v6 Offsite Replication : Seeding How To

[nags_lucas]

Version 5 provided an option to do the initial replication by chosing the "Perform initial relication over this removable storage" and select the removable disk, but now the V6 did not provide such features.

In the V6 user guide, it shows: "If you replicate a VM to a remote DR site, you can perform replica seeding. Instead of having full replication traffic go over WAN, you can create a backup of a replicated VM, save it to a removable drive and move the drive to the remote site.", so any idea we save it to a removable drive in V6 ? Please help!

[Gostev]

Just copy VBK to the hard drive

[nags_lucas]

From where we copy the VBK? You mean i have to do a local replication first? Thanks

[Gostev]

Just read your original post again, and looks like I misunderstood your question.
It looks like what you are saying is that you cannot find the replica seeding options.

On the very first step of the replication wizard, did you tell us that you want to seed the replica?

[nags_lucas]

I intend to do replication offsite but the remote site do not have any replicated VM, so intend to have a replicated VM done it locally (V5 provide such capability to save in removable disk but V6?) and then i can physically move it to remote site and start the offsite replication.

[Gostev]

I understand that. You did not answer my question. Anyway, v6 does provide replica seeding options, and they are much better than what v5 had. Kindly please read the VMware User Guide, page 111 and onwards for the description of this feature.

[nags_lucas]

Thank you, now i understood what you said, that means the seeding is actually same like the v5's "Perform initial replication over this removable storage" . For permanent replication, is this seeding is one off thing and can be removed at production site after moved to offsite?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, the logic behind v6 seeding functionality is the same as we had it in v5. If you replicate a VM to a remote DR site, instead of having full replication traffic go over WAN, you can create a backup of a replicated VM, save it to a removable drive and move the drive to the remote site.

[hagepat]

Sorry for my misunderstanding. But do you mean that I have to create a backup to the removable disk. And then ship the disk to DR?
Do I have to copy data from USB disk to datastore on ESXi as well?

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, you should ship you backup files as you did it with v5. Please take a look at the detailed explanation in our User Guide (page 43) for more info. Thanks!

[hagepat]

Vitaliy,

I read it. But I don't understand this sentince: "you can create a backup of a replicated VM". For my Firts initial replica to work do I have to setup backup job? Or do I first have to replicate local and copy files from repostitory to USB disk? And what do you mean by "Copy the backup to a DR site repository and perform repository rescan." With replica I don't have a repository, only a datastore on ESXi host. How can I solve this one. Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

For my Firts initial replica to work do I have to setup backup job? Or do I first have to replicate local and copy files from repostitory to USB disk? And what do you mean by "Copy the backup to a DR site repository and perform repository rescan." With replica I don't have a repository, only a datastore on ESXi host. How can I solve this one

Here is the procedure you should follow:

1. Configure a backup job for the VM you want to perform initial seeding for.
2. Create and choose any local repository for the backup files.
3. Once you have backup files created, move them to a DR site and place them on the DR site repository (you should create it beforehand).
4. Rescan DR site repository to populate backup files in the backup console.
5. After that just create a replication job with "Low connection bandwidth" checkbox enabled.
6. On the "Seeding" step of the replication job wizard specify DR site repository where you've placed VM backup files.
7. Finish configuration of replication job wizard and start replication job.

Hope this helps!

[Gostev]

It would really help us tremendously if everyone read the User Guide before posting questions on forums

[hagepat]

Gostev,

You are absoluty wright, but the manual wasn't clear enough espacially to my specific situation. I've worked a lot with v5 and creating a backup of replicated machines is new to me. The procedure as Vitaliy described helped me a lot. Have a nice day

[nags_lucas]

Yes I do agreed the manual is not clear enough, hagepat is 100% right therefore instead of explaining in words, it is better to do procedure steps on user guide such as the above steps created by Vitaliy, which make things easy! If all the steps showing in videos, then it will be much beneficial.