In this video, you'll see how you can get started with AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS).
With this service, you can configure replication servers and launch drill and recovery instances
that help to minimize downtime and protect against data loss in the event of operation disruption.
To get started, let’s navigate to AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery.
As the admin user of the AWS account, we’ll begin by reviewing the default replication settings.
The replication server configuration establishes the staging area where our data will be replicated.
We can define the staging area subnet and the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
instance type to use for the replication servers.
In the Volumes section, we can specify our preferences for the Amazon Elastic Block Store
(Amazon EBS) volume and encryption types.
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery creates its own security groups,
but we can apply additional groups if necessary.
We can apply data routing and throttling controls and revise the Point in Time policy, which
by default retains snapshots for seven days.
We can also apply tags.
We’ll save the settings, which will initiate the service and create the required IAM permissions.
Let’s return to the Source servers page.
Next, we’ll install the AWS Replication Agent on our new source server.
Using Linux, we'll apply the code to download the agent from an Amazon Simple Storage Service
(Amazon S3) bucket.
Then we'll run the installation script.
We'll supply the name of the AWS Region we want to replicate to,
which is the one where our account is located.
We’ll also provide the AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.
Now we can choose which disks to replicate.
We'll replicate all of them.
As you can see, the new source server has already appeared and is initializing.
Let’s close the Linux window and view the new Elastic Disaster Recovery server.
On the Recovery dashboard tab, we can review the progress of the replication sync.
The Server info tab contains information about the server, including its IP address, identification hints,
hardware components, and operating system.
We can also manage and edit any tags we've assigned and review the disk settings.
From the Replication settings tab we can review and, if needed,
adjust the default settings for this specific server.
And in the Launch settings tab, we can review how Elastic Disaster Recovery will replicate
the server in the event of a manufactured drill or actual disaster.
We can edit the server's EC2 launch template to create a new template version.
For instance, we can choose a different instance type and which key pairs to be granted access.
We can revise the basic network settings, including the subnet and security groups,
and enter advanced network configurations such as an extra network interface.
We can also configure additional storage and add resource tags.
There are many more advanced details we could select to ensure the server is functional for our needs.
We can even utilize user data for this machine to
automatically run scripts when it fails over.
Let’s move forward with the default settings and create the template version.
Now that we've created a new template, we need to save and apply the latest version to our server.
Let's select the template's hyperlink.
We'll take the action to set a default version.
Then we'll choose the latest version number and set it as the default.
Now that our server is set up, we can return to the Elastic Disaster Recovery console and initiate a drill.
This is an essential step to verify that the server functions properly before a real-life recovery is necessary.
We'll choose the server, initiate a recovery job, and then initiate a drill.
Here we can select from several recently captured point-in-time snapshots.
We'll use the most recent data available.
Note that performing a drill or failover does not affect
the source machine or its replication to the staging area.
Let's initiate the drill.
The server’s last recovery result is now "pending."
We can monitor the drill's progress more closely on the Recovery job history page.
Here’s the job that we just started.
The recovery drill has been successfully completed.
We can view a log of the job events and calculate the recovery time.
Let's go to the Recovery instances page.
We'll select the instance we just ran.
Let’s view the instance in Amazon EC2.
We can see here that the instance is in a "Running" state.
Let's go back to the Elastic Disaster Recovery console.
If this had been an actual disaster, we’d now start the failback process to our source machine.
In this case, we'll terminate the Drill instance.
This is a best practice for avoiding service usage and fees, and does not disrupt the source replication.
We'll select the instance and first take the action to disconnect from AWS.
Now we can delete the recovery instance.
You've just seen how you can get started with AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery.
You can learn more about this topic in the description and links for this video.
Thanks for watching. Now it's your turn to try.