SharePoint Disaster On-premises environment Microsoft Azure recovery environment

Recovery to Microsoft Production environment Warm standby environment

Azure
Live production environment Running VMs

Tier 1 Front end services

Front-end services Query processing Front-end services Query processing
Tier 1 Front end services
Front-end services Query processing Front-end services Query processing

Example architectures for building a Replica Index Partition 0 Replica Replica Index Partition 0 Replica

recovery environment in Azure Tier 2 Distributed cache Distributed cache

Tier 2 Distributed cache Distributed cache

Tier 3 Back-end services Crawl Back-end services Crawl Back-end services Crawl
Tier 3 Back-end services Crawl Back-end services Crawl Back-end services Crawl

Overview
Admin Content processing Admin Content processing Admin Content processing Admin Content processing Admin Content processing Admin Content processing
Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics

Tier 4 File Share File Share Tier 4

The disaster recovery environment for an on-premises Search Availability Group #1 Search Availability Group #1

SharePoint 2013 farm can be hosted in Azure. Content Configuration

Availability Group #2
Content Configuration
Availability Group #2
Service Applications Service Applications
 Azure Infrastructure Services provides a secondary datacenter.
Log shipping Distributed File System Replay logs
 Pay only for the resources you use. Content Availability Group #3 Content Availability Group #3
Replication (DFSR)
 Small recovery farms can be scaled out after a disaster to meet scale and capacity targets.

The recovery farm in Azure is configured as identically as

possible to the production on-premises farm.
 Same representation of server roles.
 Same configuration of customizations.
 Same configuration of search components (these can be on a smaller version of the production farm).

Log shipping and Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) Production environment Cold standby
are used to copy database backups and transaction logs to Live production environment Running VMs Start these VMs for disaster recovery
the Microsoft Azure farm. Tier 1 Front end services
Front-end services Query processing Front-end services Query processing
 DFSR is used to transfer logs from the production environment to the recovery environment. In a WAN Distributed cache Distributed cache

scenario DFSR is more efficient than shipping the logs directly to the secondary server in Microsoft Azure.
 Logs are replayed to the Microsoft Azure-based SQL Server computers. Replica Index Partition 0 Replica

 Log-shipped databases are not attached to the farm until a recovery exercise is performed.
Tier 2 Distributed cache Distributed cache
Front end services
Front-end services Query processing Front-end services

Failover procedures: Replica Index Partition 0 Replica

 Stop log shipping.
 Stop accepting traffic to the primary farm. Tier 3 Back-end services Crawl Back-end services Crawl Back-end services Crawl
 Replay the final transaction logs. Admin Content processing Admin Content processing Admin Content processing
Back-end services Crawl Back-end services Crawl Back-end services
Admin Content processing Admin Content processing Admin Content processing
 Attach the content databases to the farm. Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics
Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics Workflow manager Analytics

 Start a full crawl.

 Restore service applications from the replicated services databases.

Tier 4 File Share File Share
Search Availability Group #1
Search Availability Group #1

Recovery objectives provided by this solution include: Content Configuration

Availability Group #2 Content Configuration
Service Applications Availability Group #2
 Sites and content
Log shipping Distributed File System Replay logs Service Applications

 Search (re-crawled, no search history) Content Availability Group #3

Replication (DFSR) Content Availability Group #3

 Services

Additional items that can be addressed by Microsoft

Consulting Services or a partner:
q Synchronizing custom farm solutions
q Connections to data sources on-premises (BDC and search content sources)

SharePoint recovery environment in Microsoft Azure

q Search restore scenarios
q Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)

For detailed instructions to deploy a warm standby

Cold standby environments take longer to start but are less Design and build the q Create a cross-premises virtual network in Azure.
q Connect the on-premises network with the virtual network in Azure with a site-to-site
environment, see SharePoint Server 2013 Disaster
Recovery in Microsoft Azure.
expensive failover environment in VPN or ExpressRoute connection. This connection uses a dynamic gateway in Azure.
 The farm is fully built, but the virtual machines are stopped after the farm is created. You only pay Azure q Deploy one or more Windows Server AD domain controllers (DCs) to the Azure virtual
network and configure these to work with your on-premises domain. These DCs are
processing costs when the virtual machines are running, but storage and network data transfer costs
apply. catalog servers.
 In the event of a disaster, all the farm virtual machines are started and patched. q Deploy the tiers of the SharePoint farm on different subnets and in different Azure
availability sets.
 Backups and transaction logs are applied to the farm databases.
q Deploy the SharePoint farm plus a file server to host file shares.
q Setup log shipping and DFSR between the on-premises environment and the Azure- Build the Windows Server Active Directory hybrid environment
Additional procedures for cold standby environments based recovery environment.
The configuration of Windows Server Active Directory This reference architecture includes two virtual machines configured
 Turn on virtual machines regularly to patch, update, and verify the environment. (AD) for this solution constitutes a hybrid deployment as domain controllers. Each is configured as follows:
 Run procedures to refresh DNS and IP addresses. On-premises scenario in which Windows Server AD is partly
environment deployed on-premises and partly deployed on Azure  Size — Small.
 Setup SQL Server AlwaysOn after a failover. Microsoft virtual machines.  Operating system — Windows Server 2012 R2.
Azure
Gateway Active Directory & DNS Distributed Cache Front End Back End Database  Role — Windows Server AD domain controller designated as a
Important — Before deploying Active Directory in global catalog server. This configuration reduces egress traffic
Microsoft Azure, see Guidelines for Deploying across the cross-premises connection. In a multi-domain
Windows Server Active Directory on Microsoft Azure environment with high rates of change, configure domain
Site-to-Site VPN Virtual Machines. controllers on-premises to not synchronize with the global catalog
servers in Azure.
Gateway File share for log
device
 Data disks — Place the Windows Server AD database, logs, and
Azure
shipping and third SYSVOL on Microsoft Azure data disks. Do not place these on the
Gateway node of a Node operating system disk or the temporary disk provided by Azure.
ExpressRoute
Majority for SQL This is important.
Server AlwaysOn
 Role — Install and configure Windows DNS on the domain
controllers.
 IP addresses — Use dynamic IP addresses.
Availability Set Availability Set Availability Set Availability Set Availability Set
Active Directory

Virtual network

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