Failing Back to the Primary VM

If you want to resume operation of a production VM, you can fail back to it from a VM replica. When you perform failback, you get back from the VM replica to the original VM, shift your processes from the secondary host to the production host and return to the normal operation mode.

When you perform failback, Veeam Backup & Replication triggers a failback protective snapshot of a VM replica. This snapshot acts as a restore point and saves the pre-failback state of a replica to which you can return afterwards. Veeam Backup & Replication synchronizes the original VM with the VM replica to make sure you get back to the most recent state of a VM. The original VM is then powered on; all replication activities are put on hold.

You can fail back to the VM in the original location or in the new location:

• If you have managed to restore operation of the source host, you can fail back to the original VM on the source host.
• If the source host is not available, you can restore the original VM to a new location and fail back to it. You can also fail back to an entirely new location without restoring the original VM beforehand: in this case, VM replica files will be simply transferred to the necessary destination.

In Veeam Backup & Replication, failback itself is an intermediate action that needs to be finalized. Depending on a disaster recovery scenario, you can do one of the following:

• Commit failback. When you commit failback, you finalize recovery of the original VM in the production site. The original VM in the production site or at a new location becomes the primary VM, a VM replica is returned to the normal state and Veeam Backup & Replication resumes replication activities.
• Undo failback. If the production VM is not working as expected, you can undo failback and get back to a VM replica. In this case, the VM replica returns to the Failover state.

Evaluation Case

In this exercise, you will fail back from a VM replica to the primary VM on the source host, and then commit failback.

Prerequisites

You can perform failback for a VM replica in the Failover state. To put the VM replica to this state, make sure you have performed the Failing Over VM Replica exercise. If you have already undone failover, repeat the Failing Over VM Replica exercise for your VM.

Procedure

To fail back to the production VM:

1. Open the Home view.
2. In the inventory pane, select the Replicas node.
3. Right-click the VM and select Failback to production to launch the Failback Wizard.

1. At the Replica step of the wizard, click Next.
2. At the Destination step of the wizard, select Failback to the original VM.

1. At the last step of the wizard, select the Power on VM after restoring check box and click Finish.

Validation

1. Open the Home view.
2. In the inventory pane, select the Replicas node.
3. Make sure that the replicated VM is in the Failback state.

 

Committing Failback