introduction · web viewvsphere replication capacity planner fling helps customers validate that...

T ECHN ICAL I NS T RU CT I ON– MARCH 2020

vSphere Replication Capacity Planner FlingTechnical Instruction

vSphere Replication Capacity Planner Fling

Table of contentsIntroduction 3

System Requirements 4

Technical Instructions 4

Download...............................................................................................................................................................................4

Installation.............................................................................................................................................................................4

Installation using the vSphere UI.....................................................................................................................................4

Installation using VMware OVF Tool.................................................................................................................................4

Using vSphere Replication Capacity Planner Fling.................................................................................................................5

Login to vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling.......................................................................................................5

Configure replication.......................................................................................................................................................6

Interpreting the results....................................................................................................................................................7

API documentation.................................................................................................................................................................9

Frequently Asked Questions...................................................................................................................................................9

Known limitations...................................................................................................................................................................9

TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER | 2


Intended Audience

This information is intended for anyone who wants to protect the virtual machines in their virtual infrastructure by using vSphere Replication. The information is written for experienced Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with virtual machine technology and data center operations.

Introduction

VMware vSphere Replication provides hypervisor-based virtual machine replication. It protects virtual machines from partial or complete site failures by replicating the virtual machines, regardless of the underlying storage array, from a primary site to a secondary site, between two clusters in a single site, and from multiple source sites to a single target site. You can configure vSphere Replication monitoring on a per-VM basis, allowing fine control over the selection of VMs for replication. After the initial replication, to minimize the network bandwidth consumption, only the changes to the VM are replicated. Protect investments and tailor RPOs using with Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) ranging from 5 minutes to 24 hours.

vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling helps customers validate that the requested RPO settings for VMs are compatible with their allocated network bandwidth. The tool reveals actual VM traffic consumption and delta size. This way, the customers can perform a capacity planning prior to enabling vSphere Replication for VMs.

Want to project necessary RPO settings per VM and overall utilization of network bandwidth? The fling exposes graphics regarding LWD (lightweight delta) network traffic (Mb/s) and delta size metrics, represented in different time frames - hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly. You can select individual VMs or multiple VMs if you want to determine how much network utilization vSphere Replication might consume for the entire site.



System Requirements

The system on which you install vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling must meet specific hardware requirements.

Compute - ESXi 6.0 or later (for deploying the virtual appliance) Memory - 4 GB RAM minimum

Disk Storage - 6 GB minimumYou don’t have to install vSphere Replication, prior to installation of vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling.Supported ESXi and vCenter Server version for replication monitoring

vCenter Server 6.0 and ESXi 6.0 vCenter Server 6.5 and ESXi 6.5, 6.0

vCenter Server 6.7 and ESXi 6.7, 6.5 VMware Cloud on AWS

Technical InstructionsDownloadVisit https://flings.vmware.com/vsphere-replication-capacity-planning to download vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling.

InstallationInstallation using the vSphere UI

vSphere Replication Capacity Planner comes in an Open Virtual Format (OVF) packaging format. You can use “Deploy OVF Template” command in the vSphere Client to deploy it in your virtual infrastructure.

Installation using VMware OVF Tool1. Download VMware OVF Tool from https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/4.3.0/ovf


https://code.vmware.com/web/tool/4.3.0/ovf

https://flings.vmware.com/vsphere-replication-capacity-planning


2. Open your preferred terminal and run the following command to install vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling

Configure vSphere Replication Capacity Planner Fling with DHCP assigned networking

ovftool --noSSLVerify --powerOn --name=<VRCapacityPlannerVMName> --deploymentOption=standard '-nw=<VMNetwork>' --ipAllocationPolicy=dhcpPolicy --ipProtocol=IPv4 -ds=<Datastore> --diskMode=thin --prop:varoot-password=RootPassword --prop:vaadmin-password=AdminPassword --prop:enable_sshd=True <PathToOVF> 'vi://<VirtualCenterUserName>@<VirtualCenterAddress>/<DatacenterName>/host/<ClusterName>/<HostAddress>'

You can specify the following settings for deploying vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling

VRCapacityPlannerVMName – the virtual machine name for the vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling VMNetwork – the network to which to attach vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling virtual machine Datastore – the datastore where to create the virtual machine RootPassword – the password for the ‘root’ account AdminPassword – the password for the ‘admin’ account. Note: All vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling

processes are running under ‘admin’ account inside the virtual machine VirtualCenterUserName – vCenter Server username VirtualCenterAddress – vCenter Server IP or host name DatacenterName – the name of the Datacenter where the vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling virtual machine

will be created. ClusterName – the name of the Cluster where the vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling virtual machine will be

created. HostAddress – the ESXi IP or host name where the vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling virtual machine will be

created.

