Failover Test versus Live Failover
There are two types of Failovers available through Zerto. Test Failovers are intended to test configuration and verify image content in preparation for a Live Failover. Live Failovers are intended for a full Disaster Recovery situation, and should only be used when the original (local) VM is offline or unavailable, or for permanent migrations into Green Cloud IaaS.
Test Failovers leave the original VM online, and create a VM using the “Test Network” specified during VPG creation. All writes to the new VM are made to temporary volumes, so Test Failovers cannot last indefinitely as the temporary volumes will eventually run out of space. The original VM remains online, any changes are tracked, and new checkpoints will continue to be generated. Once the test is complete, it can be halted using the ZVM or the ZSSP. This will power off the new VM and resume normal Zerto operation. Live failovers, on the other hand, shut down the original VM in favor of the new VM. All writes made to the new VM are persistent. Reverse protection is Zerto’s method of writing any changes made on the new VM to the original, so as to fail back to the original environment at a later time. Please only enable reverse protection after careful consideration of how the new VM will be handled in Green Cloud’s environment, and how this will affect the original VM.
1. Verify “Test” Failover is selected
Check the Failover button in the lower right-hand corner. Verify that the toggle switch indicates “Test” as shown below.
Then click the “Failover” button to start the dialog.
2. Configure Failover
Select the name of the VPGs to be tested.
Change the point in time checkpoint to be the desired restore point, select Next, and choose Start Failover Test.
3. Verify Failover Test
The VM will be created and deployed in the vCloud Org. Once the Failover Test is “waiting for input” in Zerto, the VM is ready for testing. Do not interact with the VM in vCloud until the Failover Test shows “Waiting for input”. Ensure that the network rules and operating system on the VM are in adequate condition.
4. End Failover Test
Select the Task Waiting for Input and click the Stop (gray square) button in the test dialog box as shown below.
Select a Test status and enter any notes, then select Stop Selected to finish the test and clean up the vCloud org.