[REPLAY: GUIDE TO TESTING AND EVALUATION]

INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION

INSTALL REPLAY RECOVERY CONSOLE

The Replay Recovery Console (RRC) is a Windows PE based bootable environment that is used to perform bare metal recovery of a windows server.

1. Run the downloaded setup file BootCDBuilder-4.5.1.xxxxx.exe. Click Setup.

   

2. On the initial screen, Click "Install Boot CD Builder"

   

   NOTE: On prerequisites screen, install any prerequisites that are identified as not Installed.В  Note that you can click the Check Again button to ensure you have the correct prerequisites. Click next after all the prerequisites have been installed.

3. At the Replay Boot CD Builder Installation wizard screen, click next.

   

4. Select "I accept the terms…" and click "Next".

   

5. At the Installation Type screen, choose "Anyone who uses…".В  Click "Next".

   

6. Accept the default location for installation or set a custom path by clicking "Change". Click Next.

   

7. Confirm the install settings. Click Install.

   

   

8. Click Finish to complete of the RRC installation.

   

CREATING THE RECOVERY CD

1. Log into the Replay Core.
2. Start the RRC Builder.

   

3. Click the Settings tab. If you are running the RRC Builder on the protected server, click the Add Boot Entry for RRC checkbox to add an entry in Boot.ini
4. Click the Add Credentials to ISO checkbox if you want to include RRC logging in credentials in the ISO itself.
5. In the ISO Output Path field, specify the path to a Windows Installation CD or directory.Do not include "i386" or "AMD64" in the path.
6. Click the Credentials tab and enter the domain name, user name, and password (see Figure 88). The account must be a domain account.

   

7. Click Check to verify that the credentials are valid.
8. If the credentials are valid, the following informational message appears. Click OK to close the message.

   

9. The ReplayВ  Recovery Console Builder dialog reappears
10. Click the Add Drivers tab to add appropriate WINPE2.1/RIS compatible 32-bit drivers for Network and Storage Controllers.В  This is not required in most cases as WinPE 2.1 contains many of the most common drivers. These drivers are available from the hardware vendor´s website. If server has more than one network and/or storage controller, then add the driver for each instance.

    

11. The selected network interface must be the one that will be used for the Physical Standby functions. This network interface must be connected and accessible from the Replay server using an IP address.
12. Click the License tab.В  Select the Browse button and pick a license key file.

    

13. Click Build to create the ISO image. The RRC-i386.ISO image will be created in the C:\Program Files\AppAssure Software\Replay\Images directory

ADD SERVER FOR PROTECTION

To add a server for protection ensure that the agent is installed on the server and the Replay Agent service is enabled and running.

1. Log into the Replay Core.
2. Start the Replay Administration Console.

   

   Click on the Core Server on the left, then, in the right pane, click the Summary tab (it is the default).

3. Click the "Protect…" button.
4. This will launch the Protection Wizard.

   

5. In the Server Name field, enter the NetBIOS or FQDN name of the server. Select volume(s) for the Repository Volumes. Do not change the port.
6. If the Core and the Agent use different credentials for the service account, click the Authentication button to set the specific credentials. Enter the username in the Domain\Account or Server\Account format

   

7. Click Test Connection and OK to exit the message box. Click Save to close the authentication dialog window.

   

8. If all volumes on the server do not need to be protected select "Advanced: Let me decide which volumes to protect". The initial snapshot is a base image, if you want to start protection of the server at a future time select "Start protection at this future date/time" and choose the start time

   

9. If the protected server is an Exchange server,
   • Select "Validate that the mailbox store is mountable (recommended: default setting)".В 
   • To perform Log truncation, select "Truncate Exchange Logs". Log truncation requires a detailed integrity check which can be performed daily or weekly. If log truncation is desired before the detailed integrity check, select "Force log truncation prior to checksum check"

     

10. If the protected server is a SQL server,В  select "Perform Full VSS SQL nightly backup" and "Perform nightly attachability verification from the most recent recovery point". This requires an instance of SQL on the Replay Server.

    

11. Click Finish once you have completed the configuration for the new protected server. The newly added server will be listed in the Protected Servers area.

