Replicating vCenter Server

[xspader]

We are replicating systems to a remote DR site and I currently have vcenters in linked mode to get some separation as it makes me feel more confident about the vcenter survivability.

I've been looking around and cannot find anything specifically about replicating vcenter in a single vcenter setup. Is this recommended and is there anything needed to recover the VCSA at the DR site if thats the reason for replicating?

I have a call in with vmware to ask some other questions, but I was hoping someone here may have an answer on this one specifically. The reason is there is an idea to run a single vcenter to look after Prod and DR. Singe Datacenter in vcenter and two clusters so the vDS with the same UUID is present at both sites. If this is able to be successfully replicated and recovered at the remote site in a DR scenario then great, but I havent found anything other than an article from 2012 saying its a PITA

[ashilkrishnan]

Hi @xspader ,

vCenter server is a management server and I don't see a reason to replicate it. You can replicate it and the option to recovery it would mostly be manual. If vCenter goes down, you won't have access to vSphere replication plug-in and you need to manually browse and register vCenter VM by connecting directly to one of the hosts. 

Additionally, you should look at other available options:

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-226A925F-BF20-4A58-B... 

[depping]

It was a PITA indeed, I did this in 2012 (https://www.yellow-bricks.com/2012/09/21/can-i-protect-my-vcenter-server-with-vsphere-replication/) and never tried it again to be honest, so I am not sure if it is easier right now. Most people building a DR solution will normally have 2 vCenter instances, simply as it will allow them to recover faster after a disaster.

[philip01]

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@xspader wrote:

We are replicating systems to a remote DR site and I currently have vcenters in linked mode to get some separation as it makes me feel more confident about the vcenter survivability.

I've been looking around and cannot find anything specifically about replicating vcenter in a single vcenter setup. Is this recommended and is there anything needed to recover the VCSA at the DR site if thats the reason for replicating?

I have a call in with vmware to ask some other questions, but I was hoping someone here may have an answer on this one specifically. The reason is there is an idea to run a single vcenter to look after Prod and DR. Singe Datacenter in vcenter and two clusters so the vDS with the same UUID is present at both sites. If this is able to be successfully replicated and recovered at the remote site in a DR scenario then great, but I havent found anything other than an article from 2012 saying its a PITA

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Thanks for the information, I will try to figure it out for more. Keep sharing such informative post.

[xspader]

Thanks @ashilkrishnan and @depping for your responses. My preferred solution is to have 2 vcenters as I believe its cleaner and makes it more efficient during recovery time. The solution was initially designed to be single logical datacenter with 2 clusters to share the vDS. I thought about VCHA but kept seeing a specific vmware employee posting everywhere to repeat after him that 'VCHA is NOT DR' I think at this point I just need to export the vDS from Prod and Import to DR so it keeps the same UUID and recovery errors when Prod is gone should go away.

[Tolga_y1980]

Bro lets say you replicate it to another site or datastore 🙂 And vCenter is down so you need to go appliance:5480 and try to recover  but when you try to recover , it will ask you a vcenter to go and put this vm on ,  and it seems impossible at this point.  Lets say you want to register it manually to the Esx host but its also little bir complicated because there is wont be a vmx file directly that you can register. 

[maksym007]

there is no sense in replicating vCenters. 
that is why you have vCenter HA and vSphere Replication for VMs and SRM.