Replication Destination - Datastore Cluster.?

[guru_reggie]

Hi guys,

First time poster so be gentle

I'm running B&R v6.5 and setting up some replication jobs for my VMs sitting on VMware 5.1 (838463)..

I'm using some datastore clusters both in Prod and DR.. I'd like to be able to use the datastore cluster address to replicate to rather than an individual datastore.. I ran it by one of the lads at Veeam and he reckons it's supported.. However I'm not seeing it when I browse in the wizard.. I'm meeting the guys today anyway, but I said I'd post something to see if you guys have had a similar experience..?

Thanks for any advice,
Reg..

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Michael,

Datastore cluster is supported as destination target for replication jobs, but you're right, datastore clusters are not visible within the GUI as individual objects, so you have to select the datastore you want to replicate VM files to.

Thanks!

[guru_reggie]

Thanks for the reply Vitaliy.!

So does this mean that somehow it 'knows' that it's a DS Cluster and will allow the cluster to place files on a different DS than selected, if say it's running out of space..?

Cheers

[Vitaliy S.]

Well, not exactly. Even with VMware you still have to select individual datastore (just tried that in my vSphere lab) to provision a new VM. By saying "DS cluster" is supported, I meant to say that choosing DS Cluster datastores will not cause any issues to your replication jobs.

[guru_reggie]

Interesting.. I can choose the DS Cluster level to provision a VM...... I only have to choose a specific DS if I'm excluding that VM from sDRS.....

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, you can, but on the bottom screen there is a list of datastores that comprise the DS cluster, and in any case one of the datastores is automatically selected for you.

[guru_reggie]

Yes, you can, but on the bottom screen there is a list of datastores that comprise the DS cluster, and in any case one of the datastores is automatically selected for you.

Yep, but I guess that's what I hoping for with Veeam

[lti]

Hi, when configuring a replication job, the only choice possible for the destination disk is a DataStore. There is also an option to define different DataStore destination per VM in the same job.
We are using SDRS (Storage DRS) that can move automatically a VM from a DataStore to another in the same SDRS Cluster. This is done via Storage VMotion.

My questions are :
- is is possible to specify a SDRS Cluster instead of a single DataStore when configuring a replication target ?
- What will happen during the next scheduled replication if the replica VM files have been moved to another DataStore ?

Thank you

[foggy]

- What will happen during the next scheduled replication if the replica VM files have been moved to another DataStore ?

You need to update the job with new datastore for this VM to continue using existing replica files. Otherwise the job will fail.

[lti]

Thank you. It is annoying, because SDRS can be fully automated and can move files between DataStores automatically. We're not always aware of such an automatic change.
Do you think it can be improved in future release ? Any chance to create a feature request for these points :
- Option to select a SDRS Cluster at creation
- Support for replica move from one DataStore to another

[tyler.jurgens]

I'm resurrecting this old thread, but is there any change in behavior targeting datastore clusters? Will replicas still fail if the replica VM at the destination has moved due to storage DRS moving the VM to a different datastore in the datastore cluster? Does any of this behavior change if using Cloud Director with a specified storage policy?