RECOVERY OF FILES AND FOLDERS

1. Navigate to the server in the Replay console by clicking on the server on the left pane.

   

2. Click on the Recovery Points tab. Expand the Recovery Points based on the timeframe you want to restore data from.

   

3. Select the recovery point that contains the files and folders you wish to recover. Expand the recovery point.

   

4. Right-click and select Explore from the volume that contains the data you wish to restore. The recovery point is automatically mounted and Windows Explorer opens with the mounted recovery point displayed.

   

5. Select the directories and files to restore and copy them to the machine of your choice. The mounted recovery point is accessible using Windows explorer.

   

6. Dismount the recovery point after you have recovered the desired files and folders.

   

MOUNTING A RECOVERY POINT

The NTFS file system supports mounted folders. A mounted folder is an association between a volume and a directory on another volume. When a mounted folder is created, users and applications can access the target volume either by using the path to the mounted folder or by using the volume’s drive letter. For example, a user can create a mounted folder to associate drive D: with the C:\Mnt\DDrive folder on drive C. After creating the mounted folder, the user can use the "C:\Mnt\DDrive" path to access drive D: as if it were a folder on drive C:.
Replay has the ability to mount a recovery point as a mount point. The Replay mount points do not consume additional space.

1. Navigate to the server in the Replay console by clicking on the server on the left pane.

   

2. Click on the Recovery Points tab. Expand the Recovery Points based on the timeframe you want to restore data from.

   

3. Select the recovery point that contains the files and folders you wish to recover. Expand the recovery point.

   

4. Right-click and select Mount from the volume that contains the data you wish to restore.

   

5. To mount an entire recovery point to a folder use the "Mount to a folder"В  or to "Mount to a drive letter".В  Choose the writeability options.
   • Mount recovery point without previous writes (read-only) -В  This option mounts the recovery point as read-only.
   • Mount read-only with previous writes – This option mounts the recovery point’s previous writable recovery point as read-only. This capability is useful to share database maintenance updates and changes for rollback, backup, and data mining operations.
   • Mount writable, truncating previous writesВ  – This option mounts the recovery point as writeable. This capability is useful for performing database maintenance and data mining\operations. Replay has a separate location to maintain the changes to the recovery point, thereby guaranteeing the integrity of the original recovery point.

     

     

6. Access the mounted volume by navigating to the mount point or the drive.

   

RECOVERY OF VOLUME(S) USING THE RESTORE WIZARD AND LIVE REPLAY

Live Replay is the process of restoring a recovery point to the original volume through a virtually mounted recovery point. The volume is accessible by Exchange throughout the duration of Replay.
To restore volumes of a protected server:

1. Navigate to the server in the Replay console

   

2. Click on the Recovery Points tab. Expand the Recovery Points based on the timeframe you want to restore data from.

   

   

3. Select the recovery point that contains the volume(s) or a protected group you wish to recover. Expand the recovery point.

   

4. Right-click the volume or the volume protection group and select Restore. A restore wizard will appear

   

   NOTE: The following settings are all selected by default.

5. Select the target. The options are restore back to source (default), bare metal Recovery or an alternate server. Click Next.

   

6. Select Restore entire disks. Click Next.

   

7. В Select the source and the corresponding target volume. Select "Live Replay" and "Force dismount of volumes if necessary". Click Next.

   

8. If the target volumes contain exchange storage group, an informational message will be displayed. Select "Remount these storage groups after restore".В  Click Start.

   

9. On the restore status window. Click "Start".

   

10. Click "Finish" after you see the status "Restore initiated successfully…"

    

RECOVERY OF SERVER

1. Boot the target server with the ISO or CD created using the Replay Recovery

   

2. Record the IP Address(s)
3. If the recovery ISO/CD was not configured with domain authentication, click Change in the Replay Core Credentials pane of the Replay Recovery Console window and enter the appropriate credentials and click OK.

