VMware Cloud Community
bernworx
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Is there a way to replicate critical VMs from ESXI 4.1 to ESXI 5?

I have 2 vCenter Server 5 managing a separate datacenter from Taipei & Philippines.

The Taipei DC has vCenter Server 5 with ESXI 4.1 with NFS datastore. The Philipines DC has vCenter 5 with ESXI 5 with NFS datastore.

Given that some of the DB VMs has external storage NFS mount, whilst the rest are none.

The license we have is vSphere Enterprise Plus.

Is there a a way to setup a simple DR with the use of vSphere Replication? Can someone share a thought on this?

Reply
0 Kudos
5 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hi bernworx,

Unfortunattly not because replication is initialized from ESX server so your version on your source (primary site) should be at least ESX v50 to use vSpehere Replication.

If you want to use vSphere Replication you might need to upgrade your version of ESX server from 4.1 to ESX 5. Before do this upgrade please find gobally availiable documentation and upgrade strategy of ESX.

Thanks,

Dzhem

Reply
0 Kudos
mvalkanov
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi,

vSphere Replication requires hosts at both primary site and secondary site to be at least 5.0.

If it is possible to upgrade the hosts to ESXi 5.0, you could use vSphere Replication for DR.

If vCenter Server is 5.0, you would also need license for SRM and vSphere Replication 1.0 is part of SRM 5.0 and works with vCenter Server 5.0.

If it is possible to upgrade vCenter Server to 5.1, then you can use vSphere Replication 5.1 with or without SRM 5.1. The hosts can be 5.0 or 5.1. vSphere Replication 5.1 (without SRM) is part of the vSphere license with levels Essentials Plus and above (Standard through Enterprise Plus).

Regards,

Martin

Reply
0 Kudos
bernworx
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks Dzhem, so it should be the same vSphere 5 on both site.

Martin,

We have license for vSphere 5 Enterprise Plus meaning we can use the vSphere Replication native?

Is that downloadable?

Reply
0 Kudos
seansquared
Contributor
Contributor

Zerto can replicate to and from any vSphere environment starting with ver 4.0 to the latest. Just another option to consider.

Reply
0 Kudos
ch1ta
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

We managed to replicate our VMs between ESX(i) host of different version using Veeam Backup and Replication.

 

The one thing that should be kept in mind during such a replication is that virtual hardware versions between your source and target sites should be compatible. Replication to earlier versions is generally not supported. If your source VMs already have virtual hardware v8 and your target hosts still does not know what it is (since it's having v7), the jobs will fail.

 

For instance, you can replicate virtual hardware v7 VMs from ESXi 5 to ESXi 4.1, but cannot replicate virtual hardware v8 VMs to ESXi 4.1.

Thanks.

Reply
0 Kudos