vCenter 4 Linked Mode

[Nase]

We've got an ESX 3.5 environment and we're planning to set another one up at a DR site. We're currently using VirtualCenter 2.5, but I was wondering if we can upgrade to vCentre 4 and set it up in linked mode with a copy at the DR site. The idea is that it will help a failover go much more smoothly if we don't have to restore the VirtualCenter server before we do anything.

Is this possible in an ESX 3.5 environment, or do you need vSphere to do it?

Thanks,

KEITH

[weinstein5]

Welcoome to the Forums - Linked mode only works with vCenter 4.x but it is not designed for DR - It is designed to allow you to manage multipled vCenter environments by just connecting to a single vCenter server - So if you were to setup an environment like you describe and were to lose the primary site the remaining vCenter would only be able to manage the hosts in the DR site - so you would have to restore the vCenter environment -

Also I have moved this to the vCenter Forum -

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[Nase]

Many thanks for your reply, you've clarified that the two vCentre servers manage their own environments separately and the linked mode only allows an administrator to access both from either vCentre.

With regards to the vCentre at the DR site only being able to manage the ESX hosts at the DR site, that's fine because the DR scenario assumes that the production ESX hosts are not available anyway.

It sounds like it'll do what I want it to do.

KEITH.