   

4. To change the IP address
5. To manage and provision the disk partitions, click Manage disks.В  Select the Disk and click create partition and map the partitions to relevant drive letters

   

6. Before you click OK, be sure to verify your drive mapping.10.
7. Ensure that the identical Network and Storage drivers are injected in the RRC ISO.
8. Ensure that the server is available on the local subnet.
9. Begin the Restore process as above by right clicking a recovery point and choosing "Restore". This will start the restore wizard.
10. Select "Bare Metal Restore to a Replay Recovery Console (RRC) Instance", and then enter the IP address that the RRC has been given, either by DHCP or manually entered into the BootCD or RRC. Click the "Check" button to verify communications to the RRC.

    

11. Follow steps 6 through 10 outlined above in the section entitled "RECOVERY OF VOLUME(S) USING THE RESTORE WIZARD AND LIVE REPLAY"
12. Once the Restore completes, remove the CD from the server you just recovered and reboot it to complete the recovery.

ONE TIME EXPORTOF A SERVER TO A VIRTUAL MACHINE

1. Select the recovery point that contains the volume(s) or a protected group you wish to recover. Expand the recovery point.

   

   

   

2. Right click the recovery point to bring up the menu.

   

   

3. 

4. Select the option "Create Virtual Machine" to start the wizard.

   

5. Choose the type of VM to create and click "Next".

   

6. Select the Volumes to be included in this VM, then click "Next".

   

7. The memory size will be taken from the original server. If you would like to override these settings, click the "Set the memory size…" radio button and put in the amount you want to set it to.

   

8. For Hyper-V and the non-ESX VMWare formats, select a folder and click "Next".Go to step 10.

   

   

9. For VMWare ESX, enter a host name of one of the ESX nodes and fill in the credentials, then click "Connect". Once the connection is made, select the ESX Host, the Datastore, and the Resource Pool, then click "Next".

   

   

10. Enter in the ESX host credentials required to transfer data via SSH, and then click "Next".

    

    

11. For a one time export, simply click "Finish".

    

    

12. For Virtual Standby, proceed to the next section.

VIRTUAL STANDBY

1. Select the recovery point that contains the volume(s) or a protected group you wish to recover. Expand the recovery point.

   

2. Right click the recovery point to bring up the menu.

   

3. Select the option "Create Virtual Machine" to start the wizard.

   

4. Choose the type of VM to create and click "Next".

   

5. Select the Volumes to be included in this VM, then click "Next".

   

6. The memory size will be taken from the original server. If you would like to override these settings, click the "Set the memory size…" radio button and put in the amount you want to set it to.

   

7. For Hyper-V and the non-ESX VMWare formats, select a folder and click "Next". Proceed to step 10.

   

8. For VMWare ESX, enter a host name of one of the ESX nodes and fill in the credentials, then click "Connect". Once the connection is made, select the ESX Host, the Datastore, and the Resource Pool, then click "Next".

   

9. Enter in the ESX host credentials required to transfer data via SSH, then click "Next". Refer to Appendix B on instructions to configure the ESX firewall to allow communication on port 9002

   

10. Check the "Keep virtual machine updated with the latest recovery point" box, set the interval, and then click "Finish".

    

RESCUE IMAGE

A rescue image is a recoverable image of a protected machine that can be saved to any type of storage; NAS, USB, removable disks. The rescue image can be recovered directly from the failed machine with the use of a Replay BOOT CD. Rescue images can be continuously updated when recovery points are updated enabling additional protection from a server failure.

To complete the Rescue Image Wizard, do the following:

1. Enter the folder name to store the rescue image, and then click Next. It is best practice to store the rescue image on a disk that is not connected to the protected server. In the case of a server failure, boot the Replay boot CD and, click RRCIMAGE button and point to the rescue image.

   

2. Select "Keep the rescue image updated with the latest recovery point" to maintain an updated copy.
3. Enter the interval to attempt to update the rescue image. Replay will maintain the rescue image with the latest recovery point changes so the snapshot interval is relevant.
4. Select the start time.
5. Optionally, enter the post processing command. The command is executed asynchronously after the rescue image is created.

   

RECOVERY OF EXCHANGE STORAGE GROUP

Replay automatically creates a protection group for all the volumes that contain data of an Exchange storage group viz. the databases, the logs and the system path. To recover an Exchange storage group all one as to do is recover a protection group.

