VM Failover before attempting replication

[MaccaNZ]

Hey...

Just wondering if anyone else does a VM failover from a non licensed ESXi server to a licensed ESXi server before beginning a VEEAM replication job?

We've got 5 ESXi hosts in total with our primary PRD hosts being the 2 licensed servers, however we've got a couple of DEV VMs sitting on one of the other ESXi hosts but we can't replicate them because of license restrictions, but we thought if we trigger a failover to the PRD host before doing the replication and then failover back to the DEV host as a way around it.

Doing it manually is easy enough to do, but I'm trying to search out any scripting that can handle the process automatically as part of the replication job, anyone done or doing something similar?

[foggy]

Chris, not sure I understand what you're trying to achieve. Failover operation is available within Veeam B&R UI for VMs that have valid replicas only. What kind of failover are you talking about?

[MaccaNZ]

VMWare failover.

There's a couple of VM's that are sitting on a ESXi server that we currently don't have a license for to allow for replication, so I thought that in the meantime until money becomes available in the budget is it possible to trigger a VMWare failover to a licensed server do a replica or backup and then fail it back to it's original host once the replication/backup is completed.

[veremin]

Not sure about the whole scenario, but It should be possible to automate failover activities via VMware PowerCLI.

However, if I were you I would try this scenario with a tiny VM (created solely for testing purpose) several times and see whether back and forth failover doesn't result in changed VM ID. In other words, these operations don't change VM unique identificator, and each cycle only changes, not the full VM image, are transferred by VB&R.

Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

VMWare failover.

Hmm...not sure I follow this scenario. What kind VMware failover are you referring to? Migration from one host to another one?