whats new vmware vcenter site recovery manager 50 technical whitepaper

7/31/2019 Whats New VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 50 Technical Whitepaper

1/13

Whats New in VMwarevCenter Site Recovery

Manager 5.0T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R

V 1 . 0 / U P D A T E D M A Y 2 0 1 1


2/13

Whats New in VMware vCenterSite Recovery Manager 5.0

T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 2

Table of Contents

Introduction 3Technology Changes And New Features 4

vSphere Replication 4

Site Recovery Manager Scalability 5

Workfow Changes 6

Planned Migration 6

Reprotection 7

Failback 8

Disaster Recovery Event 8

User Interace 9

Technical Improvements 10

IPv6 10

Single UI 10

IP Customization Enhancements 10

In-Guest Callouts 10

API 10

Virtual Machine Dependency Enhancements 11

Conclusion 13


3/13



IntroductionVMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (Site Recovery Manager) is the premier tool to enable you to build,

manage and execute reliable disaster recovery plans or your virtual environment. Taking ull advantage o theencapsulation and isolation o virtual machines, Site Recovery Manager enables simplied automation o disaster

recovery. It helps meet recovery time objectives, reduces costs traditionally associated with business

continuance plans and achieves low-risk and predictable results or recovery o a virtual environment.

With the new version 5.0 release, VMware has expanded the capabilities o Site Recovery Manager to provide

unprecedented levels o protection. New use cases have been made possible through the addition o the

ollowing capabilities:

vSphereReplication

Increasedscalability

Plannedmigration

Failback

Reprotection

Enhanceddependencydenition

In this paper, we will provide an overview o the new capabilities o Site Recovery Manager 5.0.


4/13



Technology Changes and New Features

vSphere ReplicationWhen used in conjunction with VMware vSphere 5.0 (vSphere), Site Recovery Manager 5.0 introduces a new

capability to utilize the vSphere 5.0 host to perorm replication o powered-on virtual machines over the

network to another vSphere 5.0 host without the requirement o storage arraybased native replication.

vSphere Replication is a VMware proprietary replication engine that copies only changed blocks to the recovery

site, ensuring both lower bandwidth utilization and more aggressive recovery point objectives compared with

manual, ull-system copies o virtual machines.

Figure 1.vSphereReplicationEnablesVirtualMachinestoBeReplicatedbythevSphereHosttoaRecoverySiteWithouttheNeedorArray-BasedReplication

This new capability unlocks the capacity to use Site Recovery Manager or unprecedented levels o protection,

enabling ull replication o the entire set o virtual machines in the vSphere environment while maintaining ull

interoperability with array-based replication engines.

vSphere Replication can be enabled through Site Recovery Manager as a property o the virtual machine itsel,

independent o the underlying datastore type or capabilities, acilitating replication between heterogeneous

storage types and datastores.

vSphere Replication with Site Recovery Manager includes the ollowing eatures:

Guestoperatingsystem(OS)MicrosoftVolumeShadowCopyService(VSS)integrationtoensureOSle

system consistency o the replica

Paralleloperationwitharray-basedreplicationviastoragereplicationadaptorstoenabletieredreplication

oerings

Norequirementforchangetoexistingworkowsorreplicationtechnologies

Abilitytoremapprotectedsitevirtualmachinediskstoalternatedatastoresattherecoverysite

Granularcongurationofreplicationchooseallorasubsetofarunningvirtualmachinesdiskstoreplicateto

the recovery site using vSphere Replication

Theabilitytochooseindividualvirtualmachinediskles,entirevirtualmachinesorgroupsofvirtualmachines

to protect through a graphical user interace


5/13



Figure 2.vSphereReplicationCanBeAccessedThroughtheSameUserInteraceAsAllOthervSphereManagementCapabilities

Site Recovery Manager Scalability

Site Recovery Manager 5.0 has introduced some changes to the scalability limits o previous versions, oering a

largerceilingofprotectedsystemsperinstance,asdetailedinTable1.Althoughmanyoftheselimitsarenotenforced,

they should be adhered to because support cannot be guaranteed i these numbers are exceeded in practice.

