With this release, you can now run scripts on VMs after they power on during the test failover process. This enables you to test and validate scripts. For example, you can update NFS mounts to point to a new target server, ensuring that guest applications come fully online and that your recovery process can be tested end-to-end.

For more information on the fail over process, see Fail over applications to a remote site.

During failover, the failback process is now disabled until discovery completes. This ensures all configurations are correctly identified and accounted for before initiating a fail back, and reduces the risk of errors.

For more information on the failback process, see Fail back applications to the original source.

This release includes the following updates:

BlueXP disaster recovery now employs roles to govern the access that each user has to specific features and actions.

The service uses the following roles that are specific to BlueXP disaster recovery.

If you are clicking on the BlueXP disaster recovery service and configuring it for the first time, you must have the SnapCenterAdmin permission or have the Organization Admin role.

For details, see User roles and permissions in BlueXP disaster recovery.

Learn about BlueXP access roles for all services.

This update improves the discovery process, which reduces the time needed for discovery.

This update enhances the Add and Edit Subnet Mapping dialog with a new search functionality. You can now quickly find specific subnets by entering search terms, making it easier to manage subnet mappings.

Windows Local Administrator Password Solution (Windows LAPS) is a Windows feature that automatically manages and backs up the password of a local administrator account on Active directory.

You can now select subnet mapping options and check the LAPS option by providing the domain controller details. Using this option, you don't need to provide a password for each of your virtual machines.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

With this release, you can manage IP addresses on failover in a new way using subnet mapping, which enables you to add subnets for each vCenter. When you do so, you define the IPv4 CIDR, the default gateway, and the DNS for each virtual network.

Upon failover, BlueXP disaster recovery determines the appropriate IP address of each vNIC by looking at the CIDR provided for the mapped virtual network and uses it to derive the new IP address.

For example:

VM1 has a vNIC (10.1.1.50) that is connected to NetworkA.
NetworkA is mapped to NetworkB in the replication plan settings.

Upon failover, BlueXP disaster recovery replaces the Network portion of the original IP address (10.1.1) and keeps the host address (.50) of the original IP address (10.1.1.50). For VM1, BlueXP disaster recovery looks at the CIDR settings for NetworkB and uses that the NetworkB network portion 192.168.1 while keeping the host portion (.50) to create the new IP address for VM1. The new IP becomes 192.168.1.50.

In summary, the host address stays the same, while the network address is replaced with whatever is configured in the site subnet mapping. This enables you to manage IP address reassignment upon failover more easily, especially if you have hundreds of networks and thousands of VMs to manage.

For details about including subnet mapping in your sites, refer to Add vCenter server sites.

You can now skip protection so that the service does not automatically create a reverse protection relationship after a replication plan failover. This is useful if you want to perform additional operations on the restored site before you bring it back online within BlueXP disaster recovery.

When you initiate a failover, by default the service automatically creates a reverse protection relationship for each volume in the replication plan, if the original source site is online. This means that the service creates a SnapMirror relationship from the target site back to the source site. The service also automatically reverses the SnapMirror relationship when you initiate a failback.

When initiating a failover, you can now choose a Skip protection option. With this, the service does not automatically reverse the SnapMirror relationship. Instead, it leaves the writable volume on both sides of the replication plan.

After the original source site is back online, you can establish reverse protection by selecting Protect resources from the Replication plan Actions menu. This attempts to create a reverse replication relationship for each volume in the plan. You can run this job repeatedly until protection is restored. When protection is restored, you can initiate a failback in the usual way.

For details skipping protection, refer to Fail over applications to a remote site.

BlueXP disaster recovery now supports the use of external snapshot management solutions such as the native ONTAP SnapMirror policy scheduler or third-party integrations with ONTAP. If every datastore (volume) in the replication plan already has a SnapMirror relationship that is being managed elsewhere, you can use those snapshots as recovery points in BlueXP disaster recovery.

