8

Design of VxRail with SRM

In the previous chapter, you had an overview of the design of a VxRail stretched cluster, including network, hardware, and software requirements, and some failure scenarios. When you plan to design an active-active data center solution or site failure solution, a VxRail stretched cluster is a good option.

VxRail also supports disaster recovery (DR) and data replication solutions, including VMware Replication (VR), VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), and Dell EMC RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines (RP4VMs). Compared to a VxRail stretched cluster, VxRail VMware SRM is an active-passive solution. This chapter will discuss the integration of VxRail with VMware SRM and the best practices relating to this solution. In Chapter 9, Design of RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines on VxRail, we will discuss the design of Dell EMC RP4VMs.

This chapter covers the following main topics:

• Overview of VMware SRM
• Overview of VxRail with VMware SRM
• The design of VxRail with VMware SRM
• The benefits of VxRail with VMware SRM
• Failover scenarios of VxRail with VMware SRM

Overview of VMware SRM

We will start by going through an overview of VMware SRM. VMware SRM is a DR and data replication solution. It supports two protection methodologies: VM replication and storage replication. Figure 8.1 shows a conceptual overview of VMware SRM. There are two sites (Protected Site and Recovery Site), and each site contains a protected workload and a non-protected workload. In a protected workload, you can define the SRM recovery plan by using vSphere Replication and storage replication, with both configurations in the recovery site. If the protected site is down, you can execute the SRM recovery plan to recover the VMs in the recovery site:

Figure 8.1 – Conceptual overview of VMware SRM

With the preceding information, you should understand how VMware SRM works. Now, we will discuss the architecture of the VMware SRM solution.

Figure 8.2 shows a logical diagram of VMware SRM:

Figure 8.2 – A logical diagram of VMware SRM

There are two sites: Protected Site and Recovery Site. In each site, there are four main components: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, Storage Replication Adapter (SRA), and vSphere Replication Server. Now, we will discuss the details of each component:

• vCenter Server Appliance is used to manage all operational tasks of VMware SRM—for example, creating an SRM recovery plan, executing an SRM failover test, and carrying out the SRM recovery plan.
• SRM Server is a virtual appliance that can deliver DR and data replication solutions. SRM can support two protection methods: VM replication and storage-based replication. You can choose one or both methods to define the DR plan based on the requirements of your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
• Site Recovery Adapter (SRA) is software that is provided by the storage vendor. It can work with SRM and storage and deliver storage-based replication across the protected and recovery sites.
• vSphere Replication (VR) Server is a virtual appliance that delivers VM replication at a local site or both protected and recovery sites. It can support a minimum of 5-minute RPO of VM replication.

When you deploy SRM into your vSphere environment, you can choose from the following deployment types. You must deploy the SRM virtual appliance in a vCenter Server environment by using the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) deployment wizard. Table 8.1 shows the differences between each deployment type:

Deployment Type	Requirements
Light	Two vCPUs, 8 GB memory, one 16 GB VMDK and one 4 GB VMDK, and one 1 GB network adapter. This deployment supports the protection of fewer than 1,000 VMs.
Standard	Four vCPUs, 12 GB memory, one 16 GB VMDK and one 4 GB VMDK, and one 1 GB network adapter. This deployment supports the protection of more than 1,000 VMs.

Table 8.1 – The deployment types of VMware SRM

You need to open the firewall ports for each core component during SRM configuration across two sites. Figure 8.3 shows the network ports for the VMware SRM appliance, along with the required network ports for each core component:

Figure 8.3 – Network ports for VMware SRM appliance

Now, we will list the network port requirement for SRM, VR, vCenter Server, and the ESXi host. Table 8.2 shows a summary of the SRM port requirements for vCenter Server and the ESXi host:

Port	Protocol	Source	Target	Description
443	HTTPS	SRM	vCenter Server	Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) web port
443	HTTPS	SRM at the recovery site	The ESXi hosts at the recovery site	The network traffic from the SRM on the recovery site to the ESXi hosts when you execute the SRM recovery plan or failover test

Table 8.2 – Summary of SRM port requirements for vCenter and the ESXi host

Table 8.3 shows a summary of SRM’s network port requirements:

