q The document describes setting up a SharePoint disaster recovery environment in Microsoft Azure. It involves: q Creating a virtual network and connecting the on-premises and Azure networks with a VPN. Domain controllers are deployed in Azure. q Deploying the SharePoint farm and a file server across availability sets in Azure. Log shipping and DFSR copy databases and transaction logs between on-premises and Azure. q The Azure environment provides a secondary data center where the SharePoint farm can failover to in the event of a disaster on-premises.

1. Virtual Network
Microsoft Azure
VPN Gateway
Gateway
subnet
Active VPN
Cloud Service
Availability Set
Active Directory &
DNS
Cloud Service Cloud Service
Active Directory
Windows Server 2012
RRAS
Availability Set
Front End
Availability Set
Distributed
Cache
Availability Set
Back End
On-premises
environment
Database
File share for log
shipping and third
node of a Node
Majority for SQL
Server AlwaysOn
SharePoint recovery environment in Microsoft Azure
Design and build the
failover environment in
Microsoft Azure
q Create a virtual network in Microsoft Azure.
q Connect the on-premises network with the virtual network in Microsoft Azure with a
site-to-site VPN connection. This connections uses a dynamic gateway in Microsoft
Azure.
q Deploy one or more domain controllers to the Microsoft Azure virtual network and
configure these to work with your on premises domain. These DCs are catalog servers.
q Adapt the SharePoint farm for cloud services and availability sets.
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
Microsoft Azure-based recovery environment.
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. To send feedback about this documentation, please write to us at ITSPdocs@microsoft.com.
The configuration of Active Directory for this solution
constitutes a hybrid deployment scenario in which
Windows Server AD DS is partly deployed on-
premises and partly deployed on Microsoft Azure
Virtual Machines.
Important — Before deploying Active Directory in
Microsoft Azure, read Guidelines for Deploying
Windows Server Active Directory on Microsoft Azure
Virtual Machines
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/
windowsazure/jj156090.aspx).
For complete guidance on designing and deploying
Active Directory environments, see http://
TechNet.microsoft.com.
Build the Windows Server Active Directory Domain Services hybrid environment
SharePoint Disaster
Recovery to Microsoft
Azure
Example architectures for building a
recovery environment in Microsoft
Azure
Overview
The disaster recovery environment for an on-premises
SharePoint 2013 farm can be hosted in Microsoft Azure.
 Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Services provides a secondary datacenter.
 Pay only for the resources you use.
 Small recovery farms can be scaled out after a disaster to meet scale and capacity targets.
The recovery farm in Microsoft 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)
are used to copy database backups and transaction logs to
the Microsoft Azure farm.
 DFSR is used to transfer logs from the production environment to the recovery environment. In a WAN
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.
 Log-shipped databases are not attached to the farm until a recovery exercise is performed.
Failover procedures:
 Stop log shipping.
 Stop accepting traffic to the primary farm.
 Replay the final transaction logs.
 Attach the content databases to the farm.
 Start a full crawl.
 Restore service applications from the replicated services databases.
Recovery objectives provided by this solution include:
 Sites and content
 Search (re-crawled, no search history)
 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)
q Search restore scenarios
q Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)
Cold standby environments take longer to start but are less
expensive
 The farm is fully built, but the virtual machines are stopped after the farm is created. You only pay
processing costs when the virtual machines are running, but storage and network data transfer costs
apply.
 In the event of a disaster, all the farm virtual machines are started and patched.
 Backups and transaction logs are applied to the farm databases.
Additional procedures for cold standby environments
 Turn on virtual machines regularly to patch, update, and verify the environment.
 Run procedures to refresh DNS and IP addresses.
 Setup SQL AlwaysOn after a failover.
This reference architecture includes two virtual machines configured
as domain controllers. Each is configured as follows:
 Size — Small.
 Operating system — Windows Server 2012.
 Role — Active Directory Domain Services domain controller
designated as a global catalog server. This configuration reduces
egress traffic across the VPN connection. In multi-domain
environment with high rates of change, configure domain
controllers on premises to not sync with the global catalog servers
in Microsoft Azure.
 Data disks — Place the Windows Server AD DS database, logs, and
SYSVOL on Microsoft Azure data disks. Do not place these on the
Operating System disk or the Temporary Disks provided by
Microsoft Azure. This is important.
 Role — Install and configure Windows DNS on the domain
controllers.
 IP addresses — Use dynamic IP addresses. This requires you to
create a Microsoft Azure Virtual Network.
On-premises environment
Warm standby environment
Microsoft Azure recovery environment
Cold standby
Running VMs
Running VMs
Production environment
Availability Group #1
Availability Group #2
Availability Group #3
Distributed cache Distributed cache
Query processingFront end services Query processingFront-end services
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Analytics
Content processingAdmin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Front-end services
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Availability Group #1
Availability Group #2
Availability Group #3
Search
Content
Content
Configuration
Service Applications
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Analytics
Content processingAdmin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Tier 4
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Availability Group #1
Availability Group #2
Availability Group #3
Search
Content
Content
Configuration
Service Applications
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Tier 4
Live production environment
File Share
Log shipping
File Share
Distributed File System
Replication (DFSR)
Replay logs
Search
Content
Content
Configuration
Service Applications
File Share
Replay logs
Crawl
Query processingFront end services Query processingFront-end servicesFront-end services
Index Partition 0Replica Replica
Distributed cache Distributed cache
Index Partition 0Replica Replica
Query processingFront end services Query processingFront-end servicesFront-end services
Distributed cache Distributed cache
Index Partition 0Replica Replica
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Availability Group #1
Availability Group #2
Availability Group #3
Search
Content
Content
Configuration
Service Applications
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Analytics
Content processing
Crawl
Admin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Analytics
Content processingAdmin
Workflow manager
Back-end services
Tier 4 File Share
Log shipping Distributed File System
Replication (DFSR)
Crawl
Query processingFront end services Query processingFront-end servicesFront-end services
Index Partition 0Replica Replica
Distributed cache Distributed cache
Start these VMs for disaster recovery
Production environment
Live production environment
Analytics
Content processingAdmin
Workflow manager
Back-end services Crawl