vSphere Data Protection restore from a different VDP appliance, single point of failure?!

[mikericks]

Hi All

I have setup a VDP appliance within our VM infrastructure. Working nicely with backups running once a week on a sunday evening.

We have 2 sites. 1 is running ESX5.1 with an Essentials Plus licence through a vCenter Server setup with 2 hosts.

The 2nd site runs ESX4.1 with 2 hosts which we will soon be upgrading to 5.1.

I would like to backup each site to one another in case of disaster. With one VDP appliance at each site backing up VM's at that site, to the opposite site. Site 1 VM's to site 2, Site 2 VM's to site 1 for example.

Am I correct in thinking if the VDP appliance that backs up a VM is lost in a disaster i.e site 2's VDP, I am not able to restore a VM from Site 1's VDP?

If this is true, this is a major issue as it causes a single point of failure straight away.

Regards
M

[snekkalapudi]

Hi,

You thoughts are good but unfortunately VDP is not capable of backing/restoring VMs from another site. Currently VDP boundaries are within vCenter. However you can use vSphere Replication for CPD (Continuous Data Protection) in case if your site1 is down, you can have recovery from replicated VMs in site2. You can still have point in time restore points at site1 using VDP.

[mikericks]

Thanks for your reply.

I understand you cannot backup cross-site, but if i had 1 appliance in site 1 and a second appliance in site 2, i would not be able to activate a backup of a VM from Site 2 to site 1, hope that makes sense?

Basically im under the impression you can only resotre a VM with the VDP appliance that backed up the VM.

[snekkalapudi]

You are right