Failover

1 February 2024

To perform an actual failover:

  1. In SiteContinuity, navigate to DR Plans.

  2. In the Disaster Recovery Plans page, choose a DR Plan for failover. A DR Plan must be in the Failover Ready state for a failover.

  3. Click the Actions menu (⋮) of the DR plan, and select Failover. The Failover page displays the target DR site and the target Cohesity cluster:

  4. From the Resource Profile drop-down, select a Resource Profile.

  5. If you plan to fail back the DR plan after the failover, select Protect VMs at DR Site. If this option is selected, when the failover completes, SiteContinuity enables the protection of the VMs (defined in your DR plan) newly created on the DR site.

  6. For recovery, the latest snapshot is used by default. Verify the displayed snapshot or click Edit to choose a different snapshot, and click Apply.

  7. Failovers migrate the DR Application to the DR site. Enter YES to confirm and click Failover.

Validate Failover

To validate the failover:

  1. Log into the DR vCenter:

  2. Ensure that the VM instances come up in the order defined in the DR plan.

  3. Confirm that the allocated resources and network configurations for each VM are correct.

  4. Conduct tests on applications running within the VMs. Ensure they function as expected and validate their connectivity and performance.

  5. Navigate to the DR Cohesity cluster and validate that the Protection Group created as part of the failover is active.

By following these steps, you can ensure a comprehensive validation of the failover process, covering both VM-level functionality and data protection integrity in the DR environment.

Next Steps

If the Failover is successful and your DR plan is in Failover Complete state, you can click the Actions menu (⋮) corresponding to the DR plan in the DR Plans page and prepare for failback to perform a Test Failback or Failback.

If the Failover is partially successful, the DR plan’s status transitions to the Failover Failed state but still gives the option to Force Finish to mark the partial success a complete success.

If the Failover fails, the DR plan’s status transitions to the Failover Failed state. To explore possible causes and resolve the error, see the Troubleshooting section.