You can use the Express Connect failure drill feature to simulate network failures. For example, you can simulate a failure in one of a pair of redundant Express Connect circuits and verify that traffic automatically fails over to the healthy circuit. This helps you test and validate the reliability of your hybrid cloud network on Alibaba Cloud.
A failure drill intentionally disables a target resource to simulate a failure. Ensure you have redundant configurations for the resources you test to avoid service disruptions.
During a failure drill, the resource status in the console may be slightly delayed. This does not affect the actual timing of the underlying resource state change.
Use cases
Verify connection reliability: When you provision new Express Connect circuits to your data center, use a failure drill to verify your disaster recovery and failover configuration.
Diagnose faults: If a connection fails, you can use a failure drill to simulate faults in different connection segments to help isolate and identify the cause.
Supported resources
You can run failure drills on the following resources: physical ports, virtual border routers (VBRs), and BGP peers.
During a drill on a physical port, its status changes to Unavailable.
During a drill on a VBR, its status changes to Unavailable.
During a drill on a BGP peer, the underlying state of the BGP peer changes to UnEstablished.
Limitations and quotas
Limitations
You can run only one failure drill task at a time in each region within your Alibaba Cloud account.
Each resource can be included in only one unfinished failure drill task at a time.
You cannot simultaneously run drills on a physical port, a VBR, and a BGP peer that are associated with each other.
You cannot run failure drills in the following scenarios:
A drill on a dedicated Express Connect circuit that has more than one associated hosted connection or more than one cross-account VBR. To perform a drill in this scenario, contact your account manager.
A drill on a hosted connection that is not associated with a VBR.
A drill on a VBR that is associated with multiple physical port instances.
A drill on a VBR that has a VLAN ID of 0.
Quotas
For detailed information about quotas for failure drills, see Quotas.
Drill process
Create a failure drill task
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Failure Drill.
On the tab, click Create Task.
On the Create Task page, configure the parameters as described in the following table, and then click OK.
Parameter
Description
Task Name
Enter a name for the failure drill task.
Region
Select the region that contains the resources you want to test.
Drill resource
Select the type of resource to test. Valid values: Express Connect Circuit, Virtual Border Routers (VBRs), and BGP Peers.
Instances
Select the resource instances for the drill. The selected instances are displayed in the Selected Instances list on the right.
NoteYou cannot select an instance if its payment is overdue or if it is already part of an ongoing drill.
Drill Mode
Select when the drill starts. Valid values:
Start Now: The drill starts immediately after the task is created.
Do Not Execute Drill: Creates the task but does not start the drill. You can start it manually later.
Drill duration
Set the duration for the drill. The default is 180 minutes. The value can range from 1 minute to 72 hours.
Description
Enter a description for the failure drill task.
View a failure drill task
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Failure Drill.
On the tab, find the target task and view its status in the Status column. A failure drill task can be in one of the following states:
Completed: The drill has ended. This occurs when the configured duration expires or you manually end the drill.
In Drill: The drill is in progress. You can manually end the drill.
Ending: The drill is in the process of ending.
Starting: The drill is being initiated.
Pending Drill: The task has been created and is waiting to be started.
More operations
Edit a failure drill task
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Failure Drill.
On the tab, find the target task.
Hover over the
icon in the Drill duration column to modify the duration.In the Actions column, click Edit. You can modify the Task Name, Instances, Drill duration, and Description.
NoteYou can only edit tasks with a Status of Pending Drill.
Start a failure drill task
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Failure Drill.
On the tab, find the target task and click Start Drill in the Actions column.
In the confirmation dialog box that appears, click Start Drill.
NoteYou can only start tasks with a Status of Pending Drill.
End a failure drill task
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Failure Drill.
On the tab, find the target task and click End Drill in the Actions column.
In the confirmation dialog box that appears, click OK.
NoteYou can only end tasks whose Status is In Drill.
Delete a failure drill task
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Failure Drill.
On the tab, find the target task and click Delete in the Actions column.
In the confirmation dialog box that appears, click OK.
NoteYou can only delete tasks whose Status is Completed or Pending Drill.
View failure drill records
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the top navigation bar, select a region.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Failure Drill.
On the Failure Drill page, click the Drill Records tab.
On the Drill Records tab, you can view the records of past drills and perform the following operations:
Delete a drill record: Find the target record and click Delete in the Actions column.
Copy and create a new task: Find a historical task and click Copy and Create in the Actions column to create a new task with the same configuration.
Export drill records: Click the
icon in the upper-right corner.
Related documents
When migrating from a transit router connection to an Express Connect Router (ECR) connection, you can use the failure drill feature to migrate your connections one by one. For more information, see Migrate from a transit router connection to an ECR connection.