vSphere Replication & Multi Point in Time Snapshots

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When configuring replication of a virtual machine, you might have noticed the option “Point in time instances” aka PIT. This setting allow for some snapshots to be maintained at the DR site for the replicated VM at certain intervals.  

During replication, vSphere Replication replicates all aspects of the virtual machine to the target site, including any potential viruses and corrupted applications. The benefit being that if a guest is corrupted, we have multiple points in time to failover from in case the corruption already replicated across sites

vSphere Replication retains a number of snapshot instances of the virtual machine on the target site based on the retention policy that you specify. vSphere Replication supports maximum of 24 snapshot instances. After you recover a virtual machine, you can revert it to a specific snapshot.

Multiple Point In Time (MPIT) recovery was first introduced in vSphere replication 5.5 and it enables an administrator to recover a virtual machine to the latest replicated copy at the target site and then revert, or “roll back,” that virtual machine to a previous point in time.… Read More

Replicating VM between sites using vSphere Replication

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Once your primary and DR site is ready, you can start replicating VM’s between the sites and test the failover/failback etc to ensure your disaster recovery plans are functioning well and you will be protected when actual disaster happens in your on-premise datacenter.

In this post we will learn how to replicate VM from one vCenter to another which is in DR site. Lets get started.

Navigate to VM and template view in vCenter server in your source site and select the VM which you want to replicate to the DR site. Right click on the VM and chose All vSphere Replication Actions > Configure replication

vSphere Replication can be used to replicate VM’s to the local DR site as well as to a cloud provider side such as vCloud Air . In our example we are going for a local DR site replication so I chose Replicate to a vCenter Server. … Read More

vSphere Replication 6.0 Compression Method

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With vSphere Replication 6.0, VMware added a new feature named “Network Compression” and you have noticed this while configuring replication for a virtual machine. 

What is Network Compression?

It is a method for compressing the replication data that is transferred through the network which helps in saving network bandwidth and might help reduce the amount of buffer memory used on the vSphere Replication server. However, compressing and decompressing data requires more CPU resources on both the source site and the server that manages the target datastore.

Do you really need network compression in your infrastructure?

vSphere Replication uses CBT technique to replicate changed blocks to a DR site (which commonly exists in cloud these days) and the DR site is usually connected to primary site via a WAN link. These WAN links typically have limited bandwidth or high latency. Network compression can save your precious WAN bandwidth.

VR data compression support

vSphere Replication 6.0 supports end-to-end compression when the source and target ESXi hosts are also version 6.0.… Read More

Isolating vSphere Replication Traffic

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Prior to vSphere 6, the replication traffic was sent and received using the management interfaces of ESXi and VRA appliances. With vSphere 6 it is possible to send the replication traffic over a separate dedicated interface.

By default, the vSphere Replication appliance has one VM network adapter that is used for various traffic types.

  • Management traffic between vSphere Replication Management Server and vSphere Replication Server.

  • Replication traffic from the source ESXi hosts to the vSphere Replication Server.

  • Traffic between vCenter Server and vSphere Replication Management Server.

  • NFC (Network File Copy) traffic which is used to copy VM replication data from the vSphere Replication Server appliance at the target site to the destination datastores.

VR Traffic Flow

We will use below image for understanding the flow of replication traffic

Typically these are the sequence of events that take places when a VM is configured for replication and initial sync has completed:

  • As data is written to VM disks, the writes pass through the vSCSI filter on the host where the VM is running
  • The vSCSI filter monitors all I/O to the VMs disks and tracks those changes.
… Read More

vSphere Data Protection-Part 5: Configuring Backup Replication

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In last post of this series we learnt how to configure a backup verification job and test wether or not a taken backup is restoreable. In this post we will learn how to configure data backup replication so that in case of disaster, if source site is completely down,even then data can be restored from secondary location.

If you accidently landed on this post and have missed earlier post of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere Data Protection

2: Installing & Configuring vSphere Data Protection

3: Backup And Restore VM’s using VDP

4: Configure a Backup Verification job

Lets get started with some theoretical concepts about replication before jumping into lab and actually configuring and testing it. 

About VDP Replication

Replication enables you to avoid data loss if the source VDP appliance fails because copies of the backups are available on the destination target. … Read More

vSphere Data Protection-Part 4: Configure a Backup Verification job

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In last post of this series, we had a look on how to take backup and restore of VM’s using VDP and how to clone/edit existing backup jobs.

In this post we will discuss about how to configure a backup verification job to ensure integrity of backups taken by VDP. 

