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usa_kwilliamson
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Ways Replicate to two locations

We have been using SRM for a number years to replicate VMs using vSphere Replications to our alternate Datacenter about a mile way from our main datacenter.  That has worked well outside of resizing a VM's disk.  Now we have new challenges.  We would like to be able to replicate VMs on Site A to Site B and to Site C.  We use vSphere Replication, no LUN replication. We would really like to use SRM to do it all, but the functionality isn't there yet.  We have looked at vCloud Air to get us to site C, but the price per TB is too expensive even for higher education pricing.    Does SRM play well with other Replication technologies such as Recoverpoint for Virtual Machines?  We are curious to find out if we can use SRM to get us from Site A to Site B on a select number of VMs and use Recoverpoint for VMs(or something else) for a small list of critical VMs from Site A to Site C.

Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

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vbrowncoat
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You can use RP to mirror your VM datastores to multiple locations, you just can't use SRM to protect VMs being replicated to multiple locations. SRM can only protect a single VM replication. To be clear you can use SRM to protect one replication and still have others.

Other companies do replicate their datastores to two or more locations and use SRM as I outlined above.

SRM is licensed per protected VM. The storage used doesn't matter for SRM licensing.

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vbrowncoat
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There is no way to use vSphere replication or SRM to replicate the same VM from A > B and A > C (or B > C). vCloud Air will not get you to A > B and A > C either. vSphere Replication (used by both) only supports replicating each VM a single time and SRM (as you mentioned) works the same way. You can use SRM and VR to replicate some VMs from A > B and other VMs from A > C, the key is that you can't use SRM or VR to replicate the same VM to two places.

RecoverPoint for VM does not work with SRM, it's really it's own standalone solution.

Depending on your requirements, have you looked at something like VDP? You could use it to backup your VMs and replicate the backups to sites B & C. All features of VDP are included in vSphere 6 Essentials Plus and higher licenses.

You could also look at array-based replication solutions that support one - many replication (though keep in mind the additional replications wouldn't be supported with SRM). I realize this is expensive just providing ideas.

Another possibility would be stretched storage/metro-cluster between site A & B then SRM from AB to C. This is obviously quite expensive as well.

Hope this helps.

usa_kwilliamson
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I haven't looked at anything like VDP.  We do have the EMC Recoverpoint appliances that can mirror a volume.  I would like to avoid mirroring VMware volumes, because it would be another thing to keep up with to know which volumes are mirrored.  I would think that other businesses or institutions might mirror their data to two different locations.  Our SRM is licensed per VM and not sure if will replicated based on volume how our licensing would change.

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vbrowncoat
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You can use RP to mirror your VM datastores to multiple locations, you just can't use SRM to protect VMs being replicated to multiple locations. SRM can only protect a single VM replication. To be clear you can use SRM to protect one replication and still have others.

Other companies do replicate their datastores to two or more locations and use SRM as I outlined above.

SRM is licensed per protected VM. The storage used doesn't matter for SRM licensing.

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usa_kwilliamson
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Thanks.

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