DRaaS failover prerequisite checks

Overview

Are the VMs in your environment DR ready? Find out this and more as Phoenix automates this process for you with the Prerequisites checks capability. When the VMs are being backed up, the prerequisites checks kick into action and provide the status; if the VMs have successfully cleared the checks and are DR ready or not.
With these checks in place, you can prepare a robust DR strategy and avoid any surprises during failover. It further helps you reduce failed requests to the cloud, and your cloud spending too!

The status of the failover prerequisite checks is available through the Virtual Machines page.

The following diagram illustrates the capability.

Watch the video

► Expand for a feature overview video that provides more insights about the failover prerequisite check capability.

Assign credentials

To use the DRaaS prerequisites checks capability, ensure that the credentials you assign to virtual machines meet the following requirements:

Windows virtual machines

The account must have local administrative permissions.
For a Windows domain user, the credentials must be entered in the following format <UserName>@<DomainName> and <password>.
UAC must be disabled on the virtual machine. See disabling UAC on Windows server for more information.

Linux virtual machines

The account must have sudo privileges

Assigning credentials to virtual machines

To assign credentials to a virtual machine, perform the following tasks:

In the organization that contains your virtual machine, navigate to Protect > VMware.
In the navigation pane on the left, under vcenter/ESXi host, select the vcenter server or ESXi host that hosts the virtual machine.
On the All Virtual Machines page, select the virtual machine that needs to be configured for DR, and click Manage Credentials.
Click Add Credential to create a new credential, or select an existing credential. Click Assign.

Note: Ensure that the backup proxy is version 4.8.11 or higher. For more information on upgrading the backup proxy, see Upgrade backup proxy.

Failover prerequisites check statuses

The following table describes the failover prerequisites check statuses

Status	Description
Success	Failover prerequisites check passed.
Not initiated	Prerequisites check could not be initiated because either: Backup proxy is not able to connect to the ESXi host on port 443. The first backup job after the VMware backup proxy upgrade is not completed. The Phoenix backup proxy is on a version older than 4.8.11. See, Upgrade backup proxy in your environment. The VM is not running. The VM does not have VMware Tools installed and running. The failover prerequisites check binary execution has failed or timed out.
Invalid credentials	Prerequisites check could not be performed because either: VM user credentials are incorrect. See, Configure virtual machines for backup. The required admin permissions are not assigned. See, DRaaS failover prerequisite checks
Missing credentials	Failover prerequisites checks could not be performed because credentials are not assigned to the VM. See, Configure virtual machines for backup.
Error	Failover prerequisites check failed. See, DRaaS failover prerequisite checks
Warning	Prerequisites check passed with warnings. It is recommended to fix the warnings even though the failover won’t fail if not resolved immediately.

Resolving DR failover prerequisite checks

After you resolve the checks, trigger a new back job and only after all the checks are successful, the VM is DR ready.

