Some questions regarding replication

[pinkerton]

Hi,

we are looking forward to deploy Backup & Replication 5 in our vSphere 5 environment in the next weeks, mainly because we want to replicate some important VMs to an offsite data center.

As far as I know, replicated VMs should be started using the Veeam management software. Is it also possible to power on the replica machine directy in vCenter without involving the Veeam software?

The way we want replication to work is the following:

- Replicate several VMs from different datastores to a DR datastore on an offsite DR SAN
- Once a production datastore goes down either boot the replica using vCenter or Veeam software
- In the meantime rebuild the production datastore and once done, move the replica to the production datastore.

Is this possible?

[foggy]

As replicated VM is just a normal VM, you can start it using vSphere tools just fine. Note, however, that in this case it will be started to the latest state and you will not be able to undo failover and failover to earlier restore points. Of course, you will still be able to move the replica VM to the production. Thanks.