AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery 1O1
In our last blogpost, we understood the WHY and HOW of a disaster recovery event https://piyushj02.medium.com/disaster-recovery-dr-why-and-how-cc10726c97d9. To continue the topic, in this post we’ll learn the fundamentals of the AWS DRS service.
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS) uses economical storage, little computing, and point-in-time recovery to restore on-premises and cloud-based applications quickly and reliably, minimising downtime and data loss.
On source servers, configure AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery to start safe data replication. The data is duplicated to the chosen AWS Region’s staging area subnet in the AWS account. By utilising inexpensive storage and a small amount of computational power to maintain continual replication, the staging area architecture lowers expenses.
How the AWS DRS works?
When using Elastic Disaster Recovery for the first time, the Elastic Disaster Recovery Console must be configured. When you open the Elastic Disaster Recovery Console, setup starts automatically. When the template is saved, the user is instructed to configure the default Replication Settings, and the service is then started by generating the IAM Roles that are necessary for it to function.
Setting up the AWS DRS default configuration
NOTE:
With DRS, all Common operating systems are supported. It also provides the functionality of start and stop replication. AWS DRS Supports AWS PrivateLink and AWS Direct Connect for replication and failback and provides option to replicate not through public internet, which is a significant security benefit.
AWS DRS supports AWS Region to Region replication and recovery along with AWS Region to Region failback and Large-scale failback automation feature.
With AWS DRS, Auto-detection of added disks is not possible. Also, it doesn’t support for Support for AWS Outposts. AWS DRS is in scope of GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO compliances.
How to install DRS agent in a Linux server?
Pre-requisites — Source Server
Require root privileges to run the Agent installer file on a Linux server or, can run the Agent Installer file with sudo permissions.
Ensure that you have Python installed on the source server (version 2.4+, version 3.0+) for Agent installation.
Only servers using the GRUB bootloader are supported.
Root directory — Verify that your source server has at least 4 GB of free disk space on the root directory (/) .
Verify that your source server has at least 300 MB of free RAM to run the AWS Replication Agent.
Free disk space on the /tmp directory. Ensure that /tmp is mounted as read+write.
Verify that you have kernel-devel/linux-headers installed that are exactly the same version as the kernel you are running.
The above installer will create the ‘aws-replication’ group and ‘aws-replication’ user within that group. The Agent will run within the context of the newly created user. Download the installer file from below:
To install the agent, Run the command —
$ sudo python3 aws-replication-installer-init.py
Once the agent is installed, the source server will appear at Source servers page of AWS DRS console.
Caught my eye
AWS cloud will begin limiting the availability of CloudEndure Disaster Recovery in all AWS Regions, including AWS GovCloud (US) Regions. This will take place according to the following schedule:
September 1, 2023 — Users will no longer be able to register for new CloudEndure Disaster Recovery accounts in any AWS Region (except for AWS China Regions).
December 1, 2023 — New agent installations will no longer be supported in any AWS Region (except for AWS China Regions). Note: upgrades of existing agents will be supported.
March 31, 2024 — CloudEndure Disaster Recovery will be discontinued in all AWS Regions (except for AWS China Regions).
We will learn How to upgrade from CloudEndure Disaster Recovery to AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery in our next blogpost.
Stay tuned !
Please feel free to write @ piyush.jalan93@gmail.com for any queries on DR and BCP guide.
Thanks !