To configure, in the Replication plan > Resource mapping section, check the Use platform managed backups and retention schedules checkbox when configuring the Datastores mapping.

When the option is selected, BlueXP disaster recovery does not configure a backup schedule. However, you still need to configure a retention schedule because snapshots might still be taken for testing, failover, and failback operations.

After this is configured, the service doesn't take any regularly scheduled snapshots, but instead relies on the external entity to take and update those snapshots.

For details about using external snapshot solutions in the replication plan, refer to Create a replication plan.

BlueXP disaster recovery performs discovery once every 24 hours. With this release, you can now customize the discovery schedule to meet your needs and reduce impact on performance when you need it. For example, if you have a large number of VMs, you can set the discovery schedule to run every 48 hours. If you have a small number of VMs, you can set the discovery schedule to run every 12 hours.

If you don't wan to schedule discovery, you can disable the scheduled discovery option and refresh the discovery manually at any time.

For details, refer to Add vCenter server sites.

Previously, you could create resource groups only by VMs. With this release, you can create a resource group by datastores. When you're creating a replication plan and creating a resource group for that plan, all the VMs in a datastore will be listed. This is useful if you have a large number of VMs and want to group them by datastore.

You can create a resource group with a datastore in the following ways:

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

This release provides notifications that the free trial will expire in 60 days to ensure you have time to get a license. This release also provides notifications on the day that the license expires.

With this release, a banner appears at the top to indicate that services are getting upgraded and that the service is placed in maintenance mode. The banner appears when the service is being upgraded and disappears when the upgrade is complete. While you can continue to work in the UI while the upgrade is in progress, you cannot submit new jobs. Scheduled jobs will run after the update is complete and the service returns to production mode.

The BlueXP Connector supports intelligent proxy. Intelligent proxy is a lightweight, secure, and efficient way to connect your on-premises environment to the BlueXP service. It provides a secure connection between your environment and the BlueXP service without requiring a VPN or direct internet access. This optimized proxy implementation offloads API traffic within the local network.

When a proxy is configured, BlueXP disaster recovery attempts to communicate directly with VMware or ONTAP and uses the configured proxy if direct communication fails.

BlueXP disaster recovery proxy implementation requires port 443 communication between the Connector and any vCenter Servers and ONTAP arrays using an HTTPS protocol. The BlueXP disaster recovery agent within the Connector communicates directly with VMware vSphere, the VC, or ONTAP when performing any actions.

For more information about the intelligent proxy for BlueXP disaster recovery, see Set up your infrastructure for BlueXP disaster recovery.

For more information about general proxy set up in BlueXP, see Configure a Connector to use a proxy server.

You can stop the free trial at any tine or you can wait until it expires.

See End the free trial.

This release of BlueXP disaster recovery provides support for ASA r2 for VMs and datastores on VMFS storage. On an ASA r2 system, ONTAP software supports essential SAN functionality while removes features not supported in SAN environments.

This release supports the following features for ASA r2:

The support for ASA r2 in BlueXP disaster recovery uses ONTAP 9.16.1.

While datastores can be mounted on an ONTAP volume or an ASA r2 storage unit, a resource group in BlueXP disaster recovery cannot include both a datastore from ONTAP and one from ASA r2. You can select either a datastore from ONTAP or a datastore from ASA r2 in a resource group.

You can now generate and download reports to help you analyze your landscape. Predesigned reports summarize failovers and failbacks, show replication details on all sites, and show job details for the past seven days.

Refer to Create disaster recovery reports.

You can now sign up for a 30-day free trial of BlueXP disaster recovery. Previously, free trials were for 90 days.

Refer to Set up licensing.

A previous release included updates to the failover test schedule structure, which was needed to support daily and weekly schedules. This update required that you disable and re-enable all existing replication plans so that you will be able to use the new daily and weekly failover test schedules. This is a one-time requirement.

