The purpose of this article is to show the quick Veeam VAO configuration steps for first time install. In this scenario only one Veeam Availability Orchestrator (VAO) is installed and in particular the one in the DR environment. In a nutshell should anything happen in the in Production environment the Veeam VAO has the ability to fail-over and fail-back verified replicas of VMware machines now compromised in the Production site.
This article refers to the Veeam VAO configuration steps of the main GUI which runs on the DR site. This includes:
- identification of the Site (Prod, DR, RoBo, other)
- administrative accounts
- additional Veeam VAO agents
- data synchronization
- and more..
This is a preliminary phase as it allows for the next steps with regards to the Veeam VAO Virtual Lab and the Replication jobs. From the same console also the ability to install and push additional Veeam VAO agents to more Veeam Backup & Replication and Enterprise Managers consoles. This is very useful when managing large distributed environments where multiple instances of Veeam Backup servers exists.
For best results during the wizard it is recommended to use the Internet Explorer web browser.
Veeam VAO configuration steps
As soon as the main server is installed the Veeam VAO configuration can proceed using a web browser. By default the Web UI Port is responding on 9898. As a first time it is possible to use the configured Service Account as per previous article.
Since no Veeam VAO configuration file exists yet a new wizard pops up.
The first option is to choose the installation type based on the Site. By default the Veeam VAO should be installed on a DR Site in order to offer a separate location for disaster recovery purposes. It is possible to install multiple Veeam VAO and have them with independent settings. So for example additional Veeam VAO can also be installed in branch offices as Production sites but still separate from the Headquarter and the DR environments. The idea is to use a single DR Site for all others where the replicas are sitting and can be also verified before using them.
Next steps is to provide info about the Site Name, Description and contact details. These info will be automatically included in the reports and in case of failures or when running verification tests it is easy to identify the key stakeholders for particular segments of the business.
At this point it is also possible to designate users and groups (integrates with Microsoft Active Directory) and grant particular permissions on the Site that is going to be created.
Veeam VAO configuration ships with a cut down version of Veeam Backup & Replication Server and Veeam ONE. Should other Veeam Server exist in the current Site it is also possible to manage them from the same console from an Orchestration point of view. From Veeam VAO it is possible in fact to install VAO agents which help retrieving and synchronizing data back to the main Veeam VAO server. A separate article will cover this step in with more detail.
At this point the next step is to add the DNS Name or IP and credentials to access the virtual infrastructure by pointing to the VMware vCenter server.
A final window summarizes the main settings before amending the changes to the Veeam VAO configuration. Time to review and proceed with the wizard.
The first Veeam VAO configuration is now complete. After the first login to the console a Welcome screen provides the links to create or edit the DR documentation (that will be automatically generated with the plan executions), the Virtual Lab environments and also how to create the Fail-over plans. Included also a link to the general dashboard from which is possible to control different aspects and the status of the jobs.
Documentation templates are generated in Microsoft Office Word and PDF formats. Either a DOC or PDF editor installed on the Veeam VAO server can be handy for some fine tuning of the default templates. Next step covers how to create a Veeam VAO Virtual Lab.
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