DR Site Vmware Licensing

[myesko]

Hello, planning on setting up a DR site using Veeam Replication. So we are going to need VMware hosts at the DR site. At the moment we will only need 2 Esxi Hosts at the DR sites. So I was wondering what version of VMware will be ok at the DR site?

Im thinking of just getting VMware Essentials, not the plus version, which includes licensing for 3 hosts. I don't need HA/DRS for the DR site as it would only be needed in a dire emergency. So I cant think of what features I could need.

I know to backup VMware with Veeam you need to be licensed so that you had the Storage API features for backups. Im assuming VMware essentials is licensed for Storage API's? Not sure if Veeam needs these for the hosts in the DR site for the replication part of things?

Which makes me wonder, could I use the Free Version of VMware ESXi in the DR site? Does Veeam need any licensed features to replicate things over to the DR hosts?

Or for that matter do the hosts in the DR site need to be part of Vcenter server in my production site?

Thanks

[Gostev]

Hello, as per System Requirements, free ESXi is not supported by Veeam.

As for VMware's standby site licensing, last time I asked our VMware alliance rep this question (a few years ago, with enough diligence you can probably still find that topic with the forum search), the answer was that you can use your production license to setup a DR site environment, as long as DR site does not run any VMs, and just serves as the target for replication. When you need to failover, you have to shut down the entire production site before powering on any replicas in the DR site (and with v8, you can actually have the Failover Plan script do this for you). In this case, you will be in compliance, because your license will only be used in one environment at a time.

Of course, for the official confirmation of the above information, you may want to reach out to your VMware sales rep, as I am not really in position to answer queries on another company's licensing rules + some things may have changed since I last asked.

Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

I know to backup VMware with Veeam you need to be licensed so that you had the Storage API features for backups. Im assuming VMware essentials is licensed for Storage API's? Not sure if Veeam needs these for the hosts in the DR site for the replication part of things?

Yes, it is licensed for the APIs.

Or for that matter do the hosts in the DR site need to be part of Vcenter server in my production site?

DR hosts do not need to be managed by the same vCenter server.

[myesko]

Thanks for the info.

I think we will just buy the essentials kit as its not that much money. I don't think we want to get into trying to see if we can use our current production license in the DR as an active/passive type of ting as there would be times we would want to bring up VM's for testing and make sure everything is working right.

[Gostev]

Indeed, good thinking Mike. This will also allow you to put all that DR site hardware into some good use, for example as a test lab for patches before you apply them to your production environment (thanks to our On-Demand Sandbox feature, which supports running off replicas since v7).