How to Configure Virtual Machine Replication in VMWare vSphere Replication 8.3.0

 How to Configure Virtual Machine Replication in VMWare vSphere Replication 8.3.0

I have deployed one VM SRV16 in production VCenter.

Right click on VM SRV16-> Select all site recovery actin -> Configure recovery configuration 

Select Target site and Replication server or click on Auto-assign vSphere Replication server

Click next

Select VM that you want to replicate

Select shared disk and change disk format to thin provision

Click next

Click finish

Now newly added VM SRV16 has added in outgoing replication

SRV16 was powered off, need to power on for replication.

Select the VM from list and click sync now.

Now Sync is completed.

Now go to target vCenter you will see the VM folder and disk has replicated in target storage.

Now go to target vCenter -> select Datastore 

Click on Files to see the newly replicated VM.

vSphere Replication 8.3 installation and configuration step by step

 vSphere Replication 8.3 installation and configuration step by step

Use of vSphere Replication

How vSphere Replication work

First you need to down VMWare-vSphere_Replication-8.3.0-16284275 ISO from VMware site

Mount the ISO file in virtual media.

Login to vCenter server

Right click on any host or vCenter and select Deploy OVF template.

Click on Local file

Click upload files

Select highlighted files and click next

Give VM Name: DEMOPRDVR

Select Next

Select ESXI host

Click next

Click accept and Next

Select CPU and click next

Select Shared Datastore and change disk format, in my case I am selecting Thin provision.

Click next and select Management network

Enter password:

Enter NTP servers:

Host Name:

Default Gateway:

Domain Name:

Management Network IP:

Subnet Mask:

Select vCenter extension vService

Click finish.

Now VM deployment will start.

Note-: Next screenshot I am referring of other VR VMs

I have deployed VR machines in both PRD and DR vCenter.

Production VR machine

DR VR machine

Now login to console using management VR IP and port 5480

https://192.168.1.130:5480/ 

https://192.168.1.131:5480/ 

User Name: root

Password: *******

Click on Configuration page

Enter vCenter password

And click on Save and Restart Service

It will prompt for certificate, accept the certificate.

Do the same with both VR, once configuration will save successfully.

Login to vCenter click on shortcuts and you will see Site Recovery shortcut on both vCenters.

Click on Site Recovery

Click on open site recovery

Click on new site pair

Enter second vCenter details 

Below details is the second DR vCenter server.

Click next and accept the certificate.

It will detect the second vCenter server and VR, select both vCenter and VR and click next.

Click Finish

Now Replicated vCenter has been added.

 

What is VMWare vSAN and how to configure vSAN step by step

VMware vSAN uses a software-defined approach that creates shared storage for virtual machines. It virtualizes the local physical storage resources of ESXi hosts and turns them into pools of storage that can be divided and assigned to virtual machines and applications according to their quality-of-service requirements. vSAN is implemented directly in the ESXi hypervisor.

You can configure vSAN to work as either a hybrid or all-flash cluster. In hybrid clusters, flash devices are used for the cache layer and magnetic disks are used for the storage capacity layer. In all-flash clusters, flash devices are used for both cache and capacity.

You can activate vSAN on your existing host clusters and when you create new clusters. vSAN aggregates all local capacity devices into a single datastore shared by all hosts in the vSAN cluster. You can expand the datastore by adding capacity devices or hosts with capacity devices to the cluster. vSAN works best when all ESXi hosts in the cluster share similar or identical configurations across all cluster members, including similar or identical storage configurations. This consistent configuration balances virtual machine storage components across all devices and hosts in the cluster. Hosts without any local devices also can participate and run their virtual machines on the vSAN datastore.

If a host contributes its local storage devices to the vSAN datastore, it must provide at least one device for flash cache and at least one device for capacity. Capacity devices are also called data disks.

The devices on the contributing host form one or more disk groups. Each disk group contains one flash cache device, and one or multiple capacity devices for persistent storage. Each host can be configured to use multiple disk groups.

Steps to configure vSAN cluster

Login to vCenter

Select cluster -> Configuration 

Go to vSAN left below -> Select service and click configure

Select vSAN cluster type

While enabling vSAN cluster service you need to disable HA temporarily.

Select the service type that you want to enable

Claim disk for cache and capacity tier

From each host there will be once cache tier and one capacity tier

Always keep cache tier SSD disk for high performance

Cache tier will keep hot data and capacity tier will keep cold data

Click next you will see list of the host that will be part of cluster

If you want to add additional you can add from here as well

Click Finish

Now login to vCenter -> Select go to storage and you will vSAN Datastore created here.