Port	Protocol	Source	Target	Description
443	HTTPS	SRM	vCenter Server	SSL web port for incoming TCP network traffic
443	HTTPS	SRM at the recovery site	The ESXi hosts at the recovery site	The network traffic from SRM on the recovery site to the ESXi hosts when you execute the SRM recovery plan or failover test

Table 8.3 – Summary of SRM’s network port requirements

Table 8.4 shows a summary of the SRM and VR network port requirements at the protected and recovery sites:

Port	Protocol	Source	Target	Description
31031	Replication network traffic	ESXi host	VR at the recovery site	The ESXi hosts in the protected site to the VR in the recovery site
32032	TCP	SRM at the protected site	VR at the recovery site	The initial and outgoing replication traffic from the ESXi hosts at the protected site to the ESXi hosts at the recovery site
8043	HTTPS	VR at either the protected site or recovery site	VR at either the protected site or recovery site	The management traffic between VR appliances
8043	HTTPS	SRM	VR at both the protected site and recovery site	The management traffic between the VR appliance and SRM

Table 8.4 – Summary of SRM and VR network port requirements

Table 8.5 shows a summary of VR and additional VR Server network port requirements at the protected and recovery sites:

Port	Protocol	Source	Target	Description
80	HTTP	VR appliance	ESXi host	To make the connection before initiating the VM replication
443	HTTPS	SRM HTML5 interface	VR appliance	The default port is the SRM HTML5 interface
5480	HTTPS	Browser	VR appliance	VR Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) website UI
31031	The initial and ongoing replication traffic	ESXi host at the protected site	VR or external VR at the recovery site	The initial and outgoing replication traffic from the ESXi hosts at the protected site to the ESXi hosts at the recovery site
32032	TCP	ESXi host at the protected site	VR at the recovery site	The initial and outgoing replication traffic from the ESXi hosts at the protected site to the ESXi hosts at the recovery site

Table 8.5 – Summary of VR and additional VR server network port requirements at the protected and recovery sites

When you execute the site pairing for SRM between the protected and recovery sites, port 443 needs to open. Table 8.6 shows a summary of SRM site pairing between the protected and recovery sites:

Port	Protocol	Source	Target	Description
443	HTTPS	vCenter Server	SRM appliance	The communication between vCenter Server and the SRM appliance
443	HTTPS	SRM appliance	SRM appliance at the recovery site	The communication between each SRM appliance
443	HTTPS	SRM appliance	vCenter Server	The communication between vCenter Server and the SRM appliance at the protected and recovery sites

Table 8.6 – Summary of SRM site pairing between the protected and recovery sites

In the next section, we will discuss an overview of VM replication with SRM.

VM replication

If you choose VM replication for the DR solution, you need to consider the following:

• VR is a bundled feature that includes the license in the following editions of VMware vSphere:
  • vSphere Essentials Plus
  • vSphere Standard
  • vSphere Enterprise
  • vSphere Enterprise Plus
  • vSphere Desktop
• SRM licenses are required for at least 25 VMs; they support one-way protection from the protected site to the recovery site.
• In SRM 8.4 and above, SRM deployment on windows is no longer available. We need to use appliances.
• You can only deploy one VR appliance into a vCenter Server instance.
• For SRM configurations, one VR appliance for vCenter is supported.
• The VR appliance can support a maximum of 3,000 VM replications.
• You need to deploy one vCenter Server appliance, one SRM appliance, and one VR appliance in the protected and recovery sites.
• The minimum RPO of the protected VM is 5 minutes per vCenter Server instance.
• VR can also be supported with certain vSphere features—that is, vSphere vMotion and vSphere High Availability.
• For the bandwidth requirements of VR, the RPO can affect the data change rate. You need to evaluate how many blocks change in your RPO for the protected VM. To calculate the bandwidth for VR, you can use this link: https://docs.vmware.com/en/vSphere-Replication/8.5/com.vmware.vsphere.replication-admin.doc/GUID-4A34D0C9-8CC1-46C4-96FF-3BF7583D3C4F.html.

