Onsite and Offsite VM Replica's

[yohan4ws]

Hey All,

I've been looking for an answer to this without luck.

Quick Synopsis of my environment:

HostA - Contains 24 active VM's /appliances including 1 SQL and 1 DB2 server.

HosbB - Runs Windows vCenter Server 5 and Veeam B&R 9.

Replication Job:
All VM's from Host A to Host B local in same site. If Host A fails, I will manually failover to the replica's in Host B using Veeam.

The hole in this scenario is that I have no offsite backup.

Everything I have read says to make a local backup (not replication) and then create the offsite replication from those backup copies.

Wondering peoples feedback, what is the best way to hold replica's in 2 locations that way if the site falls under disaster (fire/flood/tornado etc.) I can quickly spin up the VM's in remote location from host C.

Thanks!

[foggy]

Yes, having replicas in remote location to be able to quickly failover in case of losing the site is indeed one of the best practices. Using local backup as a source for remote replication jobs is an optimal way to achieve that without touching production VMs twice (for backup and replication).

[yohan4ws]

Yes, Foggy, but do I then have to create a local backup (I guess onto 2ndary media usb3 or whatever) and then run 2 replication jobs from that backup one to local one to offsite ?? This process will end up being very timely and tax the vmhost pretty hard ....

Was really hoping their might be a way for the offline replica's to be able to timely replicate themselves offsite and skip the local backup altogether.

For the DB servers I like to have 2 hour incremental replications happening throughout the day in case I do need to failover then any loss is minimal.

[foggy]

If you need to keep both local and remote replicas, you have to run two replication jobs. However, if they both use backup as a source, production host will not be touched at all (it will be touched just once during local backup creation).