vCloud director and Disaster Recovery

[jrick]

Hello,

Anyone know if it's planned to add the ability to replicated vCloud Director vApp/Org to another PVDC or vCloud instance ?
At the moment only way I have found to provide DRP for vCloud env, it's to backup the datas localy and to replicated them with a backup copy job on the other side to import/recover them.

@vCloud admins : how do you proceed to provide vCloud DR ?

Regards,
Julien

[Jestr]

Hi all,

I have a case where I need to migrate a large volume of VM's from one datacentre to another. the source DC is VMware vCloud Director 5.5 while the target is vSphere 6.5.

Now based on the info above, I realise that Veeam replication will not work. However, I have been told that I will be provided access to the vCenter in the vCloud director environment if needed. With this in mind would I be able to use Veeam to replicate the VM's to the target environment and if so, will there be a negative impact to the vCloud Director database?

Thanks all.

[Andreas Neufert]

The vCD VMs can be seen within vSphere as VMs and you can replicate between the vSphere environments.
There is a network mapping option available as well and for Windows ReIP is possible.

The only thing that you maybe loose is the vCD metadata and vAPP internal vxLAN settings.

vCD database is not affected here.

You can create the VM Replication Jobs and create a failover plan. Then you can do a planned failover (all VMs will replicate the changes, go to suspend, replicated the changes again and Failover). Then if everything went well you can do a permanent failover for all VMs. Please consult our documentation for Planned Failover.

[anthonyspiteri79]

Hey Julien.

So you are talking about vCD to vCD replication. This is something that a lot of SPs are keen on and something that I am personally keen to have as a feature.

It's on the list, however there are a number of steps to work through before that boils to the surface. The first step is vCD support for Cloud Connect Replication which is coming shortly.

[dellock6]

@vCloud admins : how do you proceed to provide vCloud DR ?

For what I've seen in the field, several providers are using Veeam vCloud backups and then restore those backups into a second vDC, when needed. I recognize it's not the most elegant solution, but it's a workaround until we'll have vcd to vcd replication.

[jrick]

Hi,

Thanks a lot to both for your explanations.

@anthonyspiteri79 : When you say vCD support for Cloud Connect Replication which is coming shortly, what shortly means for you ? Version 10 ? Update 4 ? In the next 3/6/12 month ?
This information could be very important for us to plan and design the new infrastructure I'm working on.

[anthonyspiteri79]

Hey Julien.

vCD Support for VCCR is part of Update 4 which at the moment is set for release in H2 this year. Can't give any more specific dates at the moment.

[jrick]

Thanks a lot, the information provided is sufficient for us

Have a nice day

[mvaughn25]

Can vCloud Director only replicate to another vCloud Director? I have a cloud based vCloud Director environment where I have no access to vCenter or ESXi, but I want to replicate to a vCenter environment ro move several VMs.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Mark, thanks for the request. Replication between two instances of vCloud Director is not planned for the short term future. On a side note, where do these vCloud Director environments come from? Do you use some service providers to host your VMs?

[jrick]

For what I've seen in the field, several providers are using Veeam vCloud backups and then restore those backups into a second vDC, when needed. I recognize it's not the most elegant solution, but it's a workaround until we'll have vcd to vcd replication.

Drawbacks of this solution is that we cannot provide RPO/RTO like in a classic vSphere env but i's better than nothing
For me it doesn't make sens to backup an complete vCD org 4 or 6 times a day an to copy the data to the second DC.

[jrick]

Hey Julien.

vCD Support for VCCR is part of Update 4 which at the moment is set for release in H2 this year. Can't give any more specific dates at the moment.

Any news about U4 ? Is it possible to participate to the beta programm ?

[Vitaliy S.]

Julien you can approach your Veeam SE and ask for the possibility of being added to the beta program. Based on his/her availability, there might be still some slots left for the beta.