Just a quick one from me today that I wanted to share.

I was playing with Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator (VDRO), and scratching my head as I was working with restore plans.

I couldn’t find a very crucial step. ‘Prepare DC for DataLab’. The details about this are documented here. But to quote the important section:

This step is required for a domain controller to be started in a test lab environment. This must always be the first step for the domain controller in a lab group.

This step ensures the VM will reboot to exit DSRM (Directory Services Restore Mode) and therefore will function correctly as a domain controller in the lab.

Veeam Helpcenter Documentation

So, seems pretty important right? Well, when I went to create my restore plan, I couldn’t find the step. Even the Veeam documentation didn’t show it within their documentation screenshot:

After a lot of head scratching, turns out, I was missing a something that, in my opinion, is a bit light on documentation. This step is leveraged at the DataLabs level, as per my screenshot below:

Once added, this step will force itself to become the very first step of the plan (yep, even before ‘Restore VM’). You’ll also notice that the step isn’t adjustable within the list either, it can’t be moved up or down.

Hope this helps someone other than myself!