Linux failover prerequisite checks

Check	Description
Source Metadata Collection	What is verified Verifies that all required metadata was collected from the source. Potential errors Target OS customization error. Unable to identify partition using the parted command. Recommendation The is a generic Linux customization error. Download the logs from the Job Details page. Couldn't parse output of the parted command. On the source VM, run parted command. If no output or incorrect output is generated, then fix the issue with parted and rerun backup. Sample output (parted) print Model: VMware Virtual disk (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 42.9GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 1049kB 30.9GB 30.9GB primary ext4 boot 2 30.9GB 42.9GB 12.0GB primary linux-swap(v1)
Free Space	What is verified Verifies there is enough free storage space. Potential errors The source does not have enough free space on {MPOINT} ({DEVICE}). At least {SIZE} Mb needed space is required․ Recommendation Provision additional free disk space as described in the message.
Bootloader	What is verified Verifies the source boot loader is supported. Potential errors Source has an unsupported version of GRUB. Please install grub-legacy or grub2 on the source and try again․ Recommendation Ensure that grub-legacy or grub2 is installed on the source virtual machine. Else, install the grub package on the source virtual machine. Review the GRUB installation documentation for your operating system. For example for CentOS refer to: https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/GrubInstallation.
OS Support	What is verified Verifies the source operating system is supported. Potential errors Migrations of 32bit Linux sources to AWS are not supported. This OS is not supported. Please review our documentation for supported OS for conversion․ Recommendation Review the system requirements.
Cloud-init Configuration	What is verified Checks cloud-init configuration for potential problems. Potential errors SSH pwauth is disabled in the cloud_init file. If you proceed, you might not be able to login to the target instance/VM․ Lock password is enabled in the cloud_init file. If you proceed, you might not be able to login to the target instance/VM․ Recommendation Cloud-init is installed on the EC2 instance and it has configurations that have disabled SSH password authentication. Ensure that SSH password authentication is allowed. Cloud-init is installed on the EC2 instance and it has configurations that can lock the account's password.
Supported FS	What is verified Verifies source filesystems are supported. Potential errors {DEVICE} has {FS_TYPE} filesystem, which is not supported. Recommendation One of the devices has an unsupported FS. Failover can continue if it is excluded. For failover, this means the file system might be missing from the target. See, Configure virtual machines for backup. Ensure that the disk to be excluded does not have following mountpoints : "/", "/usr", "/var" ,"/boot"
Selected Disks	What is verified Verifies failover can proceed with only the selected disks. Potential errors {MOUNT} is not one of the supported mounts. Mount {MOUNT_POINT} won't be available on the target as disk {DISK} was skipped. Mount {MOUNT_POINT} won't be available on the target as some of the PVs of the Volume Group is on skipped disks: {DISKS}. Disk {DISK} isn't used by any file system. Recommendation An unknown/unsupported mount point was listed in selected_mounts. Make sure selected_mounts is a subset of supported_mounts returned from preflight. If the skipped volume is critical, add the skipped disk to selected_disks. Can be ignored otherwise. If the skipped volume is critical, add the skipped disk to selected_disks. Can be ignored otherwise. Consider removing the disk from the backup and selected_disks.
LVM PVs	What is verified Verifies LVM physical volumes are on supported storage devices. Potential errors Device {DEVICE} which is a PV for LVM Volume Group {VOLUME_GROUP} (mount: {MOUNT}) was not recognized as a supported device. Recommendation The block device which holds the volume was not recognized as a supported device. Failover can't continue if the volume is critical. Note: Bind-mount is also not a supported device.
XEN/AWS Platform Details	What is verified Checks if the type of XEN hypervisor can be detected (does nothing for non-XEN). Potential errors Could not determine if this xen-based source is an AWS EC2 instance, as instance metadata could not be retrieved. Recommendation Couldn't reach the AWS metadata service to determine this is an AWS instance. The instance ID will be missing. Verify if network settings are correct on ec2-instance. Verify if "http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/" is reachable from the instance. To verify, launch a temporary EC2 instance with the same configuration as the failover instance. If the metadata URL is not reachable from the temporary EC2 instance as well, refer to the AWS documentation for more information.
DHCP Configuration	What is verified Checks the source DHCP config for unsupported options. Potential errors DHCP configuration contains 'supersede'. Target might have a broken network. Recommendation The EC2 instance has custom DHCP client configurations. Druva doesn't reset the configurations. This could potentially cause issues. Verify the /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf of the EC2 instance.
Required Mounts	What is verified Verifies the required mount points were recognized. Potential errors /mountpoint is mandatory. Recommendation Ensure that the VMDK containing "/" mountpoint is not excluded from backup.

