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nickpullen
Contributor
Contributor

vSphere 5.1 - VMotion and vSphere Replication interoperability?

Hi Everyone.

Im fairly new to VMware, learning more and more everyday...

My question is regarding the new version 5.1, I notice it has Replication built in now. I'll set the senario and then ask the question.

For simplicity, we have 2 hosts. A PRODuction and a Diaster Recovery. on PROD we have a few VMs (DC, Web). Now I enable vSphere Replication on the DC VM, and set it to replicate to the DR host, lets say the lowest RPO (15 mins). All is well in VMware land... Now for whatever reason,(upgrade ram in PROD), I want to VMotion(Vmotion and Storage motion, no common storage needed in 5.1) all the VMs from PROD to DR.

Question: Will VMotion realise that most of the VMs data for the DC VM is already on the DR host due to vSphere Replication, and therefor the only need to do the delta difference, making the VMotion opperation much much faster? Or Will it be an normal VMotion like the other VM on the host?

Hope this makes sense...

Cheers.

NickP

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Shoganator
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Nick,

I believe the answer is no, it will not take into account the replica already on the "DR" side. As far as I can see, vMotion and vSphere replication are not "aware" of each other for this purpose. I did read through the vSphere replication tech paper by @vmKen over here, and did not see any mention of this either.

Replicas should be treated just as these - replicas. Hence them being kept separate to other VMs, so when you vMotion the original VM to another Host / Site that contains the replica, they will still be kept separate - original VM, and replica. Hope that helps!

Cheers,

Sean

My personal blog: http://www.shogan.co.uk .::. Twitter: shogan85 .::. if an answer has helped or solved your question, please don't forget to mark as "Answered" or "Helpful"!
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mmarinov
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I also think the answer is no but you can askq question or move this one in the vSphere replication community for better response.

Martin Marinov VMware Software Engineer If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points
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