Orchestrator uses the failover and data recovery functionality provided by Veeam Backup & Replication to automate recovery actions taken in case of a software or hardware malfunction. Additionally, Orchestrator supports recovery orchestration based on replicated storage snapshots created on storage systems.
Orchestration Plans
These are the plans you build to orchestrate the failover of one or a group of servers.
- Cloud Plan: VMs will be recovered from Veeam agent or vSphere backups into an Azure Cloud environment
- CDP Replica Plan: VMs will be recovered from Veeam CDP replicas
- Replica Plan: VMs will be recovered from Veeam replicas
- Storage Plan: VMs will be recovered from replicated storage volumes (NetApp or HPE)
- Restore Plan: VMs will be recovered from Veeam agent or vSphere backups into a VMware vSphere environment (Original or alternate location)
Plan Modes and States:
- DISABLED: This means the plan is ready to be edited and verified. Scheduled plan execution in this mode is not available. Automatic report updates in this mode are disabled.
- ENABLED: This means the plan is ready to be verified and executed. Plan editing in this mode is not available. Automatic report updates in this mode are enabled.
- IN USE: This means the plan is either in one of the active states (except the EDITING state) or in one of the stable states (except VERIFIED and NOT VERIFIED states). Plan editing and disabling in this mode are not available. Automatic report updates in this mode are disabled.
Core Orchestration Plan Components
Recovery Location
- Recovery locations are groups of target resources (that is, infrastructure objects such as hosts, clusters, networking, and storage) used by Orchestrator to orchestrate recovery. Resource groups are managed by Veeam ONE Client, a component of the embedded Veeam ONE server installed on the Orchestrator server.
- There are three types of recovery locations: Restore, Cloud, and Storage.
- Restore Recovery Locations are used to define vSphere hosts, datastores and VM network configuration resources to be used to recover VMs when running restore plans and performing failback operations.
- Cloud Recovery Locations are used to define cloud resources where Veeam Agent and vSphere backups can be recovered as cloud VMs when running cloud plans.
- Storage Recovery Locations are used to define target storage systems, vSphere hosts, and VM network configuration resources to recover VMs when running storage plans. storage plans.
- Notice: There is no CDP or Replica Recovery location as the location of the data, network remapping, and re-ip as these are dictated at the Replication Job level itself.
VM Groups
VM groups are sets of servers orchestrated by Orchestrator. This collection of servers can be grouped in the following manner: VMware Tags, Veeam Jobs, as well as applicable replicated Datastores. Utilizing VMware Tags is the preferred method to ensure grouping of like priority of dependent servers. This also allows for more system administrator visibility on the VMware side.
VM Steps
Plan steps are the sequence of actions taken by the Orchestrator server during plan execution (i.e. Heartbeat or Ping Checks). There are default Plan Steps as well as custom plan steps that you can build but we currently only support PowerShell scripts.
Creating Orchestration Plans
Consider which type of Orchestration plan you want to deploy, for this guide we’ve covered Restore Plan and a Replica Plan.
Prerequisites and Important Notes
Configuring a Replica Plan requires a replication job to be created on the Veeam Backup & Replication server. For Replica plans the placement, networking, and storage is selected in the configuration of the replication job on the Veeam Backup & Replication server. Continue reading in the User Guide.
Configuring a Restore Plan requires a backup or backup copy job to be created on the Veeam Backup & Replication server. Recovery Locations are used for Restore Plans during the plan creation phase. For Restore plans the placement, networking, and storage is selected when configuring a recovery location. For further information, continue reading in the User Guide.
Before proceeding to create either a Replica or Restore plans, watch this walkthrough to learn how to take the steps needed to create a recovery plan.
Replica Plan Creation Steps
- Choose a scope for the plan
- Choose a type of the plan
- Include inventory groups in the plan
- Specify VM recovery options
- Add steps to the plan
- Specify credentials for the plan steps
- Specify VM protection options
- Specify the target RTO and RPO
- Select a template for plan reports
- Specify scheduling options for plan reports
- Finish working with the wizard
Restore Plan Creation Steps
- Specify a plan name and description
- Choose a scope for the plan
- Choose a type of the plan
- Select a recovery location for the plan
- Include inventory groups in the plan
- Specify VM recovery options
- Add steps to the plan
- Specify credentials for the plan steps
- Specify VM protection options
- Specify the target RTO and RPO
- Select a template for plan reports
- Specify scheduling options for plan reports
- Finish working with the wizard
The Readiness Check
The Readiness Check ensures that the underlying Servers in the VM Group have met the proper RTO/RPO you've applied to the plan. It also checks for a variety of other plan verification steps.
You are encouraged to run a readiness check after the creation of the plan. It’s also important to run this check prior to running or testing orchestration plans.
Refer to the User Guide for additional information.
If you need more help getting started, you can post your question in the comments section below or contact us at any time and someone from the Customer Success team will be there to assist you.