log in to the Cloudboost virtual appliance at https://<FQDN>:4444, where <FQDN> is the fully qualified domain name specified during step 1, with the default username local\admin and the password set during Step 1. If a password was not specified during Step 1, the default password is password. You must immediately change this default password.
  3. Click Get Started, and on the License Agreement page, click I Agree. The Deployment page opens.
  4. Review the network and host settings you defined in Step 1. For more information, see my post Configuring the CloudBoost virtual appliance.
  5. In the Deployment Type field, select Disaster Recovery, and then click Save and Continue.
  6. On the Recovery Mode page, select Test Recovery.
  7. If an HTTP proxy must be used to reach the cloud storage service from the CloudBoost virtual appliance, select the Enable Outbound HTTP Proxy checkbox, enter the hostname and port in the HTTP Proxy hostname and port fields, and then click Save and Continue. The Cloud Storage Profile page opens.
  8. To retrieve the most recent metadata backup from the cloud, specify the encryption key file and the key file password, and then click Continue. This is encryption key file for system backups which was downloaded after the original CloudBoost virtual appliance was deployed, along with the password set during download of the file.
  9. On the Recover Deployment page, select the metadata backup to retrieve from cloud.
  10. When the recovery of metadata is complete, click View Share. The Shares page opens, where you can verify that the status is Active.
  11. Log in to the NetWorker administration console and add the newly-deployed CloudBoost virtual appliance as a storage node. Because this is a test, the new deployment must have a different name and IP from the original deployment. For more information, see my post Connecting NetWorker to CloudBoost.
  12. Add a new AFTD device and specify its mount point. This mount point should be the same as the mount point of the AFTD device on the original CloudBoost virtual appliance. You can enter the mount point manually or browse to it using the AFTD browse option. The mount point for an AFTD device needs to be a sub-directory under /mnt/magfs/base.
  13. Deselect the label and mount device after creation checkbox. CAUTION: Do not label the AFTD device. If the AFTD device is labeled, backups taken using this device will be deleted from the cloud.
  14. If the original CloudBoost virtual appliance had multiple AFTD devices, recreate each device individually.
  15. After the AFTD device is created, manually mount the device.
  16. Recover backups from the cloud to an alternate path on a client. Repeat this for a couple of clients and savesets and verify that the disaster recovery testing virtual appliance sees all backups and can restore them.
  17. Unmount the AFTD device, remove the storage node from NetWorker administrative console and delete the test disaster recovery virtual appliance. The test disaster recovery virtual appliance is read-only and cannot be used for any cloning operations.

Deploying CloudBoost for disaster recovery

You can deploy a second CloudBoost virtual appliance to recover from failure of the original CloudBoost virtual appliance.

  1. Install a CloudBoost virtual appliance and configure it using CLI commands. The new deployment can have a different name and IP from the original deployment. For more information, see Provision and Deploy the Cloudboost Virtual Appliance (page 13) in the EMC NetWorker with EMC CloudBoost Integration Guide.
  2. Use a Web browser to log in to the Cloudboost virtual appliance at https://<FQDN>:4444, where <FQDN> is the fully qualified domain name specified during Step 1, with the default username local\admin and the password set during Step 1. If a password was not specified during Step 1, the default password is password. You must immediately change this default password.
  3. Click Get Started, and on the License Agreement page, click I Agree. The Deployment page opens.
  4. Review the network and host settings you defined in Step 1. For more information, see my post Configuring the CloudBoost virtual appliance
  5. In the Deployment Type field, select Disaster Recovery, and then click Save and Continue.
  6. On the Recovery Mode page, select Disaster Recovery.
  7. If an HTTP proxy must be used to reach the cloud storage service from the CloudBoost virtual appliance, select the Enable Outbound HTTP Proxy checkbox, enter the hostname and port in the HTTP Proxy hostname and port fields, and then click Save and Continue. The Cloud Storage Profile page opens.
  8. To retrieve the most recent metadata backup from the cloud, specify the encryption key file and the key file password, and then click Continue. This is encryption key file for system backups which was downloaded after the original CloudBoost virtual appliance was deployed, along with the password set during download of the file.
  9. On the Recover Deployment page, select the metadata backup to retrieve from cloud.
  10. When the recovery of metadata is complete, click View Share. The Shares page opens, where you can verify that the status is Active.
  11. Log in to the NetWorker administrative console and add the newly-deployed CloudBoost virtual appliance as a storage node. For more information, see my article Connecting NetWorker to CloudBoost.
  12. Add a new AFTD device and specify its mount point. This mount point should be the same as the mount point of the AFTD device on the original CloudBoost virtual appliance. You can enter the mount point manually or browse to it using the AFTD browse option. The mount point for an AFTD device needs to be a sub-directory under /mnt/magfs/base.
  13. Deselect the label and mount device after creation checkbox.
    CAUTION DO NOT label the AFTD device. If the AFTD device is labeled, backups taken using this device will be deleted from the cloud..
  14. If the original CloudBoost virtual appliance had multiple AFTD devices, recreate each device individually.
  15. After the AFTD device is created, manually mount the device and restart any failed backups from the NetWorker administrative console.