Set up disaster recovery for Azure virtual machines using Azure PowerShell

In this article, you see how to set up and test disaster recovery for Azure virtual machines using Azure PowerShell.

You learn how to:

  • Create a Recovery Services vault.
  • Set the vault context for the PowerShell session.
  • Prepare the vault to start replicating Azure virtual machines.
  • Create network mappings.
  • Create storage accounts to replicate virtual machines to.
  • Replicate Azure virtual machines to a recovery region for disaster recovery.
  • Perform a test failover, validate, and cleanup test failover.
  • Fail over to the recovery region.

Note

Not all scenario capabilities available through the portal may be available through Azure PowerShell. Some of the scenario capabilities not currently supported through Azure PowerShell are:

  • The ability to specify that all disks in a virtual machine should be replicated without having to explicitly specify each disk of the virtual machine.

Note

We recommend that you use the Azure Az PowerShell module to interact with Azure. See Install Azure PowerShell to get started. To learn how to migrate to the Az PowerShell module, see Migrate Azure PowerShell from AzureRM to Az.

Prerequisites

Before you start:

Sign in to your Azure subscription

Sign in to your Azure subscription with the Connect-AzAccount -Environment AzureChinaCloud cmdlet.

Connect-AzAccount -Environment AzureChinaCloud

Select your Azure subscription. Use the Get-AzSubscription cmdlet to get the list of Azure subscriptions you have access to. Select the Azure subscription to work with using the Set-AzContext cmdlet.

Set-AzContext -SubscriptionId "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"

Get details of the virtual machine to be replicated

In this article, a virtual machine in the China East region is replicated to and recovered in the China North region. The virtual machine being replicated has an OS disk and a single data disk. The name of the virtual machine used in the example is AzureDemoVM.

# Get details of the virtual machine
$VM = Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName "A2AdemoRG" -Name "AzureDemoVM"

Write-Output $VM
ResourceGroupName  : A2AdemoRG
Id                 : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/A2AdemoRG/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/AzureDemoVM
VmId               : 1b864902-c7ea-499a-ad0f-65da2930b81b
Name               : AzureDemoVM
Type               : Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
Location           : chinaeast
Tags               : {}
DiagnosticsProfile : {BootDiagnostics}
HardwareProfile    : {VmSize}
NetworkProfile     : {NetworkInterfaces}
OSProfile          : {ComputerName, AdminUsername, WindowsConfiguration, Secrets}
ProvisioningState  : Succeeded
StorageProfile     : {ImageReference, OsDisk, DataDisks}

Get disk details for the virtual machine's disks. Disk details will be used later when starting replication for the virtual machine.

$OSDiskVhdURI = $VM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.Vhd
$DataDisk1VhdURI = $VM.StorageProfile.DataDisks[0].Vhd

Create a Recovery Services vault

Create a resource group in which to create the Recovery Services vault.

Important

  • The Recovery services vault and the virtual machines being protected, must be in different Azure locations.
  • The resource group of the Recovery services vault, and the virtual machines being protected, must be in different Azure locations.
  • The Recovery services vault, and the resource group to which it belongs, can be in the same Azure location.

In the example in this article, the virtual machine being protected is in the China East region. The recovery region selected for disaster recovery is the China North region. The recovery services vault, and the resource group of the vault, are both in the recovery region, China North.

#Create a resource group for the recovery services vault in the recovery Azure region
New-AzResourceGroup -Name "a2ademorecoveryrg" -Location "China North"
ResourceGroupName : a2ademorecoveryrg
Location          : chinanorth
ProvisioningState : Succeeded
Tags              :
ResourceId        : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/a2ademorecoveryrg

Create a Recovery services vault. In this example, a Recovery Services vault named a2aDemoRecoveryVault is created in the China North region.

#Create a new Recovery services vault in the recovery region
$vault = New-AzRecoveryServicesVault -Name "a2aDemoRecoveryVault" -ResourceGroupName "a2ademorecoveryrg" -Location "China North"

Write-Output $vault
Name              : a2aDemoRecoveryVault
ID                : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/a2ademorecoveryrg/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/a2aDemoRecoveryVault
Type              : Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults
Location          : chinanorth
ResourceGroupName : a2ademorecoveryrg
SubscriptionId    : xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
Properties        : Microsoft.Azure.Commands.RecoveryServices.ARSVaultProperties

Set the vault context

Set the vault context for use in the PowerShell session. After the vault context is set, Azure Site Recovery operations in the PowerShell session are performed in the context of the selected vault.