FEATURE MAXIMUM ENFORCED

Total number o allowed protected virtual machines 1,000 No

Number o allowed virtual machines in a single protection group 500 No

Protectiongroups 250 No

Simultaneous running recovery plans 30 No

vSphere Replication protected virtual machines 500 No

Table 1.SiteRecoveryManager5ScalabilityLimits


6/13



Workfow ChangesSiteRecoveryManager5.0includesthreemajoradditionstotheworkowcapabilities:

Plannedmigration

Reprotection

Failback

Planned Migration

PriortoSiteRecoveryManager5.0,workowcapabilitiesincludedbothexecutionandtestingofarecovery

plan.Withversion5.0,VMwarehasintroducedanewworkowdesignedtodelivermigrationfromaprotected

sitetoarecoverysitethroughexecutionofaplannedmigrationworkow.Plannedmigrationensuresanorderly

and pretested transition rom a protected site to a recovery site while minimizing the risk o data loss .

Plannedmigrationrunsinahighlycontrolledfashion.Itwillhalttheworkowifanerroroccurs,whichdiers

rom a traditional disaster-event recovery plan.

With Site Recovery Manager 5.0, all recovery plans, whether they are or migration or recovery, run as part o a

plannedworkowthatensuresthatsystemsareproperlyshutdownandthatdataissynchronizedwiththe

recovery site prior to migration o the workloads. This ensures that systems are properly quiesced and that all

data changes have been completely replicated prior to starting the virtual machines at the recovery site. I,

however,anerrorisencounteredduringtherecoveryplanexecution,Plannedmigrationwillstoptheworkow,

providing an opportunity to x the problem that caused the error beore attempting to continue.

Figure 3.


7/13



With planned migration, systems are application consistent when started at the recovery site, rather than le-

system consistent as is seen when systems are started ater a crash. This enables new uses o Site Recovery

Manager,includingworkowssuchasthefollowing:

Coordinatedapplicationmigrationbetweensites

Partialsitemigration

Datacenterrelocation

Disasteravoidance

Reprotection

Afterarecoveryplanorplannedmigrationhasrun,thereareoftencaseswheretheenvironmentmustcontinue

to be protected against ailure, to ensure its resilience or to meet objectives or disaster recovery.

With Site Recovery Manager 5.0, reprotection is a new extension to recovery plans or use only with array-based

replication. It enables the environment at the recovery site to establish synchronized replication and protection

o the environment back to the original protected site.

VM VM VM VM VM VM VM VM

Site A

VMware ESX VMware ESX

Site B

Reverse

Replication

Figure 4.

Afterfailovertotherecoverysite,selectingtoreprotecttheenvironmentwillestablishsynchronizationand

attempt to replicate data between the protection groups now running at the recovery site and the previouslyprotected, primary site.

This capability to reprotect an environment ensures that environments are protected against ailure even ater a

site recovery scenario as well as enabling automated ailback to a primary site ollowing a migration or ailover.


8/13



Figure 5.

Failback

Anautomatedfailbackworkowcanberuntoreturntheentireenvironmenttotheprimarysitefromthe

secondary site. This will happen ater reprotection has ensured that data replication and synchronization have

been established to the original site.

Failbackwillrunthesameworkowthatwasusedtomigratetheenvironmenttotheprotectedsite.Itwill

guarantee that the critical systems encapsulated by the recovery plan are returned to their original environment.

Theworkowwillexecuteonlyifreprotectionhassuccessfullycompleted.Failbackisnotavailableforusewith

vSphere Replicationprotected virtual machines.

Failbackensuresthefollowing:

Allvirtualmachinesthatwereinitiallymigratedtotherecoverysitewillbemovedbacktotheprimarysite.

Environmentsthatrequirethatdisasterrecoverytestingbedonewithliveenvironmentswithgenuine

migrations can be returned to their initial site.

