In last post of this series we paired the two vCloud based cloud instances. Now its turn to test the DR capabilities offered by vCAV-C2C.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR

2: vCAV-C2C-POC Deployment

3: Site Pairing

To start testing DR operations, connect to https://VCAV-FQDN:8443 and login with tenant credentials (uname@orgname) and navigate to Paired Clouds.

By default your Site-B will show as unauthenticated. Click on the gear button to enter credentials.

Enter Org name of Site-B and the Org User credentials. Click on Authenticate.

Now both sites will show as authenticated.

Perform the same operation by connecting to VCAV appliance of Site-B and adding Org/User details of Site B and make sure both sites are showing as authenticated.

Once both sites are authenticated, navigate to DR-Workloads tab and click on Discovery

Select source site from where replication will be initiated.… Read More

In last post of this series we configured the vCAV-C2C appliance for both Site A & B. In this post we will learn how to perform site pairing so that tenants can start replicating workloads between 2 cloud instances.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: Introduction to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR

2: vCAV-C2C-POC Deployment

To perform site pairing, login to vCAV-C2C appliance of site A by connecting to https://VCAV-FQDN:8046 and navigating to Sites > New Site and enter IP/FQDN of VCAV appliance of Site B.

Accept the SSL certificate.

If your configuration is correct, you will see a succesful site pairing message.

Under Sites > Show all sites, you can see the pairing information.

On diagnostics page you can verify health of Site A & B

And that’s it for this post. In next post of this series we will perform replication of workloads across 2 cloud.… Read More

As discussed in last post, we can configure all roles present in vCAV-C2C in a single appliance for Lab/POC deployment. In my lab I am going ahead with small deployment to have a general understanding of this product before doing distributed deployment.

In my lab I have 2 sites and each site is configured with following components:

1: vSphere/vCenter Server 6.5 U2

2: vCloud Director 9.0

3: VMware NSX 6.3.6

vSphere and vCD is fully configured and Org/Org vDC’s are in place n both sites with external network etc configured. 

Let’s start the deployment with Site-A.

Deployment of VCAV-C2C appliance is straight forward and steps are shown in below slideshow.

Once appliance deployment completes and it boots up, it will give you information on how to connect to appliance for further configuration.

Configure vCloud Availability Replicator

To configure vCloud Availability Replicator role, connect to https://VCAV-FQDN:8043 and click on link under Additional Resources

Login with root credentials set during deployment.… Read More

VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR is the most recent addition to the VMware Cloud Provider Platform portfolio. It was originally introduced in May 2018, and it delighted service providers that have long desired a VMware native Cloud to Cloud DR solution for vCloud Director-based clouds.

What is vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR (vCAV-C2C)?

VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud is a solution for disaster recovery between two instances of vCloud Director. The concept of cloud-to-cloud DR is not new, however, VMware did not have any solutions for vCloud-based clouds. vCAV-C2C bridges this gap and enables VMware Cloud Providers to use their current vCloud Director installations to deliver disaster recovery services, such as replication and failover capabilities for workloads at both the VM and vApp levels.

The following are the main capabilities of the vCAV-C2C solution:

1: Replicate and recover vApps/VMs between two vCD instances for migration, DR, and planned migration use cases.… Read More

Now we have deployed all components needed to form VCAV stack. Its time to integrate all of them with VCAV. Let’s start.

At this point of time I am assuming that you have already declared following variables as per your environment

In last post of this series we deployed the VRCS and VR appliances. In this post we will deploy VCAV Portal.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vCloud Availability Introduction

2: vCloud Availability Architecture & Components

3: VCAV Deployment

4: Install Cloud Proxy for vCD

5: Deploy Cassandra Cluster

6: RabbitMQ Cluster Deployment and vCD Integration

7: Deploy VRMS Appliance

8: Deploy vRCS and VR Server

What is vCloud Availability Portal ?

The vCloud Availability Portal provides a graphic user interface to facilitate the management of vCloud Availability operations. The vCloud Availability Portal back end scales horizontally and we can deploy more than one portal host for HA and load balancing.

VCAV portal host size varies from small, medium or large, depending upon number of concurrent sessions that portal host will be handling.

For lab purpose small deployment works just fine.… Read More

In last post of this series we deployed cassandra node and configured ssl security for cassandra. In this post we will be installing RabbitMQ for vCD.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vCloud Availability Introduction

2: vCloud Availability Architecture & Components

3: VCAV Deployment

4: Install Cloud Proxy for vCD

5: Deploy Cassandra Cluster

What is RabbitMQ (RMQ)?

RabbitMQ is an open source message-queuing software which helps in facilitating message exchange between 2 or more applications. The exchange of messages is done via queue which is defined by administrator. An application can publish a message to the queue which can be retrieve or consumed by a different application.

A message can include any kind of information for example, it could have information about a process/task that should start on another application may be on another server or it could be just a simple text message.… Read More

In second post of this series we looked at the components which are needed to form a VCAV solution stack and we saw cassandra is an integral part of this solution.

To know about cassandra in detail, you can refer an old blogpost written by me.

If you are not following along this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vCloud Availability Introduction

2: vCloud Availability Architecture & Components

3: VCAV Deployment

4: Install Cloud Proxy for vCD

In this post we will deploy a Cassandra Cluster. Before installing cassandra software we need to meet following requirements:

1: Verify that routing, NTP, forward, and reverse DNS resolutions are working correctly.

2: Make sure that SELinux and your firewall are in disabled state. If they are enabled then make sure to open appropriate ports in firewall.

I have disabled SELinux and firewall service in my lab. … Read More

In the last post of this series, we deployed the VCAV appliance and discussed that it will be configured later once we are done with the deployment of all the other needed components.

In this post, we will add a vCloud proxy cell to an existing vCloud Director environment.

If you are not following along with this series, then I recommend reading earlier posts of this series from below links:

1: vCloud Availability Introduction

2: vCloud Availability Architecture & Components

3: VCAV Deployment

What is a Cloud Proxy?

As per VMware documentation:

The Cloud Proxy is a standalone, optional component of vCloud Director that can act as a generic Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection proxy. It supports forwarding incoming TCP connections and listening incoming connections.

The Cloud Proxy creates virtual connections for data to travel from the on-premise to the service provider (cloud) site and reverse. 

For installing Cloud Proxy, you should have your vCD environment already deployed and fully configured.… Read More