#Setting the vault context.
Set-AzRecoveryServicesAsrVaultContext -Vault $vault
ResourceName         ResourceGroupName ResourceNamespace          ResourceType
------------         ----------------- -----------------          -----------
a2aDemoRecoveryVault a2ademorecoveryrg Microsoft.RecoveryServices Vaults     
#Delete the downloaded vault settings file
Remove-Item -Path $Vaultsettingsfile.FilePath

For an Azure-to-Azure migration, you can set the vault context to the newly created vault:

#Set the vault context for the PowerShell session.
Set-AzRecoveryServicesAsrVaultContext -Vault $vault

Prepare the vault to start replicating Azure virtual machines

Create a Site Recovery fabric object to represent the primary (source) region

The fabric object in the vault represents an Azure region. The primary fabric object is created to represent the Azure region that virtual machines being protected to the vault belong to. In the example in this article, the virtual machine being protected is in the China East region.

  • Only one fabric object can be created per region.
  • If you've previously enabled Site Recovery replication for a VM in the Azure portal, Site Recovery creates a fabric object automatically. If a fabric object exists for a region, you can't create a new one.

Before you start, understand that Site Recovery operations are executed asynchronously. When you initiate an operation, an Azure Site Recovery job is submitted and a job tracking object is returned. Use the job tracking object to get the latest status for the job (Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob), and to monitor the status of the operation.

#Create Primary ASR fabric
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrFabric -Azure -Location 'China East'  -Name "A2Ademo-ChinaEast"

# Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        #If the job hasn't completed, sleep for 10 seconds before checking the job status again
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

#Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

$PrimaryFabric = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrFabric -Name "A2Ademo-ChinaEast"

If virtual machines from multiple Azure regions are being protected to the same vault, create one fabric object for each source Azure region.

Create a Site Recovery fabric object to represent the recovery region

The recovery fabric object represents the recovery Azure location. If there's a failover, virtual machines are replicated and recovered to the recovery region represented by the recovery fabric. The recovery Azure region used in this example is China North.

#Create Recovery ASR fabric
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrFabric -Azure -Location 'China North'  -Name "A2Ademo-ChinaNorth"

# Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

#Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

$RecoveryFabric = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrFabric -Name "A2Ademo-ChinaNorth"

Create a Site Recovery protection container in the primary fabric

The protection container is a container used to group replicated items within a fabric.

#Create a Protection container in the primary Azure region (within the Primary fabric)
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainer -InputObject $PrimaryFabric -Name "A2AChinaEastProtectionContainer"

#Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

$PrimaryProtContainer = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainer -Fabric $PrimaryFabric -Name "A2AChinaEastProtectionContainer"

Create a Site Recovery protection container in the recovery fabric

#Create a Protection container in the recovery Azure region (within the Recovery fabric)
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainer -InputObject $RecoveryFabric -Name "A2AChinaNorthProtectionContainer"

#Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

#Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"

Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

$RecoveryProtContainer = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainer -Fabric $RecoveryFabric -Name "A2AChinaNorthProtectionContainer"

Create a replication policy

#Create replication policy
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrPolicy -AzureToAzure -Name "A2APolicy" -RecoveryPointRetentionInHours 24 -ApplicationConsistentSnapshotFrequencyInHours 4

#Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

#Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

$ReplicationPolicy = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrPolicy -Name "A2APolicy"

Create a protection container mapping between the primary and recovery protection container

A protection container mapping maps the primary protection container with a recovery protection container and a replication policy. Create one mapping for each replication policy that you'll use to replicate virtual machines between a protection container pair.

