This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Creating Lab Groups

In most cases, a VM does not work in isolation but has dependencies on other services and components, such as Active Directory or DNS. To verify such VM, the virtual lab will need to supply all services on which this VM is dependent. For this purpose, VAO uses virtual lab groups.

Creating Lab Groups Note:

If a failover plan contains a particular VM group or VM, do not attempt to test this plan in a virtual lab which includes a lab group that contains the same VM or VM group.

To create a lab group:

  1. Log in to the VAO UI in the DR site as a Site Administrator or Failover Plan Author. For details, see Accessing VAO UI.
  2. Navigate to Virtual Labs.
  3. In the Virtual Labs column, click the virtual lab name.

For a virtual lab to be displayed in the Virtual Labs list, it must be enabled as described in section Configuring Veeam Availability Orchestrator.

  1. On the Lab Details page, in the Virtual Lab column, select the virtual lab and click Edit.
  2. On the Edit Lab page, in the Lab Groups column, click Add to include VM groups in the virtual lab.
  3. Complete the Add Lab Group wizard.
  1. At the VM Groups step, select the required VM groups and click Add to include them in the lab group.

DR Site Administrator will be able to add groups enabled both for the DR and Production sites.

  1. To configure VM recovery options and choose default steps that will be performed for VMs in the lab group, follow the instructions for steps 4D — 4F provided in section Creating Failover Plans.
  2. At the Summary step, review configuration information and click Finish.

Creating Lab Groups Tip:

By default, VAO skips a number of steps during failover plan testing process — Generate Event, Send Email, Shutdown Source VM and VM Power Actions. That is why when you create a virtual lab, you will not be able to add these steps at the VM Steps step of the Add Lab Group wizard.

  1. To save changes made to the virtual lab settings, click Save.

Creating Lab Groups Important!

A common use case for virtual lab groups is to provide domain controllers for the test environment. If there are domain controllers in a virtual lab group, it is essential to add the Prepare DC for Test Lab step. By design, it will automatically become the first step in the step execution order.

You may also optionally add domain controller-specific checks, such as Verify Domain Controller Port and Verify Global Catalog Port. These steps should be performed after the Check VM Heartbeat step.

Creating a Lab Group

Creating Lab Groups Note:

There is no clear use case for replicating a domain controller. Failing over to a domain controller that contains an old version of the Active Directory database is not recommended by Microsoft.

The only real use case for replicating a domain controller is to use it in an isolated lab group, and you may need to create a replication job specifically for that purpose.

Related Topics

I want to report a typo

There is a misspelling right here:

 

I want to let the Veeam Documentation Team know about that.