Help with SRM layout

[Pagefaulted]

So here's the story; We're replacing our ESX environment and starting from scratch with SRM

Site A (protected); (9) ESX hosts, but only 4 will be SRM protectet + (1) vCenter Server

Site B (recovery); (4) ESX hosts + (1) vCenter Server.

My question; Given the fact that not all servers on Site A will have SRM licensed; do I need to have two vCenter Servers at site A? or can I split them up logically somehow in vCenter Server? Thanks.

[Pagefaulted]

forgot to add;

Site A will have 4 LUNs; Two will replicated/SRM protected. Two will be regular Site isolated LUNs

[JeffDrury]

Check out this link and look about halfway down the page: The first diagram seems to apply for your circumstance.

SRM is licensed per physical processor so as long as you have enough SRM licenses to cover the 4 protected hosts you should be fine. I wouldn't think you would need to have a seperate vCenter server set up for the hosts that are not using SRM since you will not be protecting them with SRM.

[Pagefaulted]

So, you limit your SRM protected VMs to just the 4 ESX hosts by only attaching the replicated LUNs to the 4 ESX hosts?

[JeffDrury]

That sounds correct.

When you create your Protection Groups the SRA for your storage should only pick up the LUN's that are replicated. This will create datastore groups which are mapped to your protection groups. If you need to get a VM from one of the non-protected LUN's to a protected LUN you will have to use a cold migrate or a Storage Vmotion.

[jbock]

You do not have to license SRM for every ESX host managed by a given vCenter Server instance. You only need to license SRM for the hosts running the VMs that are protected by SRM. So in your case, you would only need to license the four ESX hosts on your protected site (assuming you're not configuring bi-directional protection where you have protected VMs running on both sites).

Hope that helps,

Jon

[depping]

The best way to do this would be adding these 4 hosts in a seperate cluster!

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator

-

---

Blogging:

Twitter:

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[Pagefaulted]

Why is that?

[admin]

Hi Pagefaulted,

Generally speaking, it is considered a best practice to ensure that all your hosts within a single cluster can see the same storage.

Jason

[Pagefaulted]

If cluster A has LUNs 1 and 2 and Cluster B has LUNs 3 and 4. Could you (cold) migrate VMs between clusters? or would you need a 5th staging LUN on both clusters.

Thank you.

[admin]

Either Cluster B needs access either LUN 1 or 2, you need a 5th staging LUN on both clusters, or you can storage VMotion.

I don't know what the documented best practice is here, but I would personally go for the first option (this isn't necessarily endorsed by VMware)

[depping]

You would need a "staging" LUN indeed.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator

-

---

Blogging:

Twitter:

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[Funtoosh]

I did ran a simple test where on

cluster 1 has lun A and lun B .

Cluster 2 has lun C and lun D

What I found is you can not perform storage vmotion from A to C but you can perform cold migration from A to C

[depping]

that's because the network is utilized for the cold migration and storage vmotion doesn't.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator

-

---

Blogging:

Twitter:

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[Pagefaulted]

Wow, thank you. This helps quite a bit.