#Create Protection container mapping between the Primary and Recovery Protection Containers with the Replication policy
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainerMapping -Name "A2APrimaryToRecovery" -Policy $ReplicationPolicy -PrimaryProtectionContainer $PrimaryProtContainer -RecoveryProtectionContainer $RecoveryProtContainer

#Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

#Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

$EcnToNcnPCMapping = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainerMapping -ProtectionContainer $PrimaryProtContainer -Name "A2APrimaryToRecovery"

Create a protection container mapping for failback (reverse replication after a failover)

After a failover, when you're ready to bring the failed over virtual machine back to the original Azure region, you do a failback. To fail back, the failed over virtual machine is reverse replicated from the failed over region to the original region. For reverse replication the roles of the original region and the recovery region switch. The original region now becomes the new recovery region, and what was originally the recovery region now becomes the primary region. The protection container mapping for reverse replication represents the switched roles of the original and recovery regions.

#Create Protection container mapping (for fail back) between the Recovery and Primary Protection Containers with the Replication policy
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainerMapping -Name "A2ARecoveryToPrimary" -Policy $ReplicationPolicy -PrimaryProtectionContainer $RecoveryProtContainer -RecoveryProtectionContainer $PrimaryProtContainer

#Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

#Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

$NcnToEcnPCMapping = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionContainerMapping -ProtectionContainer $RecoveryProtContainer -Name "A2ARecoveryToPrimary"

Create cache storage account and target storage account

A cache storage account is a standard storage account in the same Azure region as the virtual machine being replicated. The cache storage account is used to hold replication changes temporarily, before the changes are moved to the recovery Azure region. You can choose to, but it's not necessary, to specify different cache storage accounts for the different disks of a virtual machine.

#Create Cache storage account for replication logs in the primary region
$ChinaEastCacheStorageAccount = New-AzStorageAccount -Name "a2acachestorage" -ResourceGroupName "A2AdemoRG" -Location 'China East' -SkuName Standard_LRS -Kind Storage

For virtual machines not using managed disks, the target storage account is the storage account in the recovery region to which disks of the virtual machine are replicated. The target storage account can be either a standard storage account or a premium storage account. Select the kind of storage account required based on the data change rate (IO write rate) for the disks and the Azure Site Recovery supported churn limits for the storage type.

#Create Target storage account in the recovery region. In this case a Standard Storage account
$ChinaNorthTargetStorageAccount = New-AzStorageAccount -Name "a2atargetstorage" -ResourceGroupName "a2ademorecoveryrg" -Location 'China North' -SkuName Standard_LRS -Kind Storage

Create network mappings

A network mapping maps virtual networks in the primary region to virtual networks in the recovery region. The network mapping specifies the Azure virtual network in the recovery region, that a virtual machine in the primary virtual network should fail over to. One Azure virtual network can be mapped to only a single Azure virtual network in a recovery region.

  • Create an Azure virtual network in the recovery region to fail over to:

    #Create a Recovery Network in the recovery region
    $ChinaNorthRecoveryVnet = New-AzVirtualNetwork -Name "a2arecoveryvnet" -ResourceGroupName "a2ademorecoveryrg" -Location 'China North' -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/16"
    
    Add-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name "default" -VirtualNetwork $ChinaNorthRecoveryVnet -AddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/20" | Set-AzVirtualNetwork
    
    $ChinaNorthRecoveryNetwork = $ChinaNorthRecoveryVnet.Id
    
  • Retrieve the primary virtual network. The VNet that the virtual machine is connected to:

    #Retrieve the virtual network that the virtual machine is connected to
    
    #Get first network interface card(nic) of the virtual machine
    $SplitNicArmId = $VM.NetworkProfile.NetworkInterfaces[0].Id.split("/")
    
    #Extract resource group name from the ResourceId of the nic
    $NICRG = $SplitNicArmId[4]
    
    #Extract resource name from the ResourceId of the nic
    $NICname = $SplitNicArmId[-1]
    
    #Get network interface details using the extracted resource group name and resource name
    $NIC = Get-AzNetworkInterface -ResourceGroupName $NICRG -Name $NICname
    
    #Get the subnet ID of the subnet that the nic is connected to
    $PrimarySubnet = $NIC.IpConfigurations[0].Subnet
    
    # Extract the resource ID of the Azure virtual network the nic is connected to from the subnet ID
    $ChinaEastPrimaryNetwork = (Split-Path(Split-Path($PrimarySubnet.Id))).Replace("\","/")
    
  • Create network mapping between the primary virtual network and the recovery virtual network:

