Test failover a replication

Performing a test failover for an already created replication validates that the workload from the source site replicates correctly in the destination site.

Perform a test failover for an existing replication, then cleanup the test data.

Prerequisites

Before testing failover:

Important:

• Verify that in the destination datastore, at least double the allocated storage of the virtual machine is available for a successful test failover. For information about the storage requirements, see Storage Space Consumption in the Destination.
• Verify that in VMware Cloud Director, the VM discovery option is not activated. For information about deactivating virtual machine discovery, see Discovering and Adopting vApps in the VMware Cloud Director documentation.

• Verify that the workload is already protected in the destination site. For more information, see Create a protection.
• Verify that VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.5 or later is deployed for selecting VDC compute policies when testing failover to and from cloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director.

• Verify that you can access VMware Cloud Director Availability as a tenant or as a service provider. For more information, see Accessing VMware Cloud Director Availability.

Procedure

1. In the left pane, choose a replication direction by clicking Incoming Replications or Outgoing Replications.
2. Select an exiting replication to test the failover, then click All actions > Test.
3. Complete the Test wizard and depending on the source and destination sites configure the different test failover settings for the selected workloads.
   • Start from step e when migrating to or from cloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director, skipping steps a, b, c, and d.
   • Start from step a for vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites.
   1. The Default Settings page shows when the selected replication is already configured with recovery settings and to use them and skip to step e, select Use preset Recovery Settings.
      For information about configuring the recovery settings for vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites, see Configure recovery settings for vSphere DR and migration.
   2. On the VM Folder page, select a destination location for storing the test failover virtual machines, then click Next.
   3. On the Compute Resource page, select a destination compute resource for the test failover virtual machines, then click Next.
   4. On the Network Mappings page, select a network mapping for each adapter connected to each virtual machine, then click Next.
   5. On the Recovery Settings page, select the configuration for the recovered test workload depending on the destination site, then click Next.

      Option	Description
      Instances handling after recovery	Default: selecting this option provides the lowest Recovery Time Objective (RTO). To optimize performance, perform instances consolidation after the recover task completes. Expose PITs: only available for test failing over already protected virtual machines to an on-premises site as a destination, selecting this option allows instances older than the selected instance to be exported as snapshots to the recovered virtual machine.
      Power settings	Powers on the recovered workload in the destination site after the test task completes.
      Network Settings	For migrations to and from cloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director: Select Apply preconfigured network settings on failover, to assign the network configured during the virtual machine replication. Select Connect all VMs to network and from the drop-down menu select a network to connect the replicated virtual machines to.
      VDC policy settings	VDC VM placement policy VDC VM sizing policy For a test to or from a cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director, optionally from the drop-down menus, select the organization VDC compute policies to apply on the recovered workloads. For more information, see VDC compute policies. If you do not select a sizing policy for the replication, then VMware Cloud Director automatically applies the system default sizing policy on the destination virtual machine.

   6. On the Recovery Instance page, if instances are preserved configure the recovery point in time, then click Next.

      Option	Description
      Synchronize all VMs to their current state	Creates an instance of the powered on workload with its latest changes and uses that instance for the test failover.
      Manually select existing instance	Select an instance without synchronizing the data for the recovered workload.

   7. On the Ready To Complete page, verify that the test settings are correct, then click Finish.
   The Last changed column shows the test progress in percentages. When the test of the workload completes, the Recovery state column of this replication shows a green Test image ready state.
4. (Optional) In the bottom pane, to monitor the progress of the task, click the Tasks tab.
5. To delete the test failover results, select the replication to clean.
   Performing test failover without cleaning the previous test results, executes an automatic clean up first.
   1. Click All actions > Test Cleanup.
   2. In the Test Cleanup window, click Cleanup.
   The cleanup deletes all recovered vApps and virtual machines.

What to do next

• You can fail over the workload to the destination site. For more information, see Failover of a replication.
• You can perform a failover or edit the replication settings. To no longer protect the workload, you can permanently stop the traffic of this replication, remove the replication and remove all retained replication instances and cleanup any test data, by clicking All actions > Delete replication.