Simpliedrecoveryprocesseswillenableareturntostandardoperationsafterafailure.

Failovercanbedoneincaseofdisasterorincaseofplannedmigration.

Disaster Recovery Event

Aspreviouslynoted,allrecoveryplansinSiteRecoveryManager5.0nowincludeaninitialattemptto

synchronize data between the protection and recovery sites, even during a disaster recovery scenario.

Duringadisasterrecoveryevent,aninitialattemptwillbemadetoshutdowntheprotectiongroupsvirtual

machines and establish a nal synchronization between sites. This is designed to ensure that virtual machinesare static and quiescent beore running the recovery plan, to minimize data loss where possible during a disaster.

I the protected site no longer is available, the recovery plan will continue to execute and will run to completion

even i errors are encountered.

This new attribute minimizes the possibility o data loss while still enabling disaster recovery to continue, balancing

the requirement or virtual machine consistency with the ability to achieve aggressive recovery-point objectives.


9/13



User InteraceThe user interace or Site Recovery Manager 5.0 has been signicantly redesigned to deliver easier and more

efcient administration. It also includes numerous enhancements or reporting.

Figure 6

The ollowing are among the changes:

BothprotectedandrecoverysiteVMwarevCenterServerandSiteRecoveryManagerinformationisvisible

without the requirement or linked mode.

Enhancedinformationisavailableaboutarraysandarraymanagers.

VirtualmachineIPsettingsarevisibleandeditablethroughtheuserinterface,enablingIPcustomizationtobe

specied when running in protected or recovery sites.

Newiconsforshadowvirtualmachineseasilydistinguishrealvirtualmachinesfromshadowvirtualmachines.

Enhancedreporting,includingstartedbyinformation,isinthesummarysectionofrecoveryplanreports.

Moredetailedinformationisincludedinreports,suchasdatastoreanddevice-specicndings.

Figure 7.


10/13

T E C H N I C A L W H I T E P A P E R / 1 0


Technical ImprovementsAnumberofchangesfocusedonimprovingtheintegrationandmanageabilityoftheproducthavebeen

included in the Site Recovery Manager 5.0 release.

IPv6

SiteRecoveryManagernowsupportsIPv6forallnetworklinks.

Single UI

BothprotectedandrecoverysiteinstallationsofSiteRecoveryManagerarevisibleandmanageablethrougha

single Site Recovery Manager interace. Regardless o which site a user is logged in to, both sites are visible and

all management tasks are available or the administrator. This eliminates the need to manage the protected and

the recovery site through separate interaces.

VMware vCenter Servers are not required to be installed in Linked Mode or this unctionality because the Site

Recovery Manager instances communicate directly with each other to share management inormation andpresent it through a single user interace. Linked Mode is still recommended, however, to ensure that license,

permission and state inormation about the environment is correctly shared between VMware vCenter Server

instances and to ease administration o the virtual environment.

IP Customization Enhancements

IPcustomizationhasbeendramaticallyimprovedintermsofspeedofexecution.Itcannowbespeciedwithin

the properties o individual virtual machines within Site Recovery Manager. The process or bulk imports has not

changed.Thedramaticimprovement,however,inthespeedoftheIPcustomizationexecutionitselfwillspeed

the process o recovery, enabling a aster recovery time.

In-Guest Callouts

Site Recovery Manager has traditionally enabled script callouts to be run rom a recovery plan to execute customactions. With Site Recovery Manager 5.0, VMware has enhanced this capability, enabling scripts to be run rom a

location on the Site Recovery Manager server itsel as well as running custom script callouts to locations that

reside within individual virtual machines.

Callout capabilities now include the ollowing:

Commandscanberunontherecoveredvirtualmachine.

CommandscanberunontheSiteRecoveryManagerserver.

Auser-promptpop-uprequiresuserinteractionbeforecontinuation.

Atimeoutpolicycanbeattachedtothecallouttoensurethatautomatedrecoveryiscontinued.

