vSphere replication / One vCenter + 2 NAS

[Urania]

Dears,

I have today 60 days to test my lab environment.

I am running 1 vCenter 5.5, 2 X ESXi 5.5 and 2 NAS (FreeNAS and Nas4Free) on NFS.

To be short, I would like to replicate all my VM(s) from NAS1 to NAS2 .... Using my NAS2 as "backup".

But it seems that I am not able to configure vSphere replication with only one vCenter .... Do you confirm ?

I have tried to sheet a bit by installing a second vCenter (appliance) .... Is it a good idea ?

Is it even possible ?

Thx for your advise ...

Thierry

[Biliana]

Hi,

You can use vSphere Replication in different configurations:

1) Single vCenter Setup - in this case you need only one vSphere Replication appliance deployed. You can use vSphere Replication to replicate VMs between clusters/hosts managed by that vCenter Server. Please note that it is required that your vCenter Server and vSphere Replication appliance  to be up and running in case of disaster/unplanned event so that you are able to perform recovery.

2) Two vCenter setup - in this case it's assumed that you have two sites available (e.g. a production site and a secondary site for DR services). You can install vSphere Replication appliance in each site and you can replicate between them. In that case if the production site is gone, you can restore your replicated workloads from the secondary site.

[Urania]

Hi,

For me it will be the single vCenter setup .....

But, as target site,  when I declare my vCenter, I have this error message (see attachment file).

[admin]

Hi Urania,

I think you need to check first provided credentials and second try to open console of your vSphere Replication Appliance and try to ping your remote vCenter Server using linux bash.

Thanks,

Dzhem

[Biliana · Accepted solution]

Assuming you are using vCenter Setup then you do not need to connect your site with another target site. In a single setup your site acts as both - a source and a target for replication.  If you have setup everything correctly you can right-click a VM and configure it for replication pointing the same site for target site, but placing the virtual files on the NAS2 nfs datastore (the one you would like to store your replicated files).

[Urania]

Thx all.