vbrowncoat's Accepted Solutions

Every VR appliance does replication. The first one deployed in a VC handles management as well.
Select the VM in your inventory, actions, vSphere replication actions, stop (or pause?) replication The reason you are seeing both incoming and outgoing is because you are replicating VMs to t... See more...
Select the VM in your inventory, actions, vSphere replication actions, stop (or pause?) replication The reason you are seeing both incoming and outgoing is because you are replicating VMs to the same vCenter.
Different versions of vSphere are supported at the protected in recovery site and as you have it configured, the recommendation is to have the newer version at the recovery site. The reason for t... See more...
Different versions of vSphere are supported at the protected in recovery site and as you have it configured, the recommendation is to have the newer version at the recovery site. The reason for this, and to be cautious about different versions, has to do with virtual hardware versions. vSphere hosts can run VMs with earlier virtual hardware versions, but not later (one's released after the vSphere version). You want to make sure that your VMs will run on the host at the recovery site. If you use a later version of vSphere at the recovery, as long as you don't deploy new VMs while running there, or if you do, that you use a virtual hardware version that is compatible with the hosts at what was your protected site, you will never run into the problem of trying to recover a VM with hardware version that is incompatible with vSphere. Questions: Can anyone confirm supportability with regards to different version of vSphere at protected and recovery site? - Yes Are there any nuances related to having different versions of vSphere at protected and recovery site? - See above Will we be able to successfully failover to recovery site, reprotect VMs back to protected site, and fail back to protected site without issue? - Yes (see above) Does this make sense?
Step 4 is specific to stretched storage. Step 14 is for all other non stretched storage The reason you only see these uses in a planned failover with stretched storage is that is the only sit... See more...
Step 4 is specific to stretched storage. Step 14 is for all other non stretched storage The reason you only see these uses in a planned failover with stretched storage is that is the only situation where stretched storage (cross-vCenter vMotion) will be utilized. During a disaster recovery workflow VMs will be powered down at the protected site and powered on at the recovery site as in any other recovery workflow.
See answers in line: If I will be using Site Recovery Manager, Do I need to configure distributed switch on the DR site if the VMs from the production site are already using distributed swi... See more...
See answers in line: If I will be using Site Recovery Manager, Do I need to configure distributed switch on the DR site if the VMs from the production site are already using distributed switch. - No, SRM can work with different types of switches at both sites. If the vCenter Server and the server itself is using its own domain (not joined in the AD/vsphere.local), can I still install SRM and configure it or vCenter Server and its server should be joined to AD? - Yes, SRM doesn't have to be joined to the same AD domain (or a domain) at both sites. I would recommend if using vC 6 to connect both PSCs to the same SSO domain. Keep in mind this is completely separate from AD domains.
vCloud Air DR only supports vSphere Replication. SRM Air hasn't been released yet, when/if it is released it will only support VR as well.
To handle this you would need to run a script as part of the recovery plan.
Reservations will ensure that VMs get the resources assigned to them. VMs without reservations will start and get whatever is left. If they have HA admissions control enabled, HA will not allow V... See more...
Reservations will ensure that VMs get the resources assigned to them. VMs without reservations will start and get whatever is left. If they have HA admissions control enabled, HA will not allow VMs to start if the host doesn't have resources to meet the reservations. If you have more questions I'd highly recommend checking this: Introduction | vSphere 6.x HA Deepdive out first.
VR is only supported replicating to/from the same version of VR (eg 5.5 to 5.5), and VR can only be installed on the matching version of vCenter (eg 5.5 on 5.5). So unfortunately your idea won't ... See more...
VR is only supported replicating to/from the same version of VR (eg 5.5 to 5.5), and VR can only be installed on the matching version of vCenter (eg 5.5 on 5.5). So unfortunately your idea won't work. Is it possible to update the 5.0 environments to 6?
Are the 2 arrays connected to a single VC/SRM server? If so, my understanding from EMC (long internal thread with them) is that an SRA only supports one RP cluster as an array manager. So from th... See more...
Are the 2 arrays connected to a single VC/SRM server? If so, my understanding from EMC (long internal thread with them) is that an SRA only supports one RP cluster as an array manager. So from that I read that you would need to upgrade to SRM 5.8 and deploy another SRM server (for a total of 3) in order to get this to work
VR is a replication solution that doesn't require "datastore mapping" just source VM and target datastore.  Replicating multiple VMs with VR just requires selecting the same target datastore for ... See more...
VR is a replication solution that doesn't require "datastore mapping" just source VM and target datastore.  Replicating multiple VMs with VR just requires selecting the same target datastore for all that are selected at the same time. This doesn't change in VR 6.1 and SRM has no impact on this.
Just pause replication before you shutdown the VR appliance at the target/DR site. Stop vs Pause with vSphere Replication - VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs
Yes it is possible keeping in mind a few things: - SRM requires a vCenter at each site (so you would have 4 vCenters total, 1 each at sites A, B, C & D) - SRM requires pairs of SRM servers for ... See more...
