Preserving management services with self-contained metadata through the disaster recovery life cycle

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer executable instructions which when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform the method of:

• during normal operation, at a first site, of a disaster recovery management unit comprising at least one customer workload machine and at least one management service machine, replicating to a remote disaster recovery site said at least one customer workload machine, said at least one management service machine, and metadata for said at least one management service machine;
• and
• after a disaster at said first site:
• bringing up, at said remote disaster recovery site, a replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine;
• bringing up, at said remote disaster recovery site, a replicated version of said at least one management service machine;
• and
• reconfiguring a replicated version of said metadata for said at least one management service machine by executing on said replicated version of said at least one management service machine a failover script, to obtain reconfigured replicated metadata for said replicated version of said at least one management service machine, so that said replicated version of said at least one management service machine can provide said management service to said replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine in said remote disaster recovery site;
• wherein said reconfiguring comprises:
• uninstalling agents and rules from said replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine in said remote disaster recovery site;
• reinstalling said agents and redeploying said rules on said replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine in said remote disaster recovery site, using at least one of new host names and new internet protocol addresses appropriate for said remote disaster recovery site;
• and
• updating a configuration file of said replicated version of said at least one management service machine to point to a replicated policy mapper server in said remote disaster recovery site.

An apparatus comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• at least one processor, coupled to said memory, and operative to:
• during normal operation, at a first site, of a disaster recovery management unit comprising at least one customer workload machine and at least one management service machine, replicate to a remote disaster recovery site said at least one customer workload machine, said at least one management service machine, and metadata for said at least one management service machine;
• and
• after a disaster at said first site:
• bring up, at said remote disaster recovery site, a replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine;
• bring up, at said remote disaster recovery site, a replicated version of said at least one management service machine;
• and
• reconfigure a replicated version of said metadata for said at least one management service machine by executing on said replicated version of said at least one management service machine a failover script, to obtain reconfigured replicated metadata for said replicated version of said at least one management service machine, so that said replicated version of said at least one management service machine can provide said management service to said replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine in said remote disaster recovery site;
• wherein said at least one processor is operative to reconfigure by:
• uninstalling agents and rules from said replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine in said remote disaster recovery site;
• reinstalling said agents and redeploying said rules on said replicated version of said at least one customer workload machine in said remote disaster recovery site, using at least one of new host names and new internet protocol addresses appropriate for said remote disaster recovery site;
• and
• updating a configuration file of said replicated version of said at least one management service machine to point to a replicated policy mapper server in said remote disaster recovery site.