Book Image

Disaster Recovery Using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager - Second Edition

By : Abhilash G B
Book Image

Disaster Recovery Using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager - Second Edition

By: Abhilash G B

Overview of this book

VMware vCenter Site Recovery manage is an orchestration tool used to automate disaster recovery in a manner that no other solution does. It is programmed to leverage array-based replication and VMware's proprietary vSphere Replication engine. The book begins by talking about the architecture of SRM and guides you through the procedures involved in installing and configuring SRM to leverage array-based replication. You will then learn how to protect your virtual machines by creating Protection Groups and validate their recoverability by testing recovery plans and even performing failover and failback. Moving on, you will learn how to install and configure vSphere Replication as a standalone disaster recovery solution. It also guides you through the procedures involved in configuring SRM to leverage vSphere replication. Finally, you will learn how to deploy and configure vRealize Orchestrator and its plugin for SRM and vSphere Replication.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
Disaster Recovery Using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Preparing storage for array-based replication


The first thing that you will need to do is to make sure that your array is supported by VMware and licensed for array replication by the array vendor. Array Replication is a licensed feature from the storage vendor.

Now, to enable replication, you have a couple of approaches that you can employ:

Approach-1

  • Identify the VMs that you want to protect

  • Identify the VMFS datastores the VMs have their files on

  • Identify the LUNs corresponding to the already identified datastores

  • Enable replication on the identified LUNs

Approach-2

  • Identify the VMs that you want to protect

  • Plan the sizing of a datastore large enough to hold all the identified VMs

  • Create a LUN large enough to host the datastore

  • Present the new LUN to the hosts running the identified VM and create a new VMFS volume (datastore) on it

  • Migrate the VMs that you want to protect onto the new datastore

  • Enable replication on the new LUN that corresponds to the new datastore

  • Approach-1: This is used in scenarios where the array does not have the spare capacity to provision a separate LUN for host-protected VMs. This approach adds an administrative overhead if the VMs are spread across multiple datastores. It also contributes to the wastage of replication bandwidth and storage space, since the LUNs that are replicated will also contain unprotected VM data.

  • Approach-2: This is used in scenarios where you have ample spare capacity. This approach is the best as it reduces the complexity and avoids the wastage of replication bandwidth and space, unlike Approach-1. However, this approach will have an impact on the size of the LUNs required at both the protected and replication sites.