Windows failover prerequisite checks

Check	Description
Hyper-V	What is verified Verifies the source is not a Hyper-V host. Potential errors The source is running hyper-v. Migration of hyper-v servers is not supported by Druva. Hyper-V server will not be able to run in the target cloud and the source will fail to start in the target cloud environment. Recommendation Hyper-V is not supported.
OS Support	What is verified Verifies the source operating system is supported. Potential errors This OS is not supported for conversion. Please review our documentation for supported OS for conversion. Recommendation Review the system requirements.
PV Drivers	What is verified Verifies the source doesn't have 'AWS PV Network Device' NICs. Potential errors TCP offloading must be disabled on source with driver type {DRIVER}. Recommendation If phase 2 system has no network, disable TCP offloading on the source. To disable TCP offloading In the Microsoft® Windows server, open the Control Panel. Select Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change Adapter Settings. Right-click on each of the private and public adapters, select Configure from the Networking menu, and click the Advanced tab. The window displays the TCP offload settings for the Citrix adapter. Select each of the following TCP offload options, changing the value to Disabled, and click OK: IPv4 Checksum Offload Large Receive Offload Large Send Offload TCP Checksum Offload
Pending Windows updates	What is verified Checks if there are pending Windows updates scheduled to happen after the Windows server reboot. Potential errors Source has pending Windows updates detected. Recommendation Phoenix triggers a DR replication job (as per the replication frequency in the DR plan) if the prerequisite checks detect pending Windows updates. However, the replication job fails immediately with the DR24577 error. Apply the pending Windows updates at the earliest so that the next DR replication job succeeds.
Pending check disk	What is verified Checks if there are pending check disk operations scheduled to happen after a Windows server reboot. Potential errors Source has pending check disk detected. Recommendation Phoenix triggers a DR replication job (as per the replication frequency in the DR plan) if the prerequisite checks detect scheduled chkdsk operations. The DR copy job completes; however, DR failovers from this copy may fail when the VM reboots and the timeout value is reached while running Windows chkdsk. We recommend you complete the pending chkdisk operations at the earliest so that the next DR replication job creates a copy you can successfully failover from.
Network Drivers	What is verified Verifies there are no incompatible NIC drivers installed. Potential errors Citrix PV Ethernet Adapter is not supported during AWS conversion. Recommendation The Citrix driver installed on the source might cause problems in phase 2. Uninstall the driver.
.Net	What is verified Checks whether the required version of .Net Framework is installed. Potential errors Microsoft .NET Framework v{VERSION} will be installed. Recommendation This is an information message. It can be ignored.
Supported FS	What is verified Verifies source file systems are supported. Potential errors The source has unsupported file systems '{FS_TYPE}' (volume {VOLUME_ID}, mount point {MOUNT_POINT}). Volumes with a non-supported file system can not be transferred. Recommendation One of the devices has an unsupported file system . Failover can continue if it is excluded. See, Configure virtual machines for backup. Ensure that the disk to be excluded does not have following mountpoints : "C:"
Sysprep State	What is verified Verifies previous Sysprep run wasn't incomplete. Potential errors Druva has discovered that a previous Sysprep attempt did not complete properly on the source VM. In the registry navigate to ''HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Session Manager\\'' and locate the key ''BootExecute''. Remove the line containing ''sysprepDecryptor.exe'' and reboot the source VM before migrating. Recommendation In the registry navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Session Manager\\ and locate the key BootExecute. Remove the line containing sysprepDecryptor.exe and reboot the source VM before migrating.
Is Domain Controller	What is verified The source VM is a Domain Controller. Potential errors It appears that the source VM is a Domain Controller. Recommendation Domain controllers sometimes are slow to boot (might cause time outs) and are generally more prone to errors during failover. Use larger instance-type like m4.xlarge family for running failover.
Free Space	What is verified Verifies there is enough free storage space. Potential errors The source VM doesn't have sufficient space on C volume. Druva requires {TOTAL_SPACE_REQUIREMENT} MB free space on C volume. Recommendation Provision additional free disk space as described in the message.
Antivirus Software	What is verified Checks whether the source has AV/protection software installed. Potential errors {AV_NAME} antivirus software detected (service name: {SERVICE_NAME}). If failover fails, try whitelisting Druva software components. Recommendation Antivirus software blocks cli.exe or some other executable during failover. Try whitelisting the executables.
Selected Disks	What is verified Verifies failover can proceed with only the selected disks. Potential errors Volume {MOUNT_POINT} won't be available on the target as disk {DISK} was skipped. Disk {DISK} isn't used by any file system. Recommendation Consider removing the disk from the backup and selected_disks. See, Configure virtual machines for backup. Ensure that the disk to be excluded does not have following mountpoints : "C:"

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