Replicating a live guest to another site

[mikekemp1234567]

Hi all,

Can anyone point me in the right direction so that I can live replicate my VMs to another site? 

TIA

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Assuming you don't have a storage system which can do this, you may take a look at SRM or vSphere Replication.

André

[mikekemp1234567]

I bought vSphere replication, but no SRM.  I have a SAN but I need to replicate a copy of the VM's to another site - which only has DAS. 

[Kedar_D]

Are you looking at this activity as one time replication or it will be ongoing process for DR?

If you are planning to use it as DR then, as mentioned by Andre VR is suitable. Please refer to the documentation. 

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/SRM/VMware-vCenter-Site-Recovery-Manager-with-vSphere-Repli...

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/Introduction-to-vSphere-Replication.pdf

VMware vSphere Replication Documentation

[suj27]

vSphere replication can work with the SAN at one end and local storage on the other.

Is vSphere Replication storage agnostic even when using SRM? | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

The initial sync will take bandwidth and time, check the below link about shipping virtual disk to remote site, if this is possible then it would be a good option.

Save Inital Replication Bandwidth with vSphere Replication - VirtuallyHyper

[mikekemp1234567]

Many thanks.  I have it installed now.

However, Replication is not appearing on the home screen - any ideas?

[a_p_]

Are you using the vSphere Web Client?

André

[mikekemp1234567]

Yes I am.

[a_p_]

The installation is usually pretty straight forward. Deploy the appliance, configure settings and then restart the Web Client. After this you should see the additional menu entries in e.g. the VM's pop-up menu.

André

[mikekemp1234567]

I can't see anything obvious but the two replication VM's are running (one at each site).  There's no new popups (what am I looking for) and it's not on the home tab to configure the site replication?

[a_p_]

Strange!? To rule out version issues, which versions of vCenter Server and vSphere Replication do you use (for interoperability see VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes)?

André

[mikekemp1234567]

I think I have worked out what it was - I needed to check the console as it had detected there was already a replication server (I removed them).  Do I need a vCenter Console at each site?  When I right click on the VM I want to replicate to the remote site it is asking me to connect to the vCenter console.....?

[a_p_]

>>> ... it is asking me to connect to the vCenter console.....?

Not sure where this pops up. Maybe a screenshot can help!?

Anyway, did you add the remote site to the vSphere Replication configuration prior to setting up a VM replication.

André

[mikekemp1234567]

It all seems to be working now - currently replicating our data server to the DR site so that will take a while.  Presumably, I'll be able to step back in time should something drastic happen....

Is there also a way to replicate just files from a share for instance so they are readily readable or will I need some other kind of mechanism for this outside of Vmware?

TIA

[a_p_]

With vSphere Replication you can only replicate the complete VMs and - in case it's required - power them on at the target location, i.e. make the files and shares available again.

If you need/want to replicate files you need to do this on the guest OS level using tools like robocopy, which allow to mirror files and folders including permissions.

André

[mikekemp1234567]

Do you think Robocopy is the best option?  I've used Delta Copy before which seemed OK(ish).

[a_p_]

There are several tools available which will work. I just mentioned robocopy, because it's included in Windows (i.e. a native tool) and because I've been successfully using it for a long time and many migrations.

André