To restore volumes of a protected server,

1. Navigate to the server in the Replay console

   

2. Click on the Recovery Points tab. Expand the Recovery Points based on the timeframe you want to restore data from.

   

3. Select the recovery point that contains the volume(s) or a protected group you wish to recover. Expand the recovery point.

   

4. Right-click the volume or the volume protection group and select Restore. A restore wizard will appear

   

5. Select the target. The options are restore back to source (default), bare metal Recovery or an alternate server. Click Next.

   

6. Select Restore entire disks. Click Next.

   

7. В Select the source and the corresponding target volume. Select "Live Replay" and "Force dismount of volumes if necessary". Click Next.

   

8. В If the target volumes contain exchange storage group, an informational message will be displayed. Select "Remount these storage groups after restore".В  Click Start.

   

9. On the restore status window. Click "Start".

   

10. Click "Finish" after you see the status "Restore initiated successfully…". You can now use the data as it is being restored from the Replay Core

    

RECOVERY OF MAILBOX AND EMAIL ITEMS

1. Select the recovery point that contains the volume(s) or a protected group you wish to recover. Expand the recovery point. Select the protection group D:;F: for SG1 or E:;G: for SG2 in the example below.

   

2. Right-click the volume or the volume protection group and select open Storage Group\Database. This opens MailRetriever.

   

   MailRetriever can restore any collection of email objects you select, from a single item to an entire mailbox, into the Exchange online store using MAPI. MailRetriever requires Outlook 2003 or higher with an active profile for the administrative user on the Replay Core.

3. To restoring email items, select a collection of items to restore from the tree on the left (all children are auto-selected), or in the message header view panel select a group of messages you would like to restore and press the restore button on the toolbar. Alternatively you can right-click over your selection and choose "Restore Messages" from the menu,

   

   

4. Once you have selected your restore method, the Restore Mode window appears

   

5. In the Restore Mode window, choose the method of restore.

1. Redirect items to recovery folder. This mode restores selected items (including folder hierarchy) to a recovery folder in an online mailbox of your choice. The recovery folder name will include date and time of the restore and the folder will be placed under the root of the chosen user’s mailbox.
2. To choose the user whose mailbox the items will be restored to, click on the "…" button

   The Outlook address book interface for the profile used with this restore operation appears. Note that the mailbox to which you are restoring has to be online and the profile used for restore should have full rights to access the mailbox including SendAs/ReceiveAs rights.

3. Redirect restored items to PST file. Restores selected items (including folder hierarchy) to a PST file you specify.

   

1. Restore only differences. Identifies if the message being restored is already present in the folder it is being restored to. If so, it skips the restore; if the message is not present, it performs the restore.
2. Create duplicate entries. Restores everything without overwriting existing messages, creates duplicates.
3. Overwrite if more recent. Only restores the items that either are not currently present in the online store or that the message in the offline database is newer than the one online.

SQL DATABASE ATTACHABILITY CHECK

The Replay Core can automatically "Attach" test to all the databases within a recovery point of a protected SQL server. This test can be performed once a day. In order to effectively protect and perform the "attach" test, the Replay Agent service account must be granted the SYSADMIN right on the SQL server.В  Attachability tests for SQLExpress are not supported by Replay Core.

The "Attach" also requires SQL server on the Replay Core. Since SQL imposes no restrictions on attach to databases, you can install the same or newer version of SQL Server.

Use the SQL settings tab to define how Replay will backup and validate the SQL databases. The following are available settings:

1. The Perform Full VSS SQL nightly backup option will enable a VSS full backup one per day. This backup will truncate the SQL logs
2. The Perform a nightly attachability verification from the most recent recovery point option will attach the latest recovery point to an instance of SQL on the Replay Core and determine its attachability. Replay will perform this once a night and it will check all of the databases in the recovery point.
3. The Events tab will indicate the status of the individual databases.

   

CONFIGURING REPLICATION

Use Replication tab to manage replication sources and replication targets for the managed Replay Core.  A Replay Core can replicate its’ protected machines to remote Replay Core (replication source pane) and it can accept protected machines from remote Replay Cores (replication target pane).  In each case the protected machines are listed below with their respective replication status.