In Figure 8.4, there are two sites: protected and recovery sites. There are three main components per site, vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, and vSphere Replication Server. You can create VR protection groups to replicate the VMs from either a protected site or a recovery site. You can execute the SRM recovery plan to recover the VMs into the recovery site if the protected site is faulty:

Figure 8.4 – A logical diagram of VMware SRM with VR

Important note

For compatibility matrices of VR 8.5.x, you can check the details at https://docs.vmware.com/en/vSphere-Replication/8.5/rn/vsphere-replication-compat-matrix-8-5.html.

In the next section, we will see an overview of storage-based replication with SRM.

Storage-based replication

When you choose storage-based replication for the DR solution, you need to consider the following:

• SRM licenses are required for at least 25 VMs; they support one-way protection from the protected site to the recovery site.
• The source and target storage systems should be identical or the same model, and storage-based replication is enabled between the protected site and the recovery site.
• Storage-based replication supports Fibre Channel and iSCSI connections between the source and target storage.
• In SRM 8.4 and above, SRM deployment on Windows is no longer available. We need to use appliances.
• You need to deploy one vCenter Server appliance, one SRM appliance, and one VR appliance in the protected and recovery sites.
• For the storage-based replication traffic requirements, you need to consult the relevant storage vendors.
• You need to verify the compatibility with the SRM release version and the storage vendor’s SRA. For more details, you can use this link: https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=sra.

Next, we will discuss how to verify the compatibility of SRM and SRA in the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Figure 8.5 shows the VMware Compatibility Guide; you select the SRM version from the Product Release Version menu, the storage vendor from the Partner Name menu, and SRA from the SRA Name menu in the VMware Compatibility Guide wizard, and then it can list the supported versions of SRM and SRA. In this example, SRM 8.5/8.4/8.3/8.2 can support EMC Unity Block SRA 5.0.4.146:

Figure 8.5 – VMware Compatibility Guide

Figure 8.6 shows a logical diagram of VMware SRM with storage-based replication. There are two sites: protected and recovery. There are three main components per site, vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, and Site Recovery Adapter. You can use storage-based replication to replicate the data between the protected site and the recovery site, and you must use SRA to integrate the SRM and storage for this data replication. You can execute the SRM recovery plan to recover the VMs into the recovery site if one of the sites is faulty. If the storage supports Consistency Groups (CGs), SRM is supported with vSphere Storage DRS and vSphere Storage vMotion:

Figure 8.6 – A logical diagram of VMware SRM with storage-based replication

The next section will discuss the VMware SRM licensing package.

SRM licensing

VMware SRM is available in two editions, Standard and Enterprise. Each SRM license pack includes 25 VMs. Only one edition of SRM can be configured in a vCenter Server instance. VMware SRM Standard edition is used for smaller environments and is limited to 75 protected VMs per site. VMware SRM Enterprise edition is used for the enterprise-level protection of VMs, and there’s no limit on the number of protected VMs. Table 8.7 shows a feature comparison of the SRM Standard and Enterprise editions:

SRM Licensing/Features	Standard Edition	Enterprise Edition
Maximum protected VMs	Supported	Supported
Integration with VMware Cloud products	Supported	Supported
Centralized recovery plans	Supported	Supported
Non-disruptive recovery test	Supported	Supported
Automated DR failover	Supported	Supported
Planned data center migration	Supported	Supported
Automated re-protection and failback	Supported	Supported
Storage-based replication support	Supported	Supported
Automatic protection of VMs	Supported	Supported
VR support	Supported	Supported
Stretched storage support	Not supported	Supported
Orchestrated cross-vCenter vMotion	Not supported	Supported
Virtual volumes support	Not supported	Supported

Table 8.7 – Features comparison of SRM Standard and Enterprise editions

With the preceding information on VMware SRM, you should now have an understanding of VR and storage-based replication with SRM. Table 8.8 shows a comparison of VR and storage-based replication with SRM:

Features	VM Replication with SRM	Storage-Based Replication with SRM
VMware SRM license	At least 25 VMs	At least 25 VMs
Hypervisor-based replication	Yes	No
RPO	5 minutes (minimum)	Depends on the storage model
Multi-VM CG	Not supported	Supported
vMotion and Storage vMotion	Supported	Not supported
Built-in WAN compression	Supported	Depends on the storage model
Automatically protect new VMs	Supported	Supported
Failback with reverse protection	Supported	Supported
Non-disruptive failover test	Supported	Supported
Automatic re-IP of VMs	Supported	Supported
Recovery failover reports	Supported	Supported

Table 8.8 – Comparison of VR and storage-based replication with SRM

With the preceding information, you should now have a good understanding of SRM. The next section will provide an overview of VxRail with VMware SRM.

