This section assumes an original source server has failed, and a failover to a disaster recovery virtual machine has already taken place (see Planning for Failure). It also assumes that the target for the failback procedure does not already exist in Forge. The following instructions are a guide to deploying the virtual machine back onto physical hardware or to a virtual server (depending on whether the protected workload was a physical server or a virtual machine).
To failback a failed over workload you need to prepare the failback, configure the failback, run the failback and then optionally configure reprotection for the workload.
From the Forge dashboard, click .
Select the checkbox next to the failed over (live) workload for which you would like to configure failback.
Notice that some of the command buttons on the bottom of the screen become available in response to the type of workload selected. In this case, since the workload has been failed over, you can either configure failback or remove the workload.
Click .
The Failback Details page is displayed, prepopulated with the credentials for the workload you selected.
NOTE:The IP and/or password for the workload may have changed while the workload was failed over. If so, make any required adjustments to the credentials.
If you are failing back to brand new hardware or a new virtual machine, select . If you are failing back to the same hardware or the same virtual machine that was previously protected, select .
Select either or , as appropriate for your task.
To failback to a physical target, see Step 7. To failback to a virtual target, skip to Step 8.
To failback to a physical target for either a full (new hardware) or incremental (existing hardware) replication, you need to boot up and register the target physical server using the WinPE* ISO image. You can get the image by clicking at the bottom of the page. Once the target is booted up and registered, it will appear in the list of physical targets you can select for the failback task. Skip to Step 13.
To failback to a virtual machine, click .
For a full replication, see Step 9. For an incremental replication, skip to Step 11.
For full replications, enter the , the and the for the failback target server (hypervisor where Forge will create the virtual machine to which you will failback).
NOTE:If both the failover and source workloads are online, use the IP address to identify them, since they will both have the same hostname.
Click to return to the Prepare Failback page. Skip to Step 13.
For incremental replications, click to display the Add Target(Virtual Server) page.
Enter the , the and the for the failback target server (hypervisor where the virtual machine to which you will failback resides) and click .
The Add Target(Virtual Machine) page is displayed where you can select the virtual machine and network to which you want to failback.
NOTE:Currently only ESX 3.x and 3i are supported as failback targets. When specifying a virtual failback target using incremental replication, you actually need to specify the hypervisor container as the target. In subsequent steps, you will specify the virtual machine in that container as the actual failback target.
Click to return to the Prepare Failback page.
Select the radio button next to the target you just added.
Click .
Notice the green arrow in this button which indicates no confirmation message is displayed for this step. Proceed to Configuring and Running Failback.
Confirm the failback settings. Most of these setting typically are fine as is. For information on file transfer methods, see Supported Transfer Methods.
(Optional) To stop any running services during the failback procedure, click , select services to stop and click .
Make any desired changes to the workload settings, including changing the state of any existing services.
In the post-failback settings, specify whether you want to reprotect the workload after failback.
If you choose not to reprotect the workload, you can choose whether to leave the failed-back workload powered on or not.
Click .
Optionally, proceed to Configuring Reprotect.
If you opted to reprotect the workload after failback, when the failback has completed running, you are presented with the Configure Reprotect page.
Confirm the workload hostname/IP and credentials supplied by Forge.
Specify whether you want the initial replication to be full or incremental. If you select incremental, confirm the Network and whether the IP assignment is DHCP or Static. If it is a static IP, fields are displayed for you to enter the configuration information.
Click .
To complete reprotect, see Configuring Protection and Preparing Replication.