vSphere 6 and SRM 6 - Need External PSCs?

[virtualg_uk]

With vSohere 6, do you need external PSCs for SRM 6 to work correctly?

[larsonm]

You will need an external PSC to be in a supported configuration.  More detail below:

Page 4 of the vCenter 6 Deployment Guide (here) states that:

"If there is a need to replicate with other Platform Services Controllers or there is more than one vCenter Single Sign-On enabled solution, deploying the Platform Services Controller(s) on separate virtual machine(s)-via external deployment-from vCenter is required."

Platform Services Controller FAQ (here) lists VMware Site Recovery Manager partially integrated solution.

Page 28-34 of the SRM 6.1 installation guide (here) details the deployment models, all of which include an external PSC.

Page 29 of the SRM 6.1 installation guide throws a curveball stating that a two-site topology with one vCenter instance per PSC can be deployed with an embedded PSC.  That topology does not appear to be a supported PSC topology as listed here.

Hope this helps

[admin · Accepted solution]

You don't need external PSCs for SRM 6 to work. This is supported, and I would say is pretty commonly used:

Site Recovery Manager 6.1 Documentation Center

My understanding is that the vSphere deployment document referenced above is talking about 'replication' of the PSC itself - i.e. load-balanced PSCs in HA mode. Not that the environment will be using SRM/Replication.

[larsonm]

I did some additional reading, and was able to prove my answer was wrong

The deployment guide stated that an external PSC was required if "there is more than one vCenter Single Sign-On enabled solution."  That being said, the PSC FAQ (excerpt shown below) states that, since SRM is only partially integrated with the PSC, and the vCenter is the only fully integrated solution, that SRM would then not require an external PSC.

A VMware Solution is defined as a product that creates a Machine Account and one or more Solution User (a collection of vSphere services) within the VMware Directory Service when the product is joined to the PSC, thus the vSphere Domain. The Machine Account and Solution User(s) are used to broker and secure communication between other Solutions available within the vSphere environment. In order to count against these maximums, the Machine Account and Solution Users must be fully integrated with all of the PSC's available feature sets (Identity Management and Authentication Brokering, Certificate Management, Licensing, etc.) such that the product makes full use of the PSC. At this time, only vCenter Server is defined as a fully integrated solution and counts against these maximums.

Partially integrated solutions, such as vCenter Site Recovery Manager, vCloud Director vRrealize Orchestrator, vRealize Automation Center, and vRealize Operations, do not count against these defined maximums.

I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.