    #Create an ASR network mapping between the primary Azure virtual network and the recovery Azure virtual network
    $TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrNetworkMapping -AzureToAzure -Name "A2AEcnToNcnNWMapping" -PrimaryFabric $PrimaryFabric -PrimaryAzureNetworkId $ChinaEastPrimaryNetwork -RecoveryFabric $RecoveryFabric -RecoveryAzureNetworkId $ChinaNorthRecoveryNetwork
    
    #Track Job status to check for completion
    while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
            sleep 10;
            $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
    }
    
    #Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
    Write-Output $TempASRJob.State
    
  • Create network mapping for the reverse direction (fail back):

    #Create an ASR network mapping for fail back between the recovery Azure virtual network and the primary Azure virtual network
    $TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrNetworkMapping -AzureToAzure -Name "A2ANcnToEcnNWMapping" -PrimaryFabric $RecoveryFabric -PrimaryAzureNetworkId $ChinaNorthRecoveryNetwork -RecoveryFabric $PrimaryFabric -RecoveryAzureNetworkId $ChinaEastPrimaryNetwork
    
    #Track Job status to check for completion
    while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
            sleep 10;
            $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
    }
    
    #Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
    Write-Output $TempASRJob.State
    

Replicate Azure virtual machine

Replicate the Azure virtual machine with managed disks.

#Get the resource group that the virtual machine must be created in when failed over.
$RecoveryRG = Get-AzResourceGroup -Name "a2ademorecoveryrg" -Location "China North"

#Specify replication properties for each disk of the VM that is to be replicated (create disk replication configuration)

#OsDisk
$OSdiskId = $vm.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.Id
$RecoveryOSDiskAccountType = $vm.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.StorageAccountType
$RecoveryReplicaDiskAccountType = $vm.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.StorageAccountType

$OSDiskReplicationConfig = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrAzureToAzureDiskReplicationConfig -ManagedDisk -LogStorageAccountId $ChinaEastCacheStorageAccount.Id `
         -DiskId $OSdiskId -RecoveryResourceGroupId  $RecoveryRG.ResourceId -RecoveryReplicaDiskAccountType  $RecoveryReplicaDiskAccountType `
         -RecoveryTargetDiskAccountType $RecoveryOSDiskAccountType

# Data disk
$datadiskId1 = $vm.StorageProfile.DataDisks[0].ManagedDisk.Id
$RecoveryReplicaDiskAccountType = $vm.StorageProfile.DataDisks[0].ManagedDisk.StorageAccountType
$RecoveryTargetDiskAccountType = $vm.StorageProfile.DataDisks[0].ManagedDisk.StorageAccountType

$DataDisk1ReplicationConfig  = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrAzureToAzureDiskReplicationConfig -ManagedDisk -LogStorageAccountId $ChinaEastCacheStorageAccount.Id `
         -DiskId $datadiskId1 -RecoveryResourceGroupId $RecoveryRG.ResourceId -RecoveryReplicaDiskAccountType $RecoveryReplicaDiskAccountType `
         -RecoveryTargetDiskAccountType $RecoveryTargetDiskAccountType

#Create a list of disk replication configuration objects for the disks of the virtual machine that are to be replicated.
$diskconfigs = @()
$diskconfigs += $OSDiskReplicationConfig, $DataDisk1ReplicationConfig

#Start replication by creating replication protected item. Using a GUID for the name of the replication protected item to ensure uniqueness of name.
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrReplicationProtectedItem -AzureToAzure -AzureVmId $VM.Id -Name (New-Guid).Guid -ProtectionContainerMapping $EcnToNcnPCMapping -AzureToAzureDiskReplicationConfiguration $diskconfigs -RecoveryResourceGroupId $RecoveryRG.ResourceId

Replicate the Azure virtual machine with unmanaged disks.

#Specify replication properties for each disk of the VM that is to be replicated (create disk replication configuration)

#Disk replication configuration for the OS disk
$OSDiskReplicationConfig = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrAzureToAzureDiskReplicationConfig -VhdUri $OSDiskVhdURI.Uri -LogStorageAccountId $ChinaEastCacheStorageAccount.Id -RecoveryAzureStorageAccountId $ChinaNorthTargetStorageAccount.Id

#Disk replication configuration for data disk
$DataDisk1ReplicationConfig = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrAzureToAzureDiskReplicationConfig -VhdUri $DataDisk1VhdURI.Uri -LogStorageAccountId $ChinaEastCacheStorageAccount.Id -RecoveryAzureStorageAccountId $ChinaNorthTargetStorageAccount.Id

#Create a list of disk replication configuration objects for the disks of the virtual machine that are to be replicated.
$diskconfigs = @()
$diskconfigs += $OSDiskReplicationConfig, $DataDisk1ReplicationConfig

#Get the resource group that the virtual machine must be created in when failed over.
$RecoveryRG = Get-AzResourceGroup -Name "a2ademorecoveryrg" -Location "China North"

#Start replication by creating replication protected item. Using a GUID for the name of the replication protected item to ensure uniqueness of name.
$TempASRJob = New-AzRecoveryServicesAsrReplicationProtectedItem -AzureToAzure -AzureVmId $VM.Id -Name (New-Guid).Guid -ProtectionContainerMapping $EcnToNcnPCMapping -AzureToAzureDiskReplicationConfiguration $diskconfigs -RecoveryResourceGroupId $RecoveryRG.ResourceId

#Track Job status to check for completion
while (($TempASRJob.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($TempASRJob.State -eq "NotStarted")){
        sleep 10;
        $TempASRJob = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TempASRJob
}

#Check if the Job completed successfully. The updated job state of a successfully completed job should be "Succeeded"
Write-Output $TempASRJob.State

Once the start replication operation succeeds, virtual machine data is replicated to the recovery region.

The replication process starts by initially seeding a copy of the replicating disks of the virtual machine in the recovery region. This phase is called the initial replication phase.

AFter initial replication completes, replication moves to the differential synchronization phase. At this point, the virtual machine is protected and a test failover operation can be performed on it. The replication state of the replicated item representing the virtual machine goes to the Protected state after initial replication completes.

Monitor the replication state and replication health for the virtual machine by getting details of the replication protected item corresponding to it.

Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrReplicationProtectedItem -ProtectionContainer $PrimaryProtContainer | Select FriendlyName, ProtectionState, ReplicationHealth
FriendlyName ProtectionState ReplicationHealth
------------ --------------- -----------------
AzureDemoVM  Protected       Normal

Do a test failover, validate, and cleanup test failover

After replication for the virtual machine has reached a protected state, a test failover operation can be performed on the virtual machine (on the replication protected item of the virtual machine).

#Create a separate network for test failover (not connected to my DR network)
$TFOVnet = New-AzVirtualNetwork -Name "a2aTFOvnet" -ResourceGroupName "a2ademorecoveryrg" -Location 'China North' -AddressPrefix "10.3.0.0/16"

Add-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name "default" -VirtualNetwork $TFOVnet -AddressPrefix "10.3.0.0/20" | Set-AzVirtualNetwork

$TFONetwork= $TFOVnet.Id

Do a test failover.

$ReplicationProtectedItem = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrReplicationProtectedItem -FriendlyName "AzureDemoVM" -ProtectionContainer $PrimaryProtContainer

$TFOJob = Start-AzRecoveryServicesAsrTestFailoverJob -ReplicationProtectedItem $ReplicationProtectedItem -AzureVMNetworkId $TFONetwork -Direction PrimaryToRecovery

Wait for the test failover operation to complete.

Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $TFOJob
Name             : 3dcb043e-3c6d-4e0e-a42e-8d4245668547
ID               : /Subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/a2ademorecoveryrg/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/a2aDemoR
                   ecoveryVault/replicationJobs/3dcb043e-3c6d-4e0e-a42e-8d4245668547
Type             : Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/replicationJobs
JobType          : TestFailover
DisplayName      : Test failover
ClientRequestId  : 1ef8515b-b130-4452-a44d-91aaf071931c ActivityId: 907bb2bc-ebe6-4732-8b66-77d0546eaba8
State            : Succeeded
StateDescription : Completed
StartTime        : 4/25/2018 4:29:43 AM
EndTime          : 4/25/2018 4:33:06 AM
TargetObjectId   : ce86206c-bd78-53b4-b004-39b722c1ac3a
TargetObjectType : ProtectionEntity
TargetObjectName : azuredemovm
AllowedActions   :
Tasks            : {Prerequisites check for test failover, Create test virtual machine, Preparing the virtual machine, Start the virtual machine}
Errors           : {}

After the test failover job completes successfully, you can connect to the test failed over virtual machine, and validate the test failover.

