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cgruber

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VMware Server Off-Site Replication options?

At location A we have a SVR1, a DELL T420 server running VMware ESXi 5.1 with 2 guest operating systems.

At location B, we have SVR2, another DELL T420 server running VMware ESXi 5.1 with the exact same 2 guest operating systems.

We would like to replicate/synchronize SVR1 to SVR2 over WAN on a nightly basis, such that if SVR1 is destroyed or stolen, we can replace it with SVR2.

How can this be achieved?
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Haresh Nikumbh
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Hello

If you have vSphere with Operation Management kid then it will solve your problem.


vSphere Replication is a deeply integrated component of the vSphere platform – it is the only truly “hypervisor level” replication engine available today. Changed blocks in the virtual machine disk(s) for a running virtual machine at a primary site are sent to a secondary site, where they are applied to the virtual machine disks for the offline (protection) copy of the virtual machine.
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coolsport00
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Let's start of with this question:  Are you using a free or paid copy of vSphere ESXi?  If using free copy you can't use any vmware centric applications and would have to rely on OS based replication.  If using a paid version then which one as there are subset of feaures depending on what you have.
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cgruber

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coolsport00: Veeam looks good, however for off-site replication you need to also setup proxy servers both at the host and target sites (according to the online documentation on their site).

paulsolov: I am using ESXi 5.1 free

hanccocka: Do you have a link to a demonstrative setup for off-site replication using VMware Converter?

As I have Shadow Protect installed on both guest servers, would ShadowControl ImageManager do the job?
almost, waiting for my EE Article to be published!
Remember this is FREE!

"Poor Man's Replication of a Physical or Virtual machine to a VMware vSphere Hypervisor Host (ESXi) for FREE"

HOW TO:  Synchronize changes when completing a P2V or V2V with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1
@cgruber - proxies are nothing; you use the Veeam server (VM) as the source "proxy" and can use any VM at the DR location (so long as it's not too heavily used) for the target "proxy". All that's done is a small 'agent' is installed on the proxy VM during jobs & that's it.

~coolsport00
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ASKER

coolsport00 ... Trying to download and evaluate Veeam, I noticed it says "Note: Free ESXi is not supported."

However I am running free ESXi. Do I need to upgrade? If so, to what?
If you are using free Veeam will not work.

Approx 500 dollars to purchase Essentials
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ASKER

None of the suggested solutions worked due to using ESXi free version.

Alternative critical folder FTP sync solution implemented.
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I've requested that this question be closed as follows:

Accepted answer: 0 points for cgruber's comment #a39257879

for the following reason:

None of the suggested solutions worked due to using ESXi free version.

Alternative critical folder FTP sync solution implemented.
Nonsense, VMware vCenter Converter Standalone works with FREE ESXi.
Somewhere along the line, I didn't see the responses to this question.

@cgruber - at the very least, to use Veeam, all you would need to do is upgrade to vSphere Essentials so Veeam can 'plug in' to the vSphere Backup APIs. Last I checked, Essentials was about $500US per CPU socket (not core, but socket).

Anyway, closing this question without assigning points isn't really warranted because some alternatives were indeed given. Although Converter works to V2V VMs offsite, it is a manual process, so running replications on a "nightly basis" is not something you can schedule Converter to do.

Regards,
~coolsport00