Performing a SecondSite DR Test

Owned by Tahir Kulelija
Last updated: 19 Jan 2024 by Jason Baseley
3 min read

Testing your disaster recovery solution can be an important part of compliance.

When you are ready to do a test, please remember you have 24hrs of free testing every 90 days. After this period you will be charged for the resources used during the test.

Step 1

Log onto the Zerto console whether it be your own vSphere (VMware), System Center Virtual Machine Manager (Microsoft) or our secure portal.

Please note that this test is free for 24hours. There are no other charges and please disregard any potential charges listed. If you extend your testing beyond the free 24hr period you will be charged for the actual compute consumption (CPU, RAM, Storage) at normal daily rates.

 

Step 2

Hit the Failover button and ensure that the Test option is selected. This can be found at the bottom left hand of the console

Step 3

Select the VPGs you wish to test and select Next.


Step 4

Choose the checkpoint which you would like to power on and select Next. There will be many checkpoints available which potentially go back two weeks. How many checkpoints are held is determined by the size of the journal and the rate of change of each VPG.

Step 5

Check that the right number of VMs and VPGs are selected and select Start Failover Test.

Step 6

Move to the Zettagrid MyAccount page for the service and ensure that the VMs are powering on. This process can take a few minutes for the VMs to be created, registered and powered on in our console.

Step 7

Log into vCloud to manage your VMs confirm that they powered up correctly. You can access VM console from vCloud to interact with any applications installed inside the OS.

Step 8

When you are satisfied with the test you can then move back to the Zerto console whether it be your own vSphere (VMware), System Center Virtual Machine Manager (Microsoft) or our secure portal and hit the Stop button next to the relevant VPGs.

Step 9

Log back into the SecondSite service management screen and select the Resize button to reduce the resources back down to the levels before you initiated the test. This will ensure that after the testing phase you are not charged for the resources from this point on.