I'm using SAN volume replication to replicate my ESXi "PROD" datastores LUN's to a "DR" site. The vCenter server in DR is a fresh install, and not a recovered version of PROD vCenter. The PROD and DR networks don't have IP connectivity to each other, only the SAN replication traffic is allowed between the sites.
I'm able to mount the replicated datastores in DR vCenter, and power on the guests. But the large majority of the VM guests have "invalid backing" on their NIC's. I need to manually edit each VM guest and toggle the NIC to the appropriate switch port. Distributed vSwitches are being used in both PROD and DR.
Is there any way to have the guest VM's be able to retain their NIC setting when imported into DR? I tried exporting the vSwitch configuration from PROD and importing to DR, but it did not seem to make a difference. Would I be better off trying to replicate the PROD vCenter to DR? The primary reason for a separate DR vCenter was to have a system always online and available, and to host VM guests that could readily support DR/recovery tasks.
