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Chris Hall

Principal Technical Consultant

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Chris Hall Nutanix Certified Master - Multicloud Infrastructure 6 Chris Hall VMware vExpert 2024 Nutanix Certified Professional - Cloud Integration Chris Hall Nutanix Certified Professional - Multicloud Infrastructure 6 Chris Hall Nutanix Certified Professional - Unified Storage 6 Chris Hall VMware vExpert 2023 Chris Hall VMware vExpert 2022

VM Recovery Last time we deployed and configured our vSphere replication appliances, catch up now. It’s a great read. :wink:

This time we will configure our vSphere replication appliances and kick off some replications.

Overview

The Lab

We have vSphere replication deployed into my two site lab:

VRA Lab

Which looks like this in vCenter - Site Recovery:

Two Replication Appliances

Site Pairing

Before we can replicate VMs across sites, we need to set up our site pairing.

From vCenter - Site Recovery, click OPEN Site Recovery for our first site (lab: vc-site-a.lab, Site A):

Open SRA in Site A

Click New Site Pair, select our local vCenter (lab: vc-site-a.lab), enter the details of our remote vCenter (lab: vc-site-b.lab) and click Next:

Pair Sites 1

If prompted, accept certificate warning.

Select second site vCenter along with it’s replication appliance and click Next:

Pair Sites 2

Confirm configuration and click Finish:

Pair Sites 3

Back in Site Recovery, the site pair should now be detailed:

Pair Sites 4

Configure VM Replication

Now that we have the sites paired, let’s get some VM replication up and running.

From Site Recovery, click View Details under the site pair created above. Confirm that the appliances are connected:

Sites Connected

Click Replications and New:

New VM Replication 1

Confirm target site and click Next:

New VM Replication 2

Select a VM from the inventory and click Next:

New VM Replication 3

Select target datastore, modify disk format if required and click Next:

New VM Replication 4

Configure RPO, Enable point in time instances if required, enable network compression for VR data (recommended) as required and click Next:

New VM Replication 5

Review configuration and click Finish:

New VM Replication 6

Back under Replications - Outgoing, confirm that initial sync begins:

New VM Replication Initial Sync

Repeat for any further VMs to be replicated.

Conclusion and Wrap Up

In this post we paired our sites, configured vSphere replication and got our VM(s) replicated.

Next time we’ll try to recover a replicated VM from a disaster… :dizzy_face: :astonished:

This was part 2 of a multipart series. Find the other parts here:

-Chris