vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud vSphere Replication 6.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware website at: https://docs.vmware.com/ If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to docfeedback@vmware.com VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.vmware.com Copyright © 2017 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright and trademark information. VMware, Inc.
Contents 1 About Disaster Recovery to Cloud 4 Updated Information 5 2 Disaster Recovery to Cloud System Requirements and Compatibility 6 Roles and Permissions that Disaster Recovery to Cloud Requires 7 3 Installing and Configuring vSphere Replication to Cloud 8 Installing vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 8 Upgrading vSphere Replication from Earlier Product Versions 9 Configure NTP Synchronisation in Your Environment How vSphere Replication Connects to Cloud Configuring the Connecti
About Disaster Recovery to Cloud 1 You can subscribe to a Disaster Recovery service to protect your vSphere workloads. Disaster Recovery lets administrators of small sites to protect their vSphere virtual workloads from a wide class of disasters by replicating those workloads into the cloud. Disaster Recovery uses the host-based replication feature of vSphere Replication to copy the protected source virtual machines into the infrastructure of the cloud provider.
Updated Information This vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud document is updated with each release of the product or when necessary. This table provides the update history of the vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud document. Revision Description EN-001621-02 n Updated the information in topic Chapter 2 Disaster Recovery to Cloud System Requirements and Compatibility. n Updated the information in topic Upgrading vSphere Replication from Earlier Product Versions.
Disaster Recovery to Cloud System Requirements and Compatibility 2 To enable replications to the cloud, your environment must meet certain requirements in terms of additional configuration and specific versions of the VMware products that you use. System Requirements Disaster Recovery to Cloud has the same requirements to the environment as vSphere Replication. In addition, Disaster Recovery to Cloud requires that ports 10000 to 10010 of ESXi hosts are open for outgoing traffic .
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Roles and Permissions that Disaster Recovery to Cloud Requires Replications to the cloud require certain users, roles, and permissions. vSphere Web Client On the source vSphere side, you need the same credentials as the ones required for vSphere Replication. See the topic vSphere Replication Roles Reference in the VMware vSphere Replication Administration document.
Installing and Configuring vSphere Replication to Cloud 3 Before you configure replications to the cloud, you must deploy the vSphere Replication appliance on the source site and set up your environment to enable connections to the cloud.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud After installing the vSphere Replication appliance, you must configure it to synchronize with an external NTP server. See Configure NTP Synchronisation in Your Environment. Upgrading vSphere Replication from Earlier Product Versions You can upgrade vSphere Replication 5.5.x, 5.8 and 6.0.0.x to vSphere Replication 6.x.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud How vSphere Replication Connects to Cloud When you create a connection to the cloud, the vCloud Tunneling Agent in the vSphere Replication appliance creates a tunnel to secure the transfer of replication data to your cloud Organization. When a tunnel is created, the vCloud Tunneling Agent opens a port on the vSphere Replication appliance. ESXi hosts connect to that port to send replication data to a cloud organization.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 2 Create a custom firewall rule on each ESXi server that hosts replication source machines. See Creating custom firewall rules in VMware ESXi 5.0 (KB 2008226). 3 Enable the custom firewall rule that you created on each ESXi host. See Allow or Deny Access to an ESXi Service or Management Agent with the vSphere Web Client. What to do next Configure the vCloud Tunneling Agent to use the ports that you configured on ESXi hosts.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud For example, the following command configures the vCloud Tunneling Agent to use only port 10001. /opt/vmware/vcta/bin/cell-management-tool configure-vcta-server -prl 10001 -prh 10001 Note You can designate any free TCP port in your environment for the communication between ESXi hosts and the vCloud Tunneling Agent, but you must verify that all ESXi hosts and the vCloud Tunneling Agent are configured to use the same ports.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 3 (Optional) If you do not want to store the credentials that you used for authentication, select the Use a different account for system monitoring check box, and type the credentials to be used for system monitoring. These credentials are encrypted and stored in the vSphere Replication database. 4 Click Next. The Connect to a Cloud Provider wizard displays a list of virtual data centers to which you can connect.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Prerequisites Verify that you created a connection to a cloud virtual data center. See Connect to a Cloud Provider Site. Procedure 1 Click the Configure tab, click vSphere Replication > Target Sites, and click the target network settings icon . If your user session to the cloud has expired, the Network Mappings wizard prompts you to type your credentials. 2 From the drop-down menus, select a recovery network and a test network and click Next.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Procedure 1 Use the vSphere Web Client on the source site to locate the HMS virtual machine and log in as the root user. 2 Navigate to folder /opt/vmware/hms/conf/. 3 Run the vi hms-configuration.xml command to open the hms-configuration.xml file for editing.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Table 3‑2. Cloud Connection States (Continued) Icon Status Description Remediation Missing network settings You have not selected the networks to use for recovery and test recovery operations on the target site. Configure the network settings. In this state, when you start the configure replication wizard, you are prompted to configure the networks on the target site first.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 4 In the Reconnect Sites dialog box, type the credentials for the remote site and click OK. The connection state changes to Connected. VMware, Inc.
