It’s not been long since we launched Veeam Availability Orchestrator v2, bringing with it full orchestration and automation support to restores from Veeam backups. This brought brand new DR possibilities – including the ability to achieve real DR from backups – with extreme operational efficiencies. The orchestration technology that delivers methodical, planned and proven DR was once only available to enterprises or the most mission critical of applications, is now available for all applications and data, no matter how they’ve been protected.
As adoption of Veeam Availability Orchestrator (VAO) continues to grow quickly, so have the requests from our dedicated community, and coming in at a strong number one has been support for array-based replication. With that, I am really excited to announce that in the next release of VAO, version 3, we will be delivering FULL recovery orchestration for NetApp ONTAP Snapshots. And yes, that includes all the automated testing and reports that have become essential to your DR strategies.
So, what can be expected from this upcoming release?
Orchestrated storage and VM failover
For those already familiar with VAO, you already know that you can failover VMs, applications or entire datacenters incredibly quickly and efficiently with one-click simplicity. This is thanks to the comprehensive, flexible plans you are able to build, test and validate through VAO. In v3 you’ll see a new option in your orchestration plans for storage failover, where you’ll be able to connect your NetApp ONTAP infrastructure, clusters and SVMs and build your plans. You’ll then be able to leverage SnapMirror’s fast, efficient, array-based replication and failover to any secondary volume from any point-in-time snapshot. Everything has the same wizard-driven approach and you still have ultimate customization of your plans, like what needs recovering first, what can be powered on simultaneously vs. sequentially, what scripts to run (both out-of-box and custom), etc.
Fully automated Veeam DataLab testing
If there’s one thing you can’t have enough of when it comes to DR, its testing. Our environments are constantly changing and a plan that worked last month might not work today, but constantly testing takes time and resources that most don’t have. VAO lets you schedule fully automated, risk-free DR testing on a recurring basis that leverages your recovery environment. NetApp users will be able to leverage this very same technology for more frequent, thorough DR testing without having to lift a finger; nobody gets pulled away from their job, production doesn’t get impacted and you can validate that your plan actually works.
Actionable documentation and reporting
All the reports that you have come to know and love will also be available for storage failover plans, too. That includes the plan definition report and it’s change logs, the readiness check report for comparing the plan’s configuration with the environment’s status, and execution reports after both test and real-world failovers for granular details on the reliability of your plan. This delivers actionable insights like achieved RTOs and RPOs, what’s succeeded, what’s failed, and more so you can proactively remedy errors and areas of improvement for perfection in a real-world event. These reports can also be used for assuring DR stakeholders and compliance, delivering confidence that your environment and data is protected and resilient against any threat. For a closer look at these reports, check out this short video.
We are proud to partner with NetApp, and that partnership is critical to the continued success of our joint customers. This is witnessed in the deep integrations across our portfolios, and we are excited to take those integrations to even greater heights with this upcoming release.
If you are interested in getting an exclusive, hands-on sneak peek at this integration, we will be running a limited-seat beta with full support from our product management and solution architect VAO and NetApp specialists. To register your interest, simply email orchestrator.beta@veeam.com. Spaces will fill quickly, so be sure to get in early!
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