SRM4 with different ESX versions at the 2 sites

[gparker]

Hi,

Will SRM4 work where one site is running ESX 3.5-U3 and the other site is running ESX4-U1? Each site is running vCenter Server 4 and I'm planning on installing SRM4 onto each of these vCenter4 servers.

The SRM4 compatibility matrix states that SRM4 supports ESX3.5-U3 and ESX4-U1, but doesn't mention anything about it supporting or not supporting what I've just written.

Both sites are production sites and I'm planning to configure Protection Groups and Recovery Plans at both sites. I have bi-directional SAN-based LUN mirroring in-place.

Regards,

George.

[depping]

Which site is the protected site? Will you be running HW v7 on that site?

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCP | VCDX

-

---

Now available: Paper - vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide (via amazon.com) | PDF (via lulu.com)

Blogging: | Twitter:

[gparker]

Hi Duncan, site 1 is running ESX 3.5-U3 and site 2 is running ESX4-U1. Both sites have production VM's on them. Each site is connected to an EMC CLARiiON CX4-120 SAN and we've got MirrorView configured bi-directionally. In other words, the LUNs holding the production VM's at site 1 are being "MirrorViewed" to site 2 and the LUNs holding production VM's at site 2 are being "MirrorViewed" to site 1. I would like to configure SRM Protection Groups at each site and SRM Recovery Plans at each site, if you see what I mean.

I did see a KB article stating that if the VM's at site 2 are running HW v7, then I understandably won't be able to configure SRM to fail these over to site 1 due to the fact that ESX3.5 doesn't understand HW v7. But I'm hoping that at least I'll be able to configure SRM Protection Groups on site 1 to failover to site 2 and then plan to upgrade site 1's ESX hosts to ESX4 in the near future. Will this setup work in the short term?

George.

[mal_michael]

as far as i know it is not possible to map esx 4 cluster to esx 3.x cluster (even if you are not using hw v7 vms) .

you can map 3.x cluster to esx 4.x cluster and it will work, but failback will not be possible.

[TimOudin]

Virtual machines with a protected site running ESX 3.5 can be recovered at a protected site with ESX 4.0. As you have read and has been suggested here hw v7 will not run on ESX 3.5. I've performed tests in exactly the situation you describe.

--
Please consider awarding helpful or correct to all appropriate contributors

Tim Oudin