Changing vCenter Servers & Replication

[gogogo5]

Hello - looking for comments on changing the configuration of a vCenter Server 5.1 and Replication environment.  Have a small vSphere 5.1 environment (3 hosts, 50 VMs) that has Replication configured.

In a situation where we need to install a new vCenter Server 5.1 and re-create the datacenter, cluster and detach/attach ESXi servers etc.

What needs to be performed or considered to ensure Replication continues to function in the vCenter Server 5.1?

Thanks

gogog5

[mvalkanov]

Hi,

Once a host is removed from vCenter Server, vSphere Replication will notice that all the VMs are removed and will attempt to unconfigure the replication for each of these, resulting in removing all replica files at the target datastores.

If a new vCenter Server inventory will be prepared, I would suggest the following steps:

1. While the infrastructure is running in the old configuration, perform recovery with using latest available data (no need to power off the source VM), without powering on the recovered VM.

2. Unconfigure the replications. The recovered files will be left intact.

3. Perform the infrastructure changes.

4. Configure replication and use the files from step 1 as initial copies.

Regards,

Martin

[gogogo5]

Hi mvalkanov - thanks for your comments.  Just to clarify, the new vCenter Server 5.1 will have a new database as part of the rebuild and so there will be manaul recreation of the datacenter and cluster objects.  Then the ESXi hosts, while running VMs, will be detached from the old VC and attached to the new VC.  Is there a way to simply stop replication before the hosts are detached from the old VC and then when attached to the new VC, reconfigure replication and use the existing destination replicas as seeds?

Thanks

gogogo5

[mvalkanov]

Hi,

Unless the replications were initially configured using seeds, unconfiguring the replication (either through the UI, or automatically when the host is added to the new VC inventory) will remove the destination replica files. There is no flag to preserve the placeholder disks.

Regards,

Martin