This is an overview of how you can pair VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager with vSAN to create your DR Plan.

1. Luke Huckaba, vExpert
Virtualization Architect
@ThepHuck
Pairing VMware® vCenter™
Site Recovery Manager™ with
Virtual SAN

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Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN
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3. • Setup
– VSAN
– vCenter & SRM
– Installation Speed Bumps
• vSphere Replication
– Upgrading
– Limitations
– Storage Policies
• SRM Configuration
– Protection Groups
– Recovery Plans
• Live Demo!
– Let’s hope it doesn’t crash!
Agenda
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Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN
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4. Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager
with Virtual SAN
Setup
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5. • VSAN Setup
– Check VSAN HCL for RAID controller: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=vsan
– 3-node minimum
– 4-node Best Practice minimum
– Disk Group configuration
• Minimum 1 flash device (SSD, PCIe, etc) and 1 magnetic disk per group for hybrid
• Minimum 1 flash write buffer device and 1 flash storage disk for all-flash (vSphere 6.0 only)
• 2 disk groups per host is recommended, 5 is maximum
• 2 10Gbps network adapters dedicated to VSAN traffic
• Requires IGMP snooping multicast, separate multicast addresses per VSAN cluster
Setup
Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN

6. • VSAN Setup
– Sizing
• Raw capacity: Hosts x Capacity disks per host used for vSAN (or disk size X total N of capacity disks)
– 1 host = 3x 1000GB magnetic disks for vSAN; 4 hosts X 3 X 1000GB = 12,000GB raw capacity
• Failures To Tolerate: N+1 copies of data and 2N+1 hosts are needed
– FTT1 data = two copies; FTT2 = three; FTT3 = four
– FTT1 hosts = three; FTT2 = five; FTT3 = seven
– Default is FTT1
• Usable Capacity is directly dependent on FTT
• vSwap file is created twice regardless of FTT
– vSwap file: 2 X vRAM
• Example: VM1 with 8GB of RAM 64GB VMDK and 128GB VMDK
– FTT1 = (2 X 8) + ((64 + 128)X2) = 16 + 192 X 2 = 16 + 384 = 400GB
– FTT2 = (2 X 8) + ((64 + 128)X3) = 16 + 192 X 3 = 16 + 576 = 592GB
– FTT3 = (2 X 8) + ((64 + 128)X4) = 16 + 192 X 4 = 16 + 768 = 784GB
• Sizing Chart: https://vsantco.vmware.com
Setup
Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN

7. • vCenter & SRM
– Windows or Appliance?
• SRM & VUM require Windows OS
– What’s new in SRM 5.8
• Web Client plug-in
• Auto-configure resource mappings for recovery back to protected site
– vSphere Replication should be installed prior to installing SRM
• SRM 5.8 installer will not prompt you to install vSphere Replication
Setup
Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN

8. • Installation Speed Bumps
– VUM is Windows application
• requires 32-bit DSN if using external database
– SRM is Windows application
• requires 64-bit DSN if using external database
– SRM database password considerations
• No longer breaks when ending with an exclamation point!
• Still cannot have quotes in password, but the installer warns if it detects a “
– SRM installation cannot handle space in path
• Default: C:Program FilesVMwareSite Recovery Manager
• Changed to: D:Program FilesVMwareSite Recovery Manager
• Installer fails saying Cannot find “D:Program”
Setup
Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN

9. Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager
with Virtual SAN
vSphere Replication
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10. vSphere Replication
Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN

11. • Upgrading
– If on 5.1, must upgrade to 5.5 or 5.6 before upgrading to 5.8
– Can upgrade from 5.5 directly to 5.8
– Power off appliance in vCenter, then power on (not reboot via VAMI)
• An HA event clears the OVF environment
• Power On in vCenter builds /opt/vmware/etc/vami/ovfEnv.xml
vSphere Replication
Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN

12. • Limitations
– 1 vSphere Replication Appliance (VRA) per vCenter
• Hosts Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI)
• vSphere Replication Management Server
• Serves as initial vSphere Replication Server (VRS)
– 9 additional VRSs to spread out the load
– 500 VMs per VRA
– 100 VMs per VRS
vSphere Replication
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Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN
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13. • Storage Policies
– vSphere Replication lists available storage polices at target/recovery site
– vSphere Replication will allow non-compliant storage policies
– SRM won’t create placeholder
vSphere Replication
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Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN
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14. Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager
with Virtual SAN
SRM Configuration
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15. Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN
• Same rules still apply
– VM can be a member of only one Protection Group
– Protection Group can contain one or more VMs
– Protection Group can be a member of multiple Recovery Plans
– Can have multiple Recovery Plans consisting of different Protection Groups
– Can have multiple Recovery Plans with different network mappings
– Boot Priority is an attribute of the VM and follows the VM across Protection Groups
• Set boot priority based on Protection Group
– Example: Tier 1 Protection Group VMs all set to boot priority 1; Tier 2 VMs set to boot priority 2, etc
– Multiple boot priorities extends recovery time
SRM Configuration
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16. Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager with Virtual SAN
• IP Customizations have changed in 5.8
– Define at network mapping
• Specify Network Prefix to change
– Will change subnet, leaves host number the same
• Specify gateway
• DNS servers
• DNS search suffixes
• Primary & secondary WINS server
– Manually configure each VM
– Dr-ip-customizer.exe still exists
SRM Configuration
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17. Pairing vCenter Site Recovery Manager
with Virtual SAN
Live Demo!
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