Using vSphere Replication Capacity Planner FlingAfter you install vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Fling, open your web browser and navigate to the following URL address

https://<appliance_url>/

Login to vSphere Replication Capacity Planner flingWhen you open the vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling user interface, you will be presented with a login screen. Use the credentials of the vCenter Server instance on which are located the virtual machines that you want to replicate



Configure replicationOnce authenticated to vCenter Server click on the New Replication button in the vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling and select one or more virtual machines to replicate and click Configure Replication.

Next step is to configure the target for the replication and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) settings.



Select the IP or host name of the vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Fling instance that you want to use. Based on your business needs, set the RPO interval between 5 minutes and 24 hours and set if you want the vSphere Replication over the network to be compressed, and click Start.

Interpreting the resultsOnce you replicate one or more virtual machines they are listed on the main screen of the fling, as follows:

Following is a brief description of each column

Column Name Description

Virtual Machine Name Contains the virtual machine as defined in the vCenter Server’s inventory.

RPO Shows the configured RPO for the virtual machine.

RPO Violation Yes/No indicating if the replication policy you set is met by vSphere Replication.

Full Sync Yes/No indicating whether vSphere Replication is currently doing initial synchronization.

Delta Sync Yes/No indicating whether vSphere Replication is currently in process of replicating the delta accumulated since the last RPO cycle.

Storage Consumption Indicates the total storage required on the recovery site for this virtual machine.

Note: Actual storage consumption may vary depending on the policy you selected for the replica disks. For example, if your target datastore is Virtual SAN with RAID-1 policy, the actual consumed storage will be “Storage Consumption” column value multiplied by two.

To select one or more virtual machines for which you want to see more detailed information, you can use the check box icons on the left.



Here is an example of the detailed information screen, followed by description of what the numbered areas are showing:

Area Description

This area shows the total amount of resources needed on your target site for successful failover for the selected virtual machine(s).


1

2

3

4

5

1


API documentationvSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling includes a set of API to automate the process of configuring and unconfiguring replications as well as downloading the collected information. The API definitions can be found at:

https://<appliance_url>/hbrtraffic/api/v1/index.html - contains the Swagger UI

https://<appliance_url>/hbrtraffic/api/v1/api-doc.yaml - the OpenAPI 3.0 specification.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I have replicated a VM, but the graphs are empty

A: The statistics are captured every 5 minutes. It is most likely that you replicated a small sized virtual machine and the initial replication completed in less than 5 minutes. The vSphere Replication Capacity Planner fling will populate the graphs within a few minutes.

Q: What is LWD?

A: vSphere Replication uses its own change tracking method called LWD (lightweight delta). For each replicated disk, changed blocks are tracked on the vSphere host. Changed block content is transferred when replica update (replication) is requested.

Q: Storage Consumption column displays N/A

A: vSphere Replication is performing the initial replication. Please wait for it to complete and the Storage Consumption column will be populated.

Known limitations If you configure a virtual machine for replication monitoring and you power it off while vSphere Replication is

performing initial synchronization, the Full Sync flag will always remain “Yes”.o Workaround: Power on the virtual machine, or stop the replication.

IPv6 is not supported. Guest quiescing is not supported.



Encryption over the network is not supported. This version does not support multiple points in time. Future versions of the fling will not support in-place upgrade, you will be required to deploy the new version and

reconfigure your replications to the new vSphere Replication Capacity Planner virtual machine.


VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.com. Copyright © 2020 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Item No: vmw-wp-tech-temp-word-102-proof 5/19

introduction · web viewvsphere replication capacity planner fling helps customers validate that...

Documents