Overview of VxRail with VMware SRM

When enabling the DR features on the VxRail cluster, you can choose from VR, SRM, or Dell EMC RP4VMs, or from third-party data protection solutions. Since VxRail is developed by Dell and VMware, most VMware solutions are fully integrated with VxRail. Figure 8.7 shows a logical diagram of VxRail with VMware SRM. There are two sites: protected and recovery. This solution includes four main components per site—that is, VxRail Cluster, vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, and Site Recovery Adapter:

Figure 8.7 – A logical diagram of VxRail with VMware SRM

Based on your RTO and RTP requirements, you can choose VM replication with SRM or storage-based replication with SRM for the DR solution. HQ VxRail Cluster and DR VxRail Cluster can be the same or different series of VxRail systems. For example, an HQ VxRail cluster is created with four VxRail P670 nodes, and a DR VxRail cluster is created with four VxRail E660 nodes. vCenter Server can be an embedded vCenter Server or a customer-supplied vCenter Server, and the embedded vCenter Server is recommended because the vCenter Server Standard license is bundled on the VxRail cluster. If you choose the customer-supplied vCenter Server, it requires the optional vCenter Server Standard license for each vCenter Server. VxRail supports access to external storage with Fibre Channel or iSCSI. If you choose storage-based replication with SRM, please make sure the storage replication and snapshot features are enabled on the source and target storage; otherwise, the operation task of the SRM recovery plan will fail.

If you choose VxRail with VMware SRM for the DR solution, you need to consider the following:

• This DR solution supports VxRail All-Flash and Hybrid nodes. For example, the source VxRail cluster can be the All-Flash nodes and the target VxRail cluster can be the Hybrid nodes.
• This DR solution supports both VM replication and storage-based replication.
• VMware SRM includes two types of licensing packages: the Standard edition and the Enterprise edition. If the number of protected VMs is less than 75 per site, you can choose the Standard edition. If it is more than 75 VMs, you need to choose the Enterprise edition.
• If the VM and storage-based replication provides uni-directional protection (one-way) across the protected and recovery sites, you need one SRM license pack (25 VM licenses per pack). If it provides bi-directional protection (two-way) across the protected and recovery sites, you need two SRM license packs.
• For the other requirements, you can refer to the Overview of VMware SRM section of this chapter.

Now, we will discuss the difference between uni-directional protection and bi-directional protection.

Uni-directional protection

Uni-directional protection is used in failover use cases only. Figure 8.8 shows the architecture of uni-directional protection in SRM; SRM is only configured to fail over the VMs from Site A to Site B:

Figure 8.8 – Uni-directional protection in SRM

Table 8.9 shows the required VMware licenses for uni-directional protection:

License	Site A	Site B
vCenter Server	vCenter Server Standard edition	vCenter Server Standard edition
vSphere	vSphere Standard/Enterprise Plus edition	vSphere Standard/Enterprise Plus edition
VR	It includes vSphere Essentials Plus and higher editions	It includes vSphere Essentials Plus and higher editions
SRM	SRM Standard/Enterprise edition	No SRM license required

Table 8.9 – The required VMware licenses for uni-directional protection

Bi-directional protection

Bi-directional protection is used in failover from Site A to Site B and Site B to Site A at the same time. Figure 8.8 shows the architecture of bi-directional protection in SRM; the SRM license must add to Site A and Site B if the replication is enabled in two ways:

Figure 8.9 – Bi-directional protection in SRM

Table 8.10 shows the required VMware licenses for bi-directional protection:

License	Site A	Site B
vCenter Server	vCenter Server Standard edition	vCenter Server Standard edition
vSphere	vSphere Standard/Enterprise Plus edition	vSphere Standard/Enterprise Plus edition
VR	It includes vSphere Essentials Plus and higher editions	It includes vSphere Essentials Plus and higher editions
SRM	SRM Standard/Enterprise edition	SRM Standard/Enterprise edition

Table 8.10 – The required VMware licenses for bi-directional protection

The next section will discuss the design of VxRail with VMware SRM.

