Hello,
I wish to know if it is feasible to have the main site with 3 hosts and vSphere Essential Plus license and another DR site with vSphere Standard and enable replication between these sites. What will be the issues if I do such a setup since I see that most people have advised to have Essentials Plus on both sites.
Thank you.
If Essentials plus is available, you can use vSphere Replication. When configuring vSphere Replication, you need to install vSphere Replication on both sites. Also, these vSphere Replication servers need access to each other. So you can start replication of your virtual machines. VCenter Server and vSphere Replication must be installed on both sites.
If you want, you can install only one vSphere Replcation. You can replicate to a different datastore in the same vCenter.
A useful document: vSphere Replication Licensing
Hi,
What you need to check is if the "vSphere Replication" features are in both versions.
In this case it is present both on the Essencial Plus and in the Standard version. So you can do it.
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This functionality is not present in the essential kit version.
ARomeo
If Essentials plus is available, you can use vSphere Replication. When configuring vSphere Replication, you need to install vSphere Replication on both sites. Also, these vSphere Replication servers need access to each other. So you can start replication of your virtual machines. VCenter Server and vSphere Replication must be installed on both sites.
If you want, you can install only one vSphere Replcation. You can replicate to a different datastore in the same vCenter.
Thanks all of you for your great inputs. I have other questions as below:
Since I will install vSphere Standard on the DR site, i will not have vCenter there. Is it mandatory to have vCenter installed on the DR site?
Can I use the vCenter license from Essentials Plus to manage the DR site too? I have 3 Hosts on the main site (6 CPUs).
Thank you
Yes, for a DR situation you need vCenter at both sites, otherwise there's nothing to bring up your workloads if the primary fails. No, you cannot only not re-use a vCenter Server license, but a vCenter license for Essentials cannot be used to manage Standard hosts. You will need to purchase a second license for vCenter Server Standard.
More information here on requirements and components: vSphere Replication Administration
In terms of licensing: