Stage XXXIV: Site Recovery Manager

Site Recovery Manager

Implementing Stage XXXIII: NSX-T was a huge part for my HomeLab. What comes next?

After attending another very useful VMware LiveFire Training (Advanced Cloud Services Implementation) I played again with the Site Recovery Manager. We replicated VMs from On Premises to VMC on AWS. Why not use this solution inside my HomeLab?

I am running two datacenters at my home, both with extra power lines, fuses as well as ventilation systems. The third location is already planned….

Each datacenter has hosts and network switches running, the next step was to replicate VMs between them and protect them from VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM). 

I am utilizing vSphere replication to bring the most important VMs with their vmdks from DC1 to DC2 and vice versa. Every datacenter has its own vCenter, both are running in Enhanced Linked mode, which is not a problem for SRM. I deployed SRM and VR appliances on both sides and paired the sites within SRM. 

SRM VM Requirements
vSphere Replication VM Requirements

After the deployment of both VMs, I added each vCenter to their configuration. The Plugin got registered automatically.

SRM and vSphere Replication inside each datacenter

I created new site pairing, one for each datacenter.

vc to vcremote
vcremote to vc

Next step is to configure the corresponding mappings.

Folder Mappings
Placeholder Datastores

Incoming and Outgoing Replications via vSphere Replication.

Incoming
Outgoing

After that I created Protection groups for the most important VMs and configured these Protection groups into Recovery Plans.

Protection Groups
Recovery Plans

Running SRM is really nice and very welcome inside my environment, as well as replicating VMs from one Datacenter to the other. Maybe in the future I am also replicating VM to the cloud (VMC on AWS)…..

By the way, this is a perfect setup for showing the combination of the VMware solutions within my Trainings or customer Pre-Sales situation.

Stay tuned for the next episodes….

Here is the next Stage XXXV: vSAN Expanding