API

TheAPIforautomationofSiteRecoveryManageractivitiesattherecoverysitehasbeenpreservedwiththe

movetoversion5.0.IthasbeenfurtherenhancedwiththeadditionofanewSOAP-basedAPIthatenables

automation o tasks at both the protected and the recovery site.

Theprotected-siteAPIincludesthefollowingcapabilities:

Listreplicateddatastores,protectiongroups,resourcesandvirtualmachines.

Querythestatusofprotectionforoneormorevirtualmachines.

Protectorunprotectoneormorevirtualmachines.

Querythestatusofaprotectiongroup.


11/13



Therecovery-siteAPIincludesthefollowingcapabilities:

Queryrecoveryplaninformation.

Startorcancelarecoveryplan.

Listoranswerprompts.

PresentanXMLrepresentationofahistoricalrunofarecoveryplan.

Retrievebasicresultinformationofarecoveryplan.

Virtual Machine Dependency Enhancements

Site Recovery Manager 5.0 enables users to manage multitier applications and virtual machine dependencies at

an enhanced level o control, with the addition o more priority groups and the ability to set virtual machine

dependencies within a priority group.

With previous releases o Site Recovery Manager, priority groups were described as high, medium or low priority.

Inversion5.0,thishaschangedwithanexpansiontoveprioritygroups,labelednumerically.Prioritygroup1

will start rst, and all virtual machines in the priority group must start beore priority group 2 virtual machines

begin their power operations. This process continues until virtual machines in group 5 have completely started.

Figure 8.


12/13



Within each priority group, virtual machine dependencies can be dened so as to be certain that required

systems are available rst, beore dependent virtual machines are powered on.

The combination o priority groups and virtual machine dependency denitions within the priority groups

enableshighlyorganizedworkowcontrol,ensuringthatrequiredservicesareavailablebeforesubsequentvirtual machines are powered on.

Figure 9.


13/13


ConclusionVMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.0 has introduced a set o enhancements and eatures that enable new

levels o control and protection, ranging rom a dramatic user interace change to the ability to use a new nativeVMwareESXi5.0replicationengine.

The ollowing are among the signicant improvements in Site Recovery Manager 5.0 over 4.1:

Acompletelynewuserinterfaceincludestheabilitytomanagebothprotectedandrecoverysitesfromone

interace, as well as more intuitive graphical representations o protected objects.

Anewworkowenablesplannedmigrationofprotectiongroupsfromonesitetoanotherwithoutdataloss.

Failoverwillstopiferrorsareencountered.

Thereisnowtheabilitytoreprotectarecoverysiteafterfailoverormigrationandtoautomatethefailback

process or all virtual machines that have relocated.

TheenablingofvSphereReplicationoersanewhost-basedprotectionofvirtualmachines,independentof

array replication technologies.

ThereisnowafasterrecoverytimeifIPcustomizationisrequiredattherecoverysite.

Thereisnowthecapabilitytoruncalloutscriptsfromwithinprotectedvirtualmachinesduringafailover.

Thereisnowthecapabilitytomanagethestartupofvirtualmachinesatamoregranularlevelaswellasto

manage their dependent relationships.

These new eatures establish VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.0 as the preeminent technology or the

protection and recovery o a virtual environment. Using it enables aggressive recovery time objectives through

easy testing and rapid automation o recovery plans while it helps you eliminate the complexity o managing

disaster recovery. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager removes the risk and worry rom disaster recovery.

VMware, Inc.HillviewAvenuePaloAltoCAUSATel877-8-27Fax5-27-5wwwvmwarecomCopyright2VMware,IncAllrightsreservedThisproductisprotectedbyUSandinternationalcopyrightandintellectualpropertylawsVMwareproductsarecoveredbyoneormorepatentslistedat

http://wwwvmwarecom/go/patentsVMwareisaregisteredtrademarkortrademarkofVMware,IncintheUnitedStatesand/orotherjurisdictionsAllothermarksandnamesmentionedhereinmaybe

whats new vmware vcenter site recovery manager 50 technical whitepaper

Documents