Quick Look to VMware SRM(Site Recovery Manager)

Vmware Site Recovery Manager

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1. Vmware SRM is disaster recovery and business continuity solution which automates the tranfer of virtual machines to a local or remote recovery site.
2. It is an extension of vcenter server
3. SRM automates the recovery or migration of virtual machines between protected site and recovery site. Protected site is primary site and recovery site is the datacenter location ewhere yoiu want to move your production workloads.
4. SRM facilirates the clean shutdown of virtual machines at the protected site for a planned migration.
5. VMware SRM is used with array-based replication software. you can also use vmware native replicatoin copies virtal machines from one host to another using the power of the hosts involved rather than the storage system.
6. Below are the high level recommendation to setup SRM:
* vSphere environment including vCenter should be deployed on both Protected site and recovery site.
* Array based replication is established between protected and recovery site using third party storage vendors. Optionally you can utilize vSphere Replication as a native solution, if you don’t have array based replication.
* VMware Site recovery manager software needs to be installed on both Protected and recovery site.
* VMware Administrators use SRM to create disaster recovery plans.
* VMware Administrator can use recovery plans to initiate Recovery tests or actual recovery.
7. Since SRM 5.6, SRM plugin integrated only with web client and no plugins available for vsphere client.
8. VR appliance - This used to be called the VRMS and provided management capabilities for the VR framework. This is function persists in the VR appliance and VRS functionality has been integrated with the appliance.
9. VR Server - An optional scaling component. This provides a replication target. This functionality is included in the VR appliance, but to scale to higher than 100 replications, additional VR server instances can be deployed.
10. vSphere Replication Agent(VRA) Present on every vsphere host, it only becomes active when protected VM is wirting data.
11. Network file copy(NFC) - Protocol is used to commit network based disk writed by vSphere. The VRS received replicated blocks and distributes them via NFC to the vsphere hosts for writing to storage.

Installation and Configuring SRM
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1. SRM 6.0 is a software component and it can be installed separately on dedicated server or installed with the same server where vcenter server is installed.
2. If you have vcenter as appliance, you will need separate windows server for SRM.
3. You can use embedded Postgres database or external database like MSSQL or Oracle. For using external database, you need to create DSN for the same.
4. Time sync is important between both SRM server(Protected site & Recovery site). Please sync with central NTP server before pairing sites.
5. Account used for installation and configuration muse be admin account with privileges to install and run SRM service.

SRM site pairing
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1. Once you have installed SRM in both sites, you can login to vcenter web client and click "Site Recovery" plugin.
2. You must see the sites on the left pane. Click on the the sites button and in summary frame you can see the "Pair Sites" link.
3. Provide the Platform service controller address of your SRM remote site (recovery site).The address that you provide for the Platform Services Controller must be an exact match of the of address that you provided when you installed Site Recovery Manager Server on the remote site.
4. Next you need to provided credential, you entered while installation of SRM.
5. Once it is done, you see detials of paired sites in summary tab.