Replicating Virtual Machines to Cloud 4 You can configure replications from vSphere environments to cloud for a single virtual machine or for multiple virtual machines. To replicate virtual machines to cloud, you must deploy the vSphere Replication 5.8 appliance at the source site, and your cloud provider must enable replications to the cloud in your cloud organization. The source and target sites must be connected so that you can configure replications.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Configure a Replication to Cloud for a Single Virtual Machine To start replicating virtual machines to your cloud organization, you configure replication from the source site by using the vSphere Web Client. When you configure replication, you set a recovery point objective (RPO) to determine the maximum data loss that you can tolerate.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 2 In the inventory tree, right-click the virtual machine that you want to replicate and select All vSphere Replication Actions > Configure Replication. The Configure Replication wizard opens. 3 Select Replicate to a cloud provider and click Next. 4 Select the target site to which you want to replicate the virtual machine. n If you have created a connection to the cloud provider, select the target virtual data center from the list and click Next.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 9 (Optional) To save multiple replication instances that can be converted to snapshots of the source virtual machine during recovery, select Enable in the Point in time instances pane, and adjust the number of instances to keep. Note You can keep up to 24 instances for a virtual machine. This means that if you configure vSphere Replication to keep 6 replication instances per day, the maximum number of days you can set is 4 days.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Configure a Cloud Replication Task for Multiple Virtual Machines To configure batches of virtual machines for replication to the cloud, you can select multiple virtual machines and start the Configure Replication wizard. When you configure replication, you set a recovery point objective (RPO) to determine the maximum data loss that you can tolerate.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 2 Select a data center, navigate to the Related Objects tab, and click the Virtual Machines tab. 3 Select the virtual machines for which you want to configure replications. 4 Right-click the virtual machines and select All vSphere Replication Actions > Configure Replication. The Configure Replication wizard opens and vSphere Replication validates the virtual machines that can be configured for replication.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 11 On the Recovery settings page, use the RPO slider or the time spinners to set the acceptable period for which data can be lost in the case of a site failure. The available RPO range is from 15 minutes to 24 hours. 12 (Optional) To save multiple replication instances that can be converted to snapshots of the source virtual machine during recovery, select Enable in the Point in time instances pane, and adjust the number of instances to keep.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Using Replication Seeds for Replications to Cloud For each new replication that you configure, an initial full synchronization operation is performed. During this operation, vSphere Replication copies the whole data from the source virtual machine to a placeholder vApp on the target site. If the source virtual machine is too big, or the bandwidth of your network connection to the cloud is too low, the initial full sync might take a long time.
Reconfiguring Replications to the Cloud 5 You can reconfigure cloud replications to change the quiescing method for the guest operating system, the RPO, the network compression, and the retention of point in time instances. Reconfigure a Replication to Cloud You reconfigure a replication to change the RPO settings, the number of replication instances to keep, or the quiescing method that is applied when synchronizing the replication source virtual machine to your cloud organization.
