How to Perform a Live Failover

  1. Log into the web interface of the ZVM server.
  2. From the Dashboard, Click on the VPG tab on the left-hand side of the screen.
  3. Check the box next to the VPG you would like to perform the Live Failover for, once checked, click the Red Failover Button in the bottom-left.
  4. The Live Failover window opens, select the VPGs that you would like to failover, Click Next.
  5. Under Parameters; Select the required settings for your failover and then Click Next.
    1. Checkpoint: Select the desired checkpoint that you would like the server to fail back to.
    2. Commit Policy: Determines how much time after a failover is completed whether it will auto-rollback (ending the failover and removing the VM from the recovery side) or auto-commit (ending the failover and moving the VM into the recovery environment). Select to either Rollback or Commit, than select a value in minutes that you would like for this action to automatically take place. Selecting None for Commit Policy will require the user to manually choose when to Commit or Rollback after the failover is complete.
    3. VM Shutdown: Selecting Yes will cause the VM to be powered off after failover is complete.
    4. Reverse Protection: Edits the VPG after a committed failover to begin replicating from the recovery site to the original source site.
    5. Boot Order: For when you have multiple VMs being failed over at the same time and you require certain server to boot prior to another.
    6. Scripts: If your server requires scripts at boot, you can add them here.
  6. Click the Start Failover button.
    1. IMPORTANT – PLEASE READ! Depending on your choices for your commit policy, you may receive a warning that if you set to policy to auto-commit and you need to rollback after the amount of time you have configured has passed, there will be no option to failback to a different checkpoint afterwards.
  7. If you login to your vCloud Portal, you should begin to see the servers spin up in your DR Virtual Data Center. Depending on your choices for failover, you will also notice power status changes, boot order, etc. Once they complete, console into the VM and ensure functionality and that you failover to an acceptable to checkpoint. Once you confirm the VM is in the desired state, you will need to go back to the ZVM web UI, under the VPG tab, find the VPG that you have performed the failover on and under the Operation column, click one of the two buttons to either commit (checkmark) or rollback (circular arrow). Pending on Failover Parameters, select whether to Reverse Protect back to the original source site.


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