1. Start the Replay Console and Navigate to the Replication Tab.

   

2. To enable off-site backup for a protected server, select the server and click on properties

   

3. Click "Enable Replication"

   

4. Click Choose. Enter the Replication Target Host Name and the username and password provided to you in the Configuration sheet sent to you with the portable drive. Click Connect.

   

5. Select disk volume to store the recovery points on the target Replay Core. Click OK

   

6. Select both "Only replicate the most recent recovery point chain" and "Pause replication on the core after saving settings for this agent." This feature allows copying of the recovery points to the remote server using the portable drive. Click Save. If you wish to perform an online seed directly to the target replication core do not check the box for "Pause replication on the core after saving settings for this agent." Refer to the following section Using Copy and Consume for offline seeding.

USING COPY& CONSUME FOR OFFLINE SEEDING

1. Perform step 2 to step 6 on all servers that you want to replicate using the Replay replication to the remote location.
2. Now you are ready to "Copy" the recovery points to the portable drive. Select a server and Click Copy. This will start the Recovery Point Copy Wizard.

   

3. In the Recovery Point Copy Wizard, click the drop down bar and select the drive from step 1 that will be used to copy the Recovery Points for the offline copy process. Click Next.

   

4. Select all the protected servers that you wish setup offsite backups. These will be all the servers that you have configured for Replication using Step 3 to Step 7. Click Next.

   

5. Select the scope for the copy of the Recovery Points and select "Copy only the most recent recovery point chain".В  Click Next.

   

6. Click Start to begin copying the recovery points to the seed drive.

   

7. Once the copy process is complete. Click OK on the message

   

8. Click Finish to close the Recovery Point Copy Wizard
9. To consume the recovery points on the target Replay core. Start the Replay Administration console on the target Replay core. Navigate to Replication Tab and click Consume. This starts the consume wizard.

   

10. Enter the path to access the exported recovery points. Select "Consume all recovery points". Click Next and follow the wizard.

    

11. Once the Recovery Points have been consumed on the Target Replay core, you can synchronize your backups with your offsite backups. Start the Replay Console on the source Replay Core , and click on the Replication Tab

    

    The "Replication Status" should read "Replication is paused". Click on "Resume Replication". This resumes synchronization of your backups with your offsite backups.

12. Once the backups have been synchronized, the Replication status should display "Synced on …" or "Replication is Idle" or "Sync´ed on…"

REPLICATION SCHEDULES

Replication can be scheduled to run during certain times during the day.  Any time outside of this window, replication will be suspended.  The schedule is specified as a start and stop time for weekdays, and a start and stop time for weekends.
To change the replication schedule, navigate to the replication tab and click schedule.

REPLICATION MANAGEMENT

To stop replication for an agent or all replicated from a source Replay Core, navigate to the replication tab and click Actions.

• Suspend Replication will pause replication for all replicated agents
• Suspend replication for the agent will pause replication for a selected agent.

UNINSTALLING REPLAY CORE

1. To uninstall the Core. Navigate to Start the Control Panel a Add/Remove Programs, highlight Replay Core.

   

2. Right click Replay Core and click Change.

   

3. At the Welcome Screen. Click Next.

   

4. On the Program Maintenance window, Select Remove. Click Next.

   

5. This step is important. If you are performing a maintenance un-install uncheck the two boxes. If you wish to completely remove the Replay Recovery Points and the Replay Metadata, Check the two boxes. Click Next.

   

6. Click Remove.

   

   

7. If you are prompted for an installer message, Click OK.

   

8. Click Finish to complete the uninstall process.

   

UNINSTALLINGВ  REPLAY AGENT

1. To uninstall the Replay Agent. Navigate to Start the Control Panel Г  Add/Remove Programs, highlight Replay Agent.

   

2. Right click Replay Agent and click Change.

   

3. At the Welcome Screen. Click Next.

   

4. On the Program Maintenance window, Select Remove. Click Next.

   

5. Click Remove.

   

6. Click Finish to complete the uninstall process. Reboot the machine.