How To Use vCDA On-Premises

Configuring a protection allows protecting a vApp or a virtual machine from one organization to another, while keeping the workload running in the source site. If the source site is unavailable, after a successful replication you can fail over and power on the source virtual machine in the destination site

If you login to VMware Cloud Director Availability On-Premises Appliance then :

• Outgoing Replications is replication and fail over VM from the on-premises vCenter Server to a cloud site

• Incoming Replications is replication and fail over VM from cloud site to on-premises vCenter Server

If you login to VMware Cloud Director Availability Tenant Portal (provided by Services Provider) then :

• Incoming Replications is replication and fail over VM from the on-premises vCenter Server to a cloud site

• Outgoing Replications is replication and fail over VM from cloud site to on-premises vCenter Server or Cloud to Cloud

In the left pane, choose a Replication Direction – Choose Outgoing Replication – Create New Protection

Select the VMs you want to protect by checking the corresponding box(es). Click Next

On the Destination VDC and Storage policy page, select the virtual data center for the replication destination and the storage policy for placing the recovered virtual machines, and click Next.

To set the SLA settings of the replication, select any of the preconfigured SLA profiles. Click Next

• From the VDC VM placement policy drop-down menu, select an organization VDC placement compute policy for the recovered virtual machines

• (Optional) To select specific hard disks of the virtual machines for replicating to the destination site for reducing the replication data network traffic, select Exclude disks

• (Optional) To select a previous copy of the virtual machines in the destination site for reducing the replication data network traffic, select Configure Seed VMs

To manually configure the SLA settings, select Configure settings manually

• Target recovery point objective (RPO): If you selected Configure settings manually, set the acceptable period for which data can be lost if there is a site failure by using the slider or by clicking the time intervals. The available RPO range for a protection is from one minute to 24 hours

• Retention policy for point in time instances: If you selected Configure settings manually, to preserve multiple rotated distinct instances to which the virtual machines can be recovered, select this option, select the number of replication instances to keep, and select the retention time distance and unit. The retention distance unit must be greater than RPO

• Compress replication traffic: If you selected Configure settings manually, to apply compression on the replication data traffic for reducing the network data traffic at the expense of CPU, select this option

• Delay start synchronization: If you selected Configure settings manually, choose the following option

  • To schedule the start of the replication, select this option and enter the local date and time to start the replication.

  • To start the replication when the wizard finishes, leave this option deselected.

• VDC VM placement policy: Select an organization VDC placement compute policy for the recovered virtual machines

• Exclude disks: To select specific hard disks of the virtual machines for replicating to the destination site for reducing the replication data network traffic, select this option

• Configure Seed VMs : To select a previous copy of the virtual machines in the destination site for reducing the replication data network traffic, select this option

Create a Replication Seed: Use one of the following methods for creating a seed VM in the destination site

• Offline data transfer: Export the VM as an OVF package into removable media and send it to Cloud service administrator imports the package to your cloud organization

• Copy over the network: Copy a source VM to the cloud organization and transfer the source data to the destination site by using other means than VMware Cloud Director Availability (FTP, OneDrive, Google Drive, …)

Instances: Select how many rotated instances participate in the current retention rule. The total number of instances in this example matches the maximum of 24 rotated instances

Distance: Select the time distance that the rotated instances spread apart in the current retention rule

Unit: Select the time unit for spreading the rotated instances in the current retention rule. Select one from: Minutes – Hours – Days – Weeks – Months – Years

On the Disks page you must select the hard disks to replicate and click Next

On the Ready to complete page, verify that the replication settings of the protection are correct and click Finish

Diagram for Replication State

Test Failover: By performing a test failover you can validate that the data from the source site replicates correctly in the destination site

In the left pane, choose a replication direction

Select the protected vApp or virtual machine to test the failover and click All actions > Test Failover

On the Recovery Settings page, configure the recovered workload and click Next

• Power on recovered vApps: Select to power on the virtual machines in the destination site after the task completes

• Network settings:

  • Select Apply preconfigured network settings on failover, to assign the network configured during the virtual machine replication

  • Select Connect all VMs to network and from the drop-down menu select a network to connect the replicated virtual machines to

On the Recovery Instance page, configure the recovery point in time and click Next

• Synchronize all VMs to their current state: Creates an instance of the power on workload with its latest changes and uses that instance for the test failover

• Manually select existing instance: Select an instance without synchronizing the data for the recovered workload

On the Ready To Complete page, review the test details and click Finish

In the Last changed column, you can monitor the progress of the test. After the test finishes, for the vApp and its virtual machines in the Recovery state column you see a Test image ready state

To Delete the Test Failover results, select the replication to clean. Click All actions > Test Cleanup.

The Cleanup Deletes All recovered vApps and virtual machines

Perform a Failover Task: If the protected source site is unavailable, in the destination site perform a workload disaster recovery operation

Select the protected vApp or virtual machine to fail over and click All actions > Failover

In the Failover wizard, configure your selected workload for the failover

• Consolidate VM disks: Select this option for a better performance of the recovered virtual machines at the expense of the failover task taking longer to complete

• Power on recovered vApps: Select this option to power on the virtual machines on the destination site after the task completes.

• Network settings:

  • Select Apply preconfigured network settings on failover, to assign the network configured during the virtual machine replication

  • Select Connect all VMs to network and from the drop-down menu select a network to connect the replicated virtual machines to

On the Recovery Instance page, configure the recovery point in time and click Next

On the Ready To Complete page, review the task details and click Finish

After the failover task finishes, the failed over workload is running in the destination site and the workload is no longer protected upon the task completion. For the vApp and its virtual machines, in the Recovery state column you see a Failed-Over state

Perform a Reverse Task:

• After performing failover or migration, return the workload data from the destination site back to the original source site by reversing the replication.

• After failing over or migrating from the source site to the destination site, the workload runs on the destination site. A subsequent reverse task replicates the failed-over or migrated workload data back to the original source protected vApp or virtual machine

• When reversing a replication from a cloud site back to an on-premises site, VMware Cloud Director Availability uses the original datastore for the placement of the workload, regardless of the current on-premises local placement setting

Select the vApp or the virtual machine that are failed-over and All actions > Reverse

In the Reverse window, to confirm the reversal click Reverse. Reversing the replication enables the replication traffic and allows the replication to be recovered back to the source

After the reverse task finishes, the reversed replication overwrites the source vApp or virtual machine. The reversed workload runs in the destination site with a workload protection in the original source site. For the vApp and its virtual machines, in the Recovery state column you see a Reversed state

Perform a Migrate Task: By migrating an existing replication to a remote organization, the workload runs in the destination site and the source workload is powered off

Select the protected vApp or virtual machine to migrate over and All actions > Migrate

On the Migrate Settings page, configure the recovered workload and click Next

All source vApps will be powered-off after successful recovery

• Consolidate VM disks: Select this option for a better performance of the recovered virtual machines at the expense of the failover task taking longer to complete

• Power on recovered vApps: Select this option to power on the virtual machines on the destination site after the task completes.

• Network settings:

  • Select Apply preconfigured network settings on failover, to assign the network configured during the virtual machine replication

  • Select Connect all VMs to network and from the drop-down menu select a network to connect the replicated virtual machines to

On the Ready To Complete page, review the task details and click Finish

After a successful recovery, all source virtual machines are synchronized and then powered off. The migration completes when in the Recovery state column of the replication you see Failed-Over

A manual (offline) sync runs. If the source workload is powered on, then it is powered off and a manual sync runs. Then the vApp or virtual machines are recovered on the destination site