Replication + failover

[DennisT]

I have several critical VMs that I'd like to have a copy I fail over to and I'd like the fail over to be automatic. The environment is Vsphere 8 std + Veeam B&R 12 Enterprise w/one 2 host cluster and another non cluster host. I run iSCSI datastores for Vsphere and I have those on 2 different NAS (flash). What would be the best method to achieve my goal? I'd like to protect a couple DC VMs, a file server VM, the Vcenter server VM, a couple IT admin workstation VMs, and possibly a ERP Linux VM and a PBX VM.
I assume in doing this DRS shouldn't be active for those VMs.

[HannesK]

Hello,
automatic failover would need to be done by a 3rd party. Veeam does not have any split brain detection / tie-breaker to ensure a failover should really happen.

I'd like to protect a couple DC VMs

if DC means domain controller, then I would go for Active-directory built-in methods. Replicating a multi-master system is something I would never do. It should work if you do application consistent replication, but I would not do it

the Vcenter server VM

tricky... because you create a snapshot of the system that manages snapshots. You could do it via the ESXi host directly with a second VBR instance if you add the ESXi hosts instead of VCenter. But again, I would not do it and go for the official VMware backup / restore method

PBX VM

I suggest to check with the vendor. Often they don't allow VMware snapshots

DRS is fine.

Best regards,
Hannes