How Orchestrator Manages NetApp Storage Failover

Orchestrator orchestrates storage failover in the following way when running a NetApp storage plan:

1. Before Orchestrator starts processing inventory groups included in the plan, it performs a number of pre-plan steps to prepare the failover environment:

1. Orchestrator runs the VM Control step to shut down source VMs running in the production vCenter Server. To answer VM questions that appear while shutting the VMs down, Orchestrator applies default answers specified in the vCenter Server settings.

The VM Control step has a preconfigured timeout parameter that defines the exact amount of time for the step to execute. If step execution time exceeds the defined parameter value, Orchestrator powers the source VMs off.

2. Orchestrator runs the Storage Failover step. It breaks the SnapMirror relationship between the source and destination storage volumes, mounts the destination volumes to the target vCenter Server, and then mounts the recovered datastores to all hosts in the required storage recovery location.

For more information on the way Orchestrator identifies storage recovery locations required to recover datastores, see How Orchestrator Places VMs During Storage Failover.

2. When processing inventory groups, Orchestrator registers target VMs on hosts in the disaster recovery site, and then powers the VMs on.

For more information on the way Orchestrator defines hosts where recovered VMs will be registered, see How Orchestrator Places VMs During Storage Failover.

3. After Orchestrator finishes processing inventory groups, it performs a number of post-plan steps to finalize the storage failover process:

1. Orchestrator runs the Unregister Source VMs step to unregister source VMs from hosts in the production site.
2. Orchestrator runs the Unmount Source Datastores step to unmount the source volumes from the source vCenter Server.
3. [This step applies only if you have selected the Reprotect storage volumes after failover check box at the Reprotect Volumes step of the Run Plan wizard]

Orchestrator runs the Protect Storage Volumes step to reprotect volumes included in the plan by resynchronizing the data protection relationship in the reverse direction.