If you accidently landed on this post and have missed earlier post of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere Data Protection

2: Installing & Configuring vSphere Data Protection

3: Backup And Restore VM’s using VDP

Automatic Backup Verification (ABV)
Automatic Backup Verification (ABV) is a scheduled or on-demand mechanism for verification of backups that ensures the integrity of restore points. ABV has the following characteristics:

  • Backups are restored to a temporary virtual machine with the following naming convention: VDP_VERIFICATION_<vm-name> -<unique number>
  • Backups are restored with no network conflicts, because the NIC is always disabled during the ABV operation.
… Read More

vSphere Data Protection-Part 3: Backup And Restore

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In previous post of this series we deployed the VDP appliance and also had a look on some of the basic configuration steps. Now its time to test how VDP works. 

If you accidently landed on this post and have missed earlier post of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere Data Protection

2: Installing & Configuring vSphere Data Protection

Lets jump into lab and see how backup and restore works with VDP.

Before actually starting with creating any new backup/restore job, I want to first emphasize on the backup window configuration.

Backup and Maintenance Window

Bt default VDP starts taking backup of virtual machine at 8 PM and it has a backup window of 12 hours i.e from 08 PM to 08 AM. Modify this backup window as per business hours of your organization. 

When backup windows completes, VDP performs testing the backup to see if the taken backups are a good candidate when it comes to restoring stuffs.… Read More

vSphere Data Protection-Part 2: Installation & Configuration

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In last post of this series we discussed about VDP and its capabilities. We also discussed about VDP architecture and different deployment options available. In this post we will learn how to install and configure VDP. Lets get started.

Requirements for installing VDP

Make sure your infrastructure meets following requiremnts met before deploying VDP:

  • A static IP address is required for the VDP appliance and any additional proxy appliances.
  • DNS entries created ahead of time for forward and reverse lookup.
  • Ensure enough capacity is available on the datastore where backups will reside.
  • Editions of vSphere Essentials Plus and above (or vSphere with Operations Management / vCloud Suite) include licensing for vSphere Data Protection.
  • The vCenter Server and attached ESXi hosts must be configured with an NTP server. 
  • vCenter Server 5.5 or higher. If you are using vCenter 5.5 U3 and want to deploy VDP 6.1, 6.1.1, or 6.1.2, then see VMWare KB-2146825
  • Esxi host v5.1 or higher.
… Read More

vSphere Data Protection-Part 1: Introduction

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I am now in final legs of my VCAP6-Deploy exam prepration and objective 7.2 revolves all around VDP. Since I have no prior experience with VDP, this is the best time for me to explore this product.

I have broken down this series in various part so that the posts do not get too lengthy and this is the first part where we will be discussing about what VDP is and what it offers when it comes to backing up and recovering vSphere deployments. 

What is vSphere Data Protection (VDP)?

vSphere Data Protection is a backup and recovery solution designed for vSphere environments which is powered by EMC Avamar. It provides agentless, image-level virtual-machine backups to disk. It also provides application-aware protection for business-critical Microsoft applications (such as Exchange, SQL Server and SharePoint) along with WAN-efficient, encrypted backup data replication. 

Capabilities of vSphere Data Protection

The key capabilities of VDP are (not limited to):

  • Agent-less virtual machine backup and restore that reduces complexity and deployment time
  • Integration with EMC Data Domain for additional scale, efficiency, and reliability
  • Flexibility to restore replicated backup data at both the source and target locations
  • Automated backup verification that provides the highest level of confidence in backup data integrity
  • Appliance and backup data protection via a checkpoint-and-rollback mechanism
  • File Level Restore (FLR), which enables granular file and folder restoration without the need for an agent in Microsoft Windows and Linux virtual machines
  • Significantly reduced backup data disk space requirements using Avamar variable-length deduplication technology
  • VDP make use of vSphere Storage APIs and Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technique to reduce load on the vSphere host infrastructure and minimize backup window requirements
  • Reliable, efficient replication of backup data between vSphere Data Protection appliances for redundancy and offsite data protection

Consult this whitepaper by VMware to know more about these capabilities in greater details and also what other capabilities lies within VDP.… Read More

Distributed Switch Port Group Bindings

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In a vSphere environment where vDS is being used for networking connectivity, there are several options available for what should be the type of port binding that is to be used for a portgroup. Have you ever wondered which Port Binding setting is most suitable for the distributed portgroups to get optimal performance? 

In this post we will be talking about some use cases for using different type of port bindings with vDS.

There are 3 types of Port Binding that is available at portgroup level

  1. Static Binding
  2. Dynamic Binding
  3. Ephemeral Binding

We will discuss about these one by one.

Static Binding

When you connect a virtual machine to a port group configured with static binding, a port is immediately assigned and reserved for it, guaranteeing connectivity at all times. The port is disconnected only when the virtual machine is removed from the port group. You can connect a virtual machine to a static-binding port group only through vCenter Server.… Read More