Once testing is complete on the test failed over virtual machine, clean up the test copy by starting the cleanup test failover operation. This operation deletes the test copy of the virtual machine that was created by the test failover.

$Job_TFOCleanup = Start-AzRecoveryServicesAsrTestFailoverCleanupJob -ReplicationProtectedItem $ReplicationProtectedItem

Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $Job_TFOCleanup | Select State
State
-----
Succeeded

Fail over to Azure

Fail over the virtual machine to a specific recovery point.

$RecoveryPoints = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrRecoveryPoint -ReplicationProtectedItem $ReplicationProtectedItem

#The list of recovery points returned may not be sorted chronologically and will need to be sorted first, in order to be able to find the oldest or the latest recovery points for the virtual machine.
"{0} {1}" -f $RecoveryPoints[0].RecoveryPointType, $RecoveryPoints[-1].RecoveryPointTime
CrashConsistent 4/24/2018 11:10:25 PM
#Start the fail over job
$Job_Failover = Start-AzRecoveryServicesAsrUnplannedFailoverJob -ReplicationProtectedItem $ReplicationProtectedItem -Direction PrimaryToRecovery -RecoveryPoint $RecoveryPoints[-1]

do {
        $Job_Failover = Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $Job_Failover;
        sleep 30;
} while (($Job_Failover.State -eq "InProgress") -or ($JobFailover.State -eq "NotStarted"))

$Job_Failover.State
Succeeded

When the failover job is successful, you can commit the failover operation.

$CommitFailoverJOb = Start-AzRecoveryServicesAsrCommitFailoverJob -ReplicationProtectedItem $ReplicationProtectedItem

Get-AzRecoveryServicesAsrJob -Job $CommitFailoverJOb
Name             : 58afc2b7-5cfe-4da9-83b2-6df358c6e4ff
ID               : /Subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/a2ademorecoveryrg/providers/Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/a2aDemoR
                   ecoveryVault/replicationJobs/58afc2b7-5cfe-4da9-83b2-6df358c6e4ff
Type             : Microsoft.RecoveryServices/vaults/replicationJobs
JobType          : CommitFailover
DisplayName      : Commit
ClientRequestId  : 10a95d6c-359e-4603-b7d9-b7ee3317ce94 ActivityId: 8751ada4-fc42-4238-8de6-a82618408fcf
State            : Succeeded
StateDescription : Completed
StartTime        : 4/25/2018 4:50:58 AM
EndTime          : 4/25/2018 4:51:01 AM
TargetObjectId   : ce86206c-bd78-53b4-b004-39b722c1ac3a
TargetObjectType : ProtectionEntity
TargetObjectName : azuredemovm
AllowedActions   :
Tasks            : {Prerequisite check, Commit}
Errors           : {}

Reprotect and fail back to the source region

After a failover, when you're ready to go back to the original region, start reverse replication for the replication protected item using the Update-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionDirection cmdlet.

#Create Cache storage account for replication logs in the primary region
$ChinaNorthCacheStorageAccount = New-AzStorageAccount -Name "a2acachestoragechinanorth" -ResourceGroupName "A2AdemoRG" -Location 'China North' -SkuName Standard_LRS -Kind Storage
#Use the recovery protection container, new cache storage account in China North and the source region VM resource group
Update-AzRecoveryServicesAsrProtectionDirection -ReplicationProtectedItem $ReplicationProtectedItem -AzureToAzure
-ProtectionContainerMapping $NcnToEcnPCMapping -LogStorageAccountId $ChinaNorthCacheStorageAccount.Id -RecoveryResourceGroupID $sourceVMResourcegroup.ResourceId

After reprotection is complete, you can fail over in the reverse direction, China North to China East, and fail back to source region.

Disable replication

You can disable replication with the Remove-AzRecoveryServicesAsrReplicationProtectedItem cmdlet.

Remove-AzRecoveryServicesAsrReplicationProtectedItem -ReplicationProtectedItem $ReplicationProtectedItem

Next steps

View the Azure Site Recovery PowerShell reference to learn how you can do other tasks such as creating recovery plans and testing failover of recovery plans with PowerShell.