The design of VxRail with VMware SRM

In this section, we will discuss the planning and design of VxRail with VMware SRM. When you plan a DR solution for VxRail with VMware SRM, you need to consider and collect the following information:

• What are your RPO and RTO requirements for DR? These are both important factors you need to keep in mind while designing and executing a DR plan. Based on these two factors, you can choose VM replication or storage-based replication.
• The VxRail All-Flash and Hybrid nodes are both supported in this solution. For example, the source cluster can be the VxRail All-Flash cluster and the target cluster can be the VxRail Hybrid cluster.
• How many protected VMs are required for recovery at the recovery site? If the number of protected VMs is less than 75, you can choose the SRM Standard edition; otherwise, you need the SRM Enterprise edition.
• What is the total usable storage of protected VMs? You need to prepare the same usable storage capacity in the VxRail cluster in the recovery site.
• What is the vCenter Server deployment option for the protected site and recovery site—an embedded vCenter Server or customer-supplied vCenter Server?
• If you choose storage-based replication, make sure the data replication and snapshot features are enabled on the source and target storage.
• If you choose the VM replication, it supports deploying multiple VR instances to meet your load-balancing needs at each site.
• What is the replication network traffic between the protected and recovery sites?
• How many VMs and protection groups are associated with an SRM recovery plan?
• What is the running edition of the VxRail software release in your existing environment?
• It is highly recommended that VMware Tools is installed in all protected VMs in the protected site.
• You need to prepare a dedicated datastore for placeholder VMs at the protected and recovery sites. When you create a protection group for the VMs at the protected site, SRM creates placeholder VMs at the recovery site for each protected VM.
• Each VM requires a VM swap file. By default, VM files and VM swap files are stored in the same datastore. To prevent SRM from replicating the swap files in the recovery sites, you can create an unreplicated datastore for swap files. This can help avoid wasting network bandwidth during replication between the protected and recovery sites.

You need to collect the preceding information when planning to use VxRail with VMware SRM. Next, let’s look at the benefits of VxRail with VMware SRM.

The benefits of VxRail with VMware SRM

VxRail with VMware SRM can deliver the following key benefits and capabilities:

• It can perform non-interruptive automated failover and recovery tests in an isolated network during business hours.
• It can perform a DR failover or a planned migration and recover a VM to the original site with a one-click operation. It can also reduce recovery time using automated orchestration workflows.
• An SRM recovery plan supports recovering VMs with a different IP address; it also supports extending the same subnets via integration with VMware Network Virtualization (NSX) at the recovery site.
• You can manage and create an SRM recovery plan for a set of VMs via a central management HTML5 graphic UI.
• It can deliver a failover and recovery test report for the protected VMs.
• SRM can integrate with VR and deliver data recovery with a 5-minute RPO.
• VR supports VM replication with network compression across the protected and recovery sites, and it can minimize the network bandwidth consumption between the two sites.
• SRM can support a range of storage-based replication solutions.
• VxRail is fully supported by VMware products, and it natively uses the benefits of VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware NSX, and VMware vSAN.
• SRM and VR can extend to a DR as a Service (DRaaS) that offers VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• VxRail also supports other DR and data replication solutions; SRM and VR are examples. If your RPO and RTO require an active-active architecture, you can choose the VxRail stretched cluster; refer to Chapter 7, Design of Stretched Cluster on VxRail. If you need the Continuous Data Protection (CDP) solution, refer to Chapter 9, Design of RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines on VxRail.

Important note

If you enable VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware NSX on VxRail with VMware SRM, it requires optional licenses for VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware NSX.

The next section will discuss different failover scenarios of VxRail with VMware SRM.

Failover scenarios of VxRail with VMware SRM

This solution is not only used for DR features; it can also be used for data migration. This section will discuss some failover scenarios of VxRail with SRM.

