HomeVCAP6-DCV Design – Section 2 – Objective 2.6

VCAP6-DCV Design – Section 2 – Objective 2.6

Section 2 – Create a vSphere 6.x Logical Design from an Existing Conceptual Design

Objective 2.6 – Build Recoverability Requirements into a vSphere 6.x Logical Design

Tips for this section include understanding all vSphere recovery solutions. These include Array replication, vSphere Replication, SRM and VDP

Overview

Array replication

  • Array replication can typically handle the best RPOs, generally less than 5 minutes
  • Replication is at the block level, there is no VM granularity as all LUNs will be replicated
  • Is generally compatible with SRM, however it does depend if the vendor has a compatible SRA available in conjunction with SRM
  • There are no appliances as such however an SRA is required to be installed, typically on the SRM server to manage the communications between SRM and the Array

vSphere Replication

  • RPOs can be as low as 15 minutes (if the storage is vSAN then this can go down to 5 minutes)
  • As the replication is on a per VM basis, we can use VSS on the VMs and exclude VMDKs  from replication jobs to reduce storage requirements at the DR site
  • Is fully compatible with SRM
  • Is included with vSphere Essentials Plus and higher editions of vSphere
  • It’s a virtual appliance that’s linked into the vCenter Server or VCSA upon install

VDP

  • RPOs are typically in the region of hours or days
  • Per VM basis
  • Scheduled to run at a certain time with a fixed retention
  • Can backup to other datastores or deduplication appliances such as EMC Data Domain
  • Is not compatible with SRM
  • Is included with certain vSphere editions
  • It is a virtual appliance

SRM

  • SRM is not a replication or backup product. It is used for the automation of DR invocation and DR testing. It performs hundreds of tasks for you during a DR test or real invocation to greatly reduce RTOs and remove almost all manual tasks involved with DR management
  • It’s installed on a Windows server at both the production and SR sites. If the production site goes down, you can invoke DR from the DR site

 

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