Solution
Disaster Recovery
Build resilient recovery workflows using baseline full snapshots, frequent incrementals, Azure-to-Azure DR orchestration, fast failover, and controlled failback.
Available in v1.3.1
Azure-to-Azure DR Orchestration
XReplicator v1.3.1 can be used to set up DR for Azure workloads landing back into Azure. The workflow keeps staging disks current, validates source readiness, maps protected disks into a DR blueprint, orchestrates Azure VM creation during failover, and supports controlled failback when the primary side is ready.
- Blueprints map source VM disks to Azure region, resource group, VNet, subnet, VM size, and disk strategy.
- Strict precheck blocks failover until DR sources are healthy and synced to the desired snapshot.
- Measured drills on a 30 GB OS disk and 4 GB data disk completed failover in under 40 seconds with attach-as-is disks.
- The same drill completed in around 70 seconds when creating disks from snapshots.
Actual RTO depends on Azure control-plane response time, VM size, operating system boot time, networking, application startup, and whether failover attaches staged disks directly or creates isolated snapshot copies first.
Failover Strategy Choices
Attach as-is
Uses the already-synced DR disks directly when creating the recovered VM. This is the fastest measured path and is useful for production recovery when the staged disks are ready.
Create from snapshot
Creates Azure snapshots and new managed disks before VM creation. This provides an isolated copy for drills or controlled recovery, with extra Azure creation time.
Recovery Readiness
- Frequent incrementals between baseline full backups
- Point-in-time restore selection from timeline snapshots
- File, partition, and full-device recovery options
- DR health checks and precheck before planned failover
Layered Protection
Combine local repositories for fast operational recovery with cloud object storage for resilience and long-term retention. This layered model helps handle both operational and catastrophic incidents.
Runbook Alignment
DR drills become easier when backup cadence, snapshot visibility, failover strategy, and failback steps are consistent across workloads. Teams can validate practical RPO and RTO targets with the same toolchain used in production. For Azure-to-Azure use cases, v1.3.1 adds a blueprint-driven flow so teams can move from synced DR staging disks to a running Azure VM without hand-building every recovery step.
Cold DR Manuals by Cloud
Use these cloud-specific runbooks to execute cold disaster recovery for OS and data disks with XReplicator. Azure-to-Azure DR can also be orchestrated from the web UI in v1.3.1.