Failure scenario 1

Figure 8.10 shows two different environments: one is a vSphere cluster and the other is a VxRail cluster. Each site includes the following components:

• Site A: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, vSphere Cluster with four nodes, and Storage.
• Site B: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, and VxRail Cluster with four nodes.
• Replication configuration: The VMs are replicated to Site B from Site A with VR:

Figure 8.10 – Scenario 1 of VxRail with VMware SRM

In this scenario, we plan to migrate the VMs into VxRail Cluster from vSphere Cluster. The SRM recovery plan supports two recovery types, Planned migration and Disaster recovery, as shown in the following screenshot. We can choose the Planned migration option to migrate the VMs into the VxRail cluster from the vSphere cluster:

Figure 8.11 – Recovery type on the SRM recovery plan

Using SRM’s planned migration, we can easily migrate the VMs into the VxRail cluster. Now, we will discuss the next scenario.

Failure scenario 2

Figure 8.12 shows two VxRail cluster environments, Site A and Site B. Each site includes the following components:

• Site A: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, VxRail Cluster with four nodes, and storage.
• Site B: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, and VxRail Cluster with four nodes.
• Replication configuration: The VMs are replicated to Site B from Site A with VR:

Figure 8.12 – Scenario 2 of VxRail with SRM and VR

If the vCenter Server appliance is faulty at Site A, it does not affect the replication of the VMs between Site A and Site B. You can still manage the VM replication through vCenter Server in Site B.

Failure scenario 3

Figure 8.13 shows two VxRail cluster environments, Site A and Site B. Each site includes the following components:

• Site A: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, VxRail Cluster with four nodes, and storage.
• Site B: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, and VxRail Cluster with four nodes.
• Replication configuration: The VMs are replicated to Site B from Site A with VR:

Figure 8.13 – Scenario 3 of VxRail with SRM and VR

If the SRM server is faulty at Site A, it does not affect the replication of VMs between Site A and Site B. You can still manage the VM replication through vCenter Server in Site A or Site B.

Failure scenario 4

Figure 8.14 shows two VxRail cluster environments, Site A and Site B. Each site includes the following components:

• Site A: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, VxRail Cluster with four nodes, and storage.
• Site B: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, and VxRail Cluster with four nodes.
• Replication configuration: The VMs are replicated to Site B from Site A with VR:

Figure 8.14 – Scenario 4 of VxRail with SRM and VR

If Site A is completely faulty, we can access the vCenter Server appliance at Site B, then execute the SRM recovery plan and select the Discover recovery option shown here to fail over the VMs into the VxRail cluster from Site A to Site B:

Figure 8.15 – Recovery type on the SRM recovery plan

In this scenario, we can still manage and execute the SRM recovery plan through the vCenter Server appliance if one of the sites is faulty.

Failure scenario 5

Figure 8.16 shows two VxRail cluster environments, Site A and Site B. Each site includes the following components:

• Site A: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, VxRail Cluster with four nodes, and Storage.
• Site B: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, and VxRail Cluster with four nodes, and Storage.
• Replication configuration: The VMs are replicated to Site B from Site A with VR.
• Storage-based replication is enabled between Site A and Site B:

Figure 8.16 – Scenario 5 of VxRail with SRM and storage-based replication

If the storage-based replication links are disconnected between Site A and Site B, we can execute the SRM recovery plan with already replicated data and recover the VMs into Site B based on the latest RPO on storage-based replication, but it won’t replicate any data after disconnecting storage replication links.

Failure scenario 6

Figure 8.17 shows two VxRail cluster environments, Site A and Site B. Each site includes the following components:

• Site A: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, VxRail Cluster with four nodes, and Storage.
• Site B: vCenter Server Appliance, SRM Server, vSphere Replication Server, and VxRail Cluster with four nodes, and Storage.
• Replication configuration: The VMs are replicated to Site B from Site A with VR.
• Storage-based replication is enabled between Site A and Site B:

Figure 8.17 – Scenario 6 of VxRail with SRM and storage-based replication

If SRA fails after replication, we can run SRM for the previously replicated data. If SRA fails before initial replication then, we cannot run SRM plans because we won’t have any data in Site B logical unit numbers (LUNs).

From the preceding scenarios, you have learned about the failover behavior and use cases for VxRail with VMware SRM. Table 8.11 shows the expected result of each failover scenario on SRM:

Case #	vCenter Server	SRM/SRA	VR	Storage Replication	Recovery Type	Failover
1	Healthy	Healthy	Healthy	N/A	Planned migration	Successful
2	Faulty (Site A)	Healthy	Healthy	N/A	Discover recovery	Successful
3	Healthy	Faulted (Site A)	Healthy	N/A	Discover recovery	Not successful
4	Faulty (Site A)	Faulted (Site A)	Faulted (Site A)	N/A	Discover recovery	Successful
5	Healthy	Healthy	Healthy	Connection is disconnected	Discover recovery	Successful with warnings
6	Healthy	SRA faulted (Site A)	Healthy	Healthy	Discover recovery	Not successful

Table 8.11 – The expected result of each failover scenario on SRM

Summary

In this chapter, we gave you an overview of VxRail with VMware SRM, including the network, hardware, and software requirements, and some failure scenarios. You can now choose the appropriate VM protection option based on your RPO and RTO requirements. SRM can be used in two scenarios—that is, data migration and DR. If you plan to migrate VMs into the VxRail cluster, SRM is a good option.

In the next chapter, you will learn about the design of RP4VMs on VxRail and the best practices of this solution.

Questions

The following are a short list of review questions to help reinforce your learning and help you identify areas which require some improvement.

1. How many vCenter Server appliances are required on the VxRail with VMware SRM solution?
   1. One
   2. Two
   3. Three
   4. Four
   5. Five
   6. None of these
2. Which two protection methods are supported by SRM?
   1. Uni-directional
   2. One-way
   3. Bi-directional
   4. Two-way
   5. Three-way
   6. Mirror
3. Which VMware licenses are bundled on the VxRail cluster?
   1. vCenter Server Standard edition
   2. VMware SRM
   3. VMware vSAN
   4. VMware SRA
   5. vSphere Replication
   6. All of the these
4. How many protected VMs (maximum) can be supported with the SRM Standard edition?
   1. 25
   2. 50
   3. 75
   4. 100
   5. 125
   6. Unlimited
5. How many protected VMs (maximum) can be supported with the SRM Enterprise edition?
   1. 25
   2. 50
   3. 75
   4. 100
   5. 125
   6. Unlimited
6. Which features are not supported with the SRM Standard edition?
   1. Stretched storage
   2. Storage-based replication
   3. Orchestrated Cross-vCenter vMotion
   4. Virtual volumes
   5. Automatic protection of VMs
   6. vSphere Replication
7. What is the minimum RPO that can be supported with vSphere Replication?
   1. 1 minute
   2. 5 minutes
   3. 10 minutes
   4. 15 minutes
   5. 20 minutes
   6. 25 minutes
8. How many protected VMs are included in an SRM license pack?
   1. 10
   2. 15
   3. 25
   4. 50
   5. 75
   6. 100
9. If you plan to enable storage-based replication on SRM, what are the requirements for the source and target storage?
   1. Enable the storage replication feature for the source and target storage
   2. Enable the storage snapshot feature for the source and target storage
   3. Enable the storage tiers feature for the source and target storage
   4. Enable the storage replication and snapshot features for the source and target storage
   5. Enable the storage replication and tiers features for the source and target storage
   6. All of these
10. If you plan to migrate VMs into a VxRail cluster from a vSphere cluster using SRM, which recovery option is the best?
    1. vSphere Storage vMotion
    2. vSphere Replication
    3. Planned migration
    4. Failover
    5. DR
    6. Data replication
11. In Figure 8.18, VM replication is enabled between Site A and Site B. If the vCenter Server appliance is faulty at Site A, does it impact the SRM recovery plan?

Figure 8.18 – VxRail with VMware SRM

1. Yes. We cannot access the vCenter Server appliance.
2. No. We can access the vCenter Server appliance at Site B and execute the SRM recovery plan.

12. Which of the following SRM configurations shows bi-directional protection?
    1. 

Figure 8.19 – VxRail with VMware SRM

2. 

Figure 8.20 – VxRail with VMware SRM

3. 

Figure 8.21 – VxRail with VMware SRM

4. 

Figure 8.22 – VMware SRM with VR

5. 

Figure 8.23 – VxRail with VMware SRM