Can I use vSphere Replicaiton to clone Production to DR?

[JaredBowden]

Hey VMGods!

I'm trying to save time in building out my DR site by non-disruptively cloning my Production VMs to our DR site, rather than build out each VM from the ground up.  In total we're talking about 80-90 VMs, a mix of Linux and Windows.  We are currently licensed for Enterprise+, and have independent vCenter's at our Production and DR sites, both running 5.5 (vCenter and ESXi).  The question is, if I use vSphere Replication to replicate my VMs from Prod to DR, can I then break any ties between the seed VM in Production and use the cloned VM in DR independently?  As a follow-up question, is there a way that I can initiate sysprep after replication automatically on the replica VM?

Thanks!

[mvalkanov · Accepted solution]

Hi Jared,

Yes, you can use VR to create copies of the original VMs into another vCenter server inventory.

Once the initial full-sync completes, all changes from the original VMs will be replicated based on the RPO settings.

Once you decide to stop the replication, you can first invoke "Recovery wizard" and bring up the replicated files as VMs in the target vCenter inventory. Power on step is optional in the "Recovery wizard". Please make sure that you use the latest available sync-point - this won't touch the original VMs.

After the "recovered" VMs are registered in the target vCenter inventory, the replications will turn into "Recovered" status. Then you can safely stop the replication from the UI and from this moment on, there won't be anything VR related to the VMs or in the UI.

VR today does explicitly disconnect the network cards of the recovered VMs.

There is no sysprep integration. Perhaps you can build your own customization using Powershell or similar.

SRM offers some customization options, but requires separate license.

Regards,

Martin