Recovering Virtual Machines to Cloud 6 You can check if virtual machines are properly replicated in the cloud, and migrate replicated virtual machines to your cloud organization. This section includes the following topics: n Test Recovery to Cloud n Planned Migration to Cloud Test Recovery to Cloud Test recoveries allow you to verify that source data is replicated correctly on the target site.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Test recoveries are allowed for the following replication statuses: OK, OK (RPO Violation), Error, Error (RPO Violation), Full Sync, Full Sync (RPO Violation), Not Active, Not Active (RPO Violation), Paused, Sync, and Sync (RPO Violation). Note By default, the Test Status column is not visible in the list of outgoing replications . To view the column, right-click the table header, select Show/Hide Columns, select the Test Status check box, and click OK.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Clean Up a Test Recovery You can run a test recovery or a planned migration for a replication only after the results of its previous test recovery are cleaned up. In the vSphere Web Client, you can clean up test recovery results for replication tasks that appear under vSphere Replication on the Monitor tab. Procedure 1 In the list of replications, click a replication to check its test recovery status.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 2 Click the Run planned migration icon . The Planned Migration wizard opens. If the user session to the target cloud organization is expired, the wizard prompts you to enter user credentials. 3 On the Planned migration options page, select a data synchronization option and click Next. 4 On the Source VM shutdown page, select how to stop the source virtual machine and click Next.
Configuring Replications from Cloud 7 You can replicate a virtual machine from your cloud environment to a vCenter Server if the virtual machine was recovered in the cloud. You select whether to configure a new replication from cloud or a reverse replication from cloud depending on the condition of your local environment.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud This section includes the following topics: n Configure a Replication From Cloud n Configure a Reverse Replication from Cloud Configure a Replication From Cloud You can use vSphere Replication to configure a replication from cloud to your local site.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 7 On the Target location page, click Edit to select the datastore where replication data will be saved. If you want to use existing disks as seeds for the replication, browse the datastore to locate the folder where the seed disks are located. 8 (Optional) To configure the replication of individual disks, click the name of the source virtual machine. The list of disks on the source virtual machine expands.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 14 On the Ready to complete page, review the replication settings, and click Finish. A virtual machine configuration task appears in the Recent Tasks list at the bottom of the vSphere Web Client. A progress bar indicates that the source virtual machine is being configured for replication.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 3 In the list of outgoing replications, select the replication that you want to reverse, and click the Reverse replication icon ( ). Note The replication status must be Recovered. vSphere Replication validates the source and target virtual machine, and the Reverse Replication dialog box opens. 4 Review the settings for the reverse replication and click OK.
8 Monitoring and Managing Replication Tasks Outgoing replications are listed on the vSphere Replication tab under Monitor. You can monitor the state of replications to the cloud, control their running state, or stop them if you no longer need them.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Table 8‑1. Replication Statuses (Continued) Status Description Possible Cause Error The replication is not running at the moment. n A configuration error occurred. n Reconfigure the replication. n A replication error occurred. For example, the target site infrastructure is not accessible. n Navigate to the Issues tab to check whether some problem occurred on the virtual machine.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud Stop a Replication To Cloud If you no longer need to replicate a virtual machine to the cloud, you can stop the replication permanently. When you stop a replication, data is removed from both the source and the target site. Therefore, stopping a replication requires that both the source and the target site are online and connected. If the target site is offline, you can force stop the replication task from the source site.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud If only the source site is online and you selected to perform a force stop operation, the replication task is deleted from the list of outgoing replications, and replication related configurations are removed from the source virtual machine. Stop a Replication From Cloud If you no longer need to replicate a virtual machine from the cloud, you can stop the replication permanently.
vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud n On the local site, removes the task from the list of incoming replications, and deletes the replication data from the storage. If only the local site is online and you selected to perform a force stop operation, the replication task is deleted from the list of incoming replications, and replication data is deleted from the storage. VMware, Inc.
Troubleshooting vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud 9 Known troubleshooting information can help you diagnose and correct problems that occur while using vSphere Replication for Disaster Recovery to Cloud. vSphere Replication UI is Missing After a vCenter Server Upgrade After you upgrade the vCenter Server that contains the vSphere Replication 5.8 virtual appliance, the vSphere Replication user interface is no longer visible in the vSphere Web Client.