Here's how:

When you create a replication plan and map compute resources, you can now map folders so that VMs are recovered in a folder you specify for datacenter, cluster, and host.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

When a failure occurs and you are starting a failover, performing a failback, or testing the failover, you can now see details of the VMs and identify which VMs did not restart.

Refer to Fail over applications to a remote site.

When you create a replication plan, you can now set a boot delay for each VM in the plan. This enables you to set a sequence for the VMs to start to ensure that all your priority one VMs are running before subsequent priority VMs are started.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

When you create a replication plan, you can now see the operating system for each VM in the plan. This is helpful in deciding how to group VMs together in a resource group.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

When you create a replication plan, you can now add a prefix and suffix to the VM names on the disaster recovery sit. This enables you to use a more descriptive name for the VMs in the plan.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

You can delete any snapshots that are no longer needed beyond your specified retention count. Snapshots might accumulate over time when you lower your snapshot retention count, and you can now remove them to free up space. You can do this anytime on demand or when you delete a replication plan.

For details, refer to Manage sites, resource groups, replication plans, datastores, and virtual machines information.

You can now reconcile snapshots that are out of sync between the source and target. This might occur if snapshots are deleted on a target outside of BlueXP disaster recovery. The service deletes the snapshot on the source automatically every 24 hours. However, you can perform this on demand. This feature enables you to ensure that the snapshots are consistent across all sites.

For details, refer to Manage replication plans.

This release includes support for VMs mounted on VMware vSphere virtual machine file system (VMFS) datastores for iSCSI and FC protected to on-premises storage. Previously, the service provided a technology preview supporting VMFS datastores for iSCSI and FC.

Here are some additional considerations regarding both iSCSI and FC protocols:

This release includes a technology preview of support for VMs mounted on VMware vSphere virtual machine file system (VMFS) datastores for FC protected to on-premises storage. Previously, the service provided a technology preview supporting VMFS datastores for iSCSI.

With this release, you can now cancel a job in the Job Monitor UI.

Refer to Monitor jobs.

This release includes updates to the failover test schedule structure, which was needed to support daily and weekly schedules. This update requires that you disable and re-enable all existing replication plans so that you will be able to use the new daily and weekly failover test schedules. This is a one-time requirement.

Here's how:

This release includes updates to replication plan data, which resolves a "snapshot not found" issue. This requires that you change the retention count in all replication plans to 1 and initiate an on-demand snapshot. This process creates a new backup and removes all older backups.

Here's how:

This release supports the NetApp AFF A-series hardware platforms.

This release includes a technology preview of support for VMs mounted on VMware vSphere virtual machine file system (VMFS) datastores protected to on-premises storage. With this release, disaster recovery is supported in a technology preview for on-premises VMware workloads to on-premises VMware environment with VMFS datastores.

You can add a replication plan more easily by filtering VMs by datastore on the Applications page and by selecting more target details on the Resource mapping page.
Refer to Create a replication plan.

With this release, the Failover mappings page has been enhanced for better clarity.

Refer to Manage plans.

With this release, the process for editing VMs in the plan included some minor UI improvements.

Refer to Manage VMs.

Before you initiate a failover, you can now determine the status of VMs and whether they are powered on or off. The failover process now enables you to take a snapshot now or choose the snapshots.

Refer to Fail over applications to a remote site.

You can now edit the failover tests and set daily, weekly, and monthly schedules for the failover test.

Refer to Manage plans.

BlueXP disaster recovery prerequisites information has been updated.

Refer to BlueXP disaster recovery prerequisites.

This is now released as a general availability feature. Previously, it was a technology preview with limited functionality.

With BlueXP disaster recovery, you can sign up for a 90-day free trial, purchase a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) subscription with Amazon Marketplace, or Bring Your Own License (BYOL), which is a NetApp License File (NLF) that you obtain from your NetApp Sales Rep or from the NetApp Support Site (NSS).

For details about setting up licensing for BlueXP disaster recovery, refer to Set up licensing.

Learn more about BlueXP disaster recovery.

With BlueXP disaster recovery, you can sign up for a 90-day free trial or Bring Your Own License (BYOL), which is a NetApp License File (NLF) that you obtain from your NetApp Sales Rep. You can use the license serial number to get the BYOL activated in BlueXP digital wallet. BlueXP disaster recovery charges are based on provisioned capacity of datastores.

For details about setting up licensing for BlueXP disaster recovery, refer to Set up licensing.

For details about managing licenses for all BlueXP services, refer to Manage licenses for all BlueXP services.

With this release, you can now set up schedules to test compliance and failover tests so that you ensure that they will work correctly should you need them.

For details, refer to Create the replication plan.

With this release, you can now resize the VM CPU and RAM values. You can also now select a network DHCP or static IP address for the VM.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

Can now be included as post failover processes. With custom scripts, you can have BlueXP disaster recovery run your script after a failover process. For example, you can use a custom script to resume all database transactions after the failover is complete.

For details, refer to Fail over to a remote site.

You can now create a SnapMirror relationship while developing the replication plan. Previously, you had to create the relationship outside of BlueXP disaster recovery.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

When you create a replication plan, you can include VMs that are from different volumes and different SVMs. BlueXP disaster recovery creates a Consistency Group Snapshot by including all the volumes and updates all the secondary locations.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

When you create a replication plan, you can add VMs to a Resource Group. With Resource Groups, you can set a delay on each VM so that they power up on a delayed sequence.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

You can specify to create application-consistent Snapshot copies. The service will quiesce the application and then take a Snapshot to obtain a consistent state of the application.

For details, refer to Create a replication plan.

With this release, you can access information on other pages from the Dashboard more quickly.

Learn about BlueXP disaster recovery.

Now with BlueXP disaster recovery, you can protect your on-premises, NFS-based VMware workloads against disasters to another on-premises, NFS-based VMware environment in addition to the public cloud. BlueXP disaster recovery orchestrates the completion of the disaster recovery plans.

Learn more about BlueXP disaster recovery.

You can now click into the options on the Dashboard, making it easier for you to review the information quickly. Also, the Dashboard now shows the status of failovers and migrations.

Refer to View the health of your disaster recovery plans on the Dashboard.

BlueXP disaster recovery preview is a cloud-based disaster recovery service that automates disaster recovery workflows. Initially, with the BlueXP disaster recovery preview, you can protect your on-premises, NFS-based VMware workloads running NetApp storage to VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS with Amazon FSx for ONTAP.

Learn more about BlueXP disaster recovery.

This release includes the following updates:

When you create a disaster recovery or replication plan, you can add virtual machines into functional resource groups. Resource groups enable you to put a set of dependent virtual machines into logical groups that meet your requirements. For example, groups could contain boot order that can be executed upon recovery. With this release, each resource group can include one or more virtual machines. The virtual machines will power on based on the sequence in which you include them in the plan. Refer to Select applications to replicate and assign resource groups.

After you create the disaster recovery or replication plan, identify the recurrence in the wizard, and initiate a replication to a disaster recovery site, every 30 minutes BlueXP disaster recovery verifies that the replication is actually occurring according to the plan. You can monitor the progress in the Job Monitor page. Refer to Replicate applications to another site.

When you create a disaster recovery or replication plan, you select the VMs. In this release, you can now view the SnapMirror associated with each of the volumes that are associated with the datastore or VM. You can also see the RPO transfer schedules that are associated with the SnapMirror schedule. RPO helps you determine whether your backup schedule is enough to recover after a disaster. Refer to Create a replication plan.

The Job Monitor page now includes a Refresh option so that you can get an up-to-date status of operations. Refer to Monitor disaster recovery jobs.

BlueXP disaster recovery is a cloud-based disaster recovery service that automates disaster recovery workflows. Initially, with the BlueXP disaster recovery preview, you can protect your on-premises, NFS-based VMware workloads running NetApp storage to VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS with Amazon FSx for ONTAP.

Learn more about BlueXP disaster recovery.