Yes it is possible keeping in mind a few things: - SRM requires a vCenter at each site (so you would have 4 vCenters total, 1 each at sites A, B, C & D) - SRM requires pairs of SRM servers for each link (so if B, C & D are connected to A you would have a total of 6 SRM servers, 3 at A and 1 each at B, C & D) - Each VM can only be protected by a single SRM server pair (so in your example you could not protect a VM from A to C if it is already protected from A to B) - Each VM can only be replicated once, visible to SRM ( it is possible with some array vendors solutions to replicate a LUN to multiple destinations, this is fine when using SRM as long as SRM is only managing a single replication) See this blog post for some other possible topologies and details: http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/archive/2015/01/12/vmware-srm-topologies/
Protection between VSAN stretched cluster sites isn't supported with SRM because VSAN is a single vCenter concept and SRM requires two. SRM would support failover between 2 separate VSAN stretche... See more...
Protection between VSAN stretched cluster sites isn't supported with SRM because VSAN is a single vCenter concept and SRM requires two. SRM would support failover between 2 separate VSAN stretched clusters. vSphere Replication can replicate and failover VMs. Compared with SRM though you are missing: - Non-disruptive testing (SRM supports testing failovers non-disruptively, this isn't possible with VR on it's own) - Orchestration/Automation (SRM supports bringing up VMs in a specific order determined by priority groups and dependencies. It uses VMtools to ensure that a VM is fully operational before moving on to the next. VR does not do this. VR would require a manual failover and restart of each VM. This could work for less than 10 VMs, beyond that you would likely run into problems.) - Failback - SRM will reverse replication and reprotection after failover, VR doesn't have that functionality
Are you asking for a comparison of array-based replication with SRM vs. vSphere Replication and SRM (SRM can use both) or are you asking about the differences between vSphere Replication standalo... See more...
Are you asking for a comparison of array-based replication with SRM vs. vSphere Replication and SRM (SRM can use both) or are you asking about the differences between vSphere Replication standalone vs.SRM (with either VR or ABR)? If it's the first I'd recommend this post: SRM - Array Based Replication vs. vSphere Replication - VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs If it's the second, VR does not include all the orchestration, testing, reporting and enterprise-class DR functions of SRM, but allows for individual VM protection and recovery within or across clusters.  VR works for recovering one to a few (less than 5-10) VMs as the recovery process must be completed for each VM individually. As mentioned VR standalone is lacking the orchestration, automation, non-disruptive testing and reporting capabilities of SRM. VR is included in vSphere Essentials Plus licensing and higher, SRM is a per VM or per CPU (as part of vCloud Suite Enterprise) license.
That is correct that it doesn't support NFS 4.1, it does support NFS 3 (same version supported by vSphere)
Have you read the documentation regarding upgrading to SRM 6 located here: Site Recovery Manager 6.0 Documentation Center That will answer all of you questions, including your one about PSCs. ... See more...
Have you read the documentation regarding upgrading to SRM 6 located here: Site Recovery Manager 6.0 Documentation Center That will answer all of you questions, including your one about PSCs. A short summary, you want a PSC for each site. The reason for this is that you want each site to be completely independent from the other. If you read the docs and still have questions please post them.
Just to confirm, you have installed vSphere Replication at both sites and paired that, right? You have also configured replication for the VMs you are trying to protect? Instructions here: http:... See more...
Just to confirm, you have installed vSphere Replication at both sites and paired that, right? You have also configured replication for the VMs you are trying to protect? Instructions here: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-replication-61/index.jsp#com.vmware.vsphere.replication-admin.doc/GUID-964F4F6C-62B1-4EDA…
vSphere replication is not dependent on vCenter for replication. Is is dependent on the vCenter at the target site for recovery. So in your examples (assuming you are replicating from B>A): 1.... See more...
vSphere replication is not dependent on vCenter for replication. Is is dependent on the vCenter at the target site for recovery. So in your examples (assuming you are replicating from B>A): 1. Replication will continue. You can restore a VM as needed 2. Replication will continue. You would not be able to recover a VM until vCenter was running. If you are using SRM, SRM is dependent on vCenter (at the site where SRM is running) as well. Does this make sense?
You are correct. Application consistency would have to be handled at the array level. Some array vendors (I know of NetApp specifically) provide the ability to place an agent on VMs and have that... See more...
You are correct. Application consistency would have to be handled at the array level. Some array vendors (I know of NetApp specifically) provide the ability to place an agent on VMs and have that agent work with the array to ensure application consistency, I'm not sure about HP. Another option you could look at is vSphere Replication. VR offers VSS quiecing (along with MPIT) natively. If you're looking for a specific answer to how to use 3PAR application replication suites I'd suggest posting to an HP forum. vVOLs aren't compatible with SRM yet and I don't see how RDMs would get you what you are looking for. Lastly, to how you addressed your post, I would suggest that you not assume that only men participate in this forum.