Windows Azure Guest Agent in failover scenario

Andreas Marx 1 Reputation point
2020-11-01T13:52:20.253+00:00

Hi.
When doing a failover from Hyper-V to Azure the Azure VM agent is not automatically installed. The agent is important for extensions and executing scripts inside the vm after failover.
I found some hints that in a VMWare to Azure failover scenario there seems to be half of the solution (Azure VM agent preinstalled OnPremise but disabled), but enabling the agent after failover is still manually … ?
I cannot find any guidance how to deal with that situation in a Hyper-V to Azure failover scenario. I do not want to install the agent manually on every vm during a failover and do not like the idea to implement a workaround like hybrid worker, GPO or similar solution. I would like to handle it fully automated and somehow inside the ASR process.

I think of the following solution:

  • Install the agent on all asr protected vms OnPremise
  • Implement a scheduled task on system startup that does the following:
  • Check it the vm is running OnPremise or in Azure by accessing 168.63.129.16 over port 80
  • Disable the 3 services (rdagent, WindowsAzureGuestAgent, WindowsAzureTelemetryService) when vm is running OnPremise
  • Enable and start the 3 services when vm is running in Azure

Questions:

  • Do I miss something, or is this really so complicated?
  • Is my solution vital? Is installing the Azure VM agent on non azure vms supported?
  • Isn’t there an easier solution? I would have expected it would be automatically …

Best regards
Andreas

Azure Site Recovery
Azure Site Recovery
An Azure native disaster recovery service. Previously known as Microsoft Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager.
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  1. Andreas Marx 1 Reputation point
    2020-11-09T23:28:32.08+00:00

    Thank you all for your feedback.

    @SadiqhAhmed-MSFT
    My question is not about enabling replication.

    @olufemia-MSFT
    All extensions depend on the "Windows Azure Guest Agent". And from all I can find in the docs, the only way to get this agent installed is executing the MSI inside the VM. I am not aware of any method doing things inside the VMs guest OS from the Azure management when the "Windows Azure Guest Agent" is not installed. Or do I miss something?

    I have put my solution in place, and it seams to be working fine so far.

    But I would appriciate that ASR would handle the installation of the "Windows Azure Guest Agent" itself.

    Best regards
    Andreas