Replication seeding clarification

[marius roma]

I need some clarification about the replica seeding in B&R 9.x standard edition
I read the manual “Veeam Backup & Replication - Version 9.0 - User Guide - VMware vSphere Environments - February, 2016.
On page 190 I read that:

If you replicate a VM to a remote DR site, you can use replica seeding. Replica seeding helps significantly minimize the amount of traffic going from the production site to the DR site over WAN or slow LAN links.

Does it mean that replica seeding applies only to DR scenario or can it be used for generic replica sas well?
On the same page I read that:

Replica seeding includes the following steps:
1. As a preparatory step for replica seeding, you need to create a backup of a VM that you plan to replicate.
2. The created backup should then be copied from the backup repository in the production site to the backup repository in the DR site. After the backup is copied to the backup repository in the DR site, you will need to perform rescan of this repository, as described in the Managing Backup Repositories section.

Does it mean that if I don’t create and copy a backup from the source to the target site the content of the “Initial seeding” field is useless and ignored?
Regards
Marius

[marius roma]

I apologize, it's page 192.
Sorry for the mistake...
Marius

[foggy]

Seeding can be used for any replication job, be it local or remote. If seeding is enabled, but the repository does not contain the backup that can be used for seeding, the job will fail.

[marius roma]

Thank you for the clarification.
Let me ask some additional questions:
Is it correct to say that seeding is used only for the first replica and later it's not used anymore?
When you say that

If seeding is enabled, but the repository does not contain the backup that can be used for seeding, the job will fail

do you mean that if both reposotories, source and target, do not contain a backup of the specific VM the replica fails?
Regards
Marius

[foggy]

Is it correct to say that seeding is used only for the first replica and later it's not used anymore?

Correct. Replica seeding and mapping settings take effect during the initial replication job run only. All subsequent job runs are incremental and do not take these settings into account.

do you mean that if both reposotories, source and target, do not contain a backup of the specific VM the replica fails?

You're specifying particular repository to look in, if it does not contain the required backup, the job fails. Repository for storing replica metadata is not involved here.