Initial full VMWare replication to external hard disk before importing to DRaas replication host offsite

[robns]

Is it possible to do this? We have a VMWare replication situation that we need to setup from one site's VMWare host to another offsite host. Because the initial replication will be terabytes of data, is it possible to replicate to an external drive, then import that to the offsite host, then continue the incremental replication backups thereafter?

[Mildur]

Hi Rob

Replication works only to a hypervisor host. What you are looking for is Replica Seeding or Replica Mapping: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

May I ask, is this question about VCC replication or the normal replication between two ESXi hosts?

Best,
Fabian

[robns]

Replication between two hosts.

[Mildur]

Thank you

In that case use the link I have provided. Either use Seeding or Mapping.
You could export your VM to a external storage, transfer the storage to your secondary datacenter and there import the VM.
Then create the replica job and map your original VM to the previously imported VM. The initial job run will take longer to calculate the disk digest, but it will only transfer new or changed blocks to the replica datacenter.

You can also backup your VM to the external storage, then transfer the storage to the secondary datacenter and add it from there as a repository. Start a rescan of the disk and use Replica Seeding. The replica job will first restore the VM from that repository and then replicates the changed and new data blocks from the original VM.

Also make sure that you have a proxy server deployed in your secondary datacenter for best performance.

Best,
Fabian