1. The VMs that are replicated to the target host will be synchronized with the VM that is present in the source ESXi host.
   
2. The target VMs are updated as only the changes that occur since the last backup in the source VM will be copied to the target VM. The changes that happen will be tracked by BDRSuite Changed Block Tracking Driver (CBT).
   
3. Through one replication job, you can replicate several VMs from the source to the target host. Even if your production VM goes down, you can immediately start your business operations by performing a failover to replicated VM.
   
4. From the VM Replication tab, select the VMware vSphere option.
   

Step 1: Adding VMware Server

Prerequisites

Procedure

Add the vCenter Server/ESXi Host by providing the following details

1. Hostname/ IP Address: Enter the Hostname or IP address of the vCenter Server/ESXi host you wish to replicate.
   
2. You can add new credentials or select existing credentials. Click here to read more.
   
3. 443: Port used for communication between the host and the BDRSuite Backup Server.
   
4. BDRSuite Backup Server communicates with the VMware server using the port that is set to 443 as default. You can modify this port number in case you have configured a different port number for vCenter/ESXi communication. Click Add ESXi/vCenter Server.
   
5. Once the VMware Server is added, it will be available on the List of Added ESXi/vCenter Servers page. You can click the VM Replication option to configure your replication schedule (or) Navigate to the VM Replication tab and click VMware vSphere. You can Edit or Delete the VMware Servers in this list.
   

1. You can select a different credential or add a new credential
   
2. Port Number
   
3. Add new credential
   

Note: Encrypted VM Replication is not supported for vSphere host v6.7. VM Replication may fail with ‘VMware Modular Exception error’ in case of ESXi compatibility/permission issue with respect to vCenter.

Step 2: Choose Host/VM Machine(s)

1. From the list of VMs available select the required VM for the replication process.
   
2. If you had added a vCenter Server, all the ESXi hosts under that server and all the VMs under each ESXi host will be listed.
   
3. If you had added an ESXi host, all the VMs in that host will be listed with check-boxes.
   
4. You can choose the VMs to be replicated by selecting the check-boxes present near the VM. You can search for a particular VM in the Search VM check-box, type the name of the VM that is to be replicated and click the search icon.
   

Note: In a replication job where an entire host is replicated, if you add any new VM to that host,  the new VM will be replicated in the next schedule.

Note :Each replication job can have multiple VMs. For example, if you want to replicate an ESXi host that has 10 VMs, you can select the entire host as a single replication job. During the process, the VMs will be replicated one by one in alphabetical order.

Note: In case you haven’t selected any VM for the replication and proceed with VM/Disk Exclusion you will get the message: Select the desired VMs or Host

VM Exclusion

1. Click the ‘Select VMs’ option which will list the VMs that have to be excluded from this replication schedule. Click on the ‘Add’ option which will add the VM to the Exclude VM list.
   
2. You can add more VMs to be excluded from the replication job by choosing Select VMs option or remove an already excluded VM by selecting the Remove VM Exclusion option in the Actions tab. Click Ok once you are done excluding the VMs from your replication schedule.

Disk Exclusion

1. No Disk Excluded
   
2. Include only System Disks for Backup. Exclude Others (typically Disk 0:0)
   
3. Select the type of Disk to exclude
   

VM Level Disk Exclusion

1. No Disk Excluded
   
2. Include only System Disks for Backup. Exclude Others (typically Disk 0:0)
   
3. Select type of Disk to exclude
   

Note: You cannot replicate VMs with names having special characters. They will fail with ‘Modular Exception error’. CD/DVD drives of virtual machines will not be replicated to the target host.

Step 3: Guest Processing

Guest OS processing allows you to configure the settings to ensure the consistency of the VMs selected for backup. You will be able to configure application-aware processing, transaction log truncation, and system file exclusion in guest OS processing settings.

Application-Aware Processing

Log Truncation

File Exclusion

Customizing the Guest Processing Settings

1. Select the hosts and/or the VMs and click “Edit”. The same guest processing settings will be applied to all the selected hosts and/or the VMs.
   
2. If you have configured an entire host for backup and if you want to customize guest processing only for some of the VMs in that host, then add those VMs to this list using the “Add” button below.
   
3. You can then select the added VMs and customize the guest processing settings using “Edit”.
   

Customizing guest processing for Windows Applications

1. Require successful application processing (recommended) – The backup process will be triggered only when all the VSS writers in the VM are stable.
   
2. Ignore application processing failures – The backup process will be triggered by freezing the VSS writers irrespective of application processing success/failures.
   
3. Disable application-aware processing – The backup will be processed irrespective of the VSS Writers status.
   

1. Truncate the transaction logs – The transaction logs of the Microsoft Exchange & SQL Server will be truncated after the successful backup
   
2. Do not truncate logs – Transaction logs will not be truncated
   

Customizing guest processing for Oracle database

1. Do not delete archive logs –  No logs will be deleted.
   
2. Delete logs older than specified time – This option allows to truncate the logs based on the creation time of the log file.
   
3. Delete logs over the specified size – This option allows to truncate the logs based on the size of the log file.
   

Guest Credential

Customize Guest OS Credentials

1. If you have selected the host for the backup, select the host and click Add button, it will list out all the VMs, you can select the VMs for which you want to customize the credentials and click Add.
   
2. Once the VMs are added, you can select one or more VMs and click the Edit button to customize Guest OS credentials.
   

Step 4: Configure Scheduling

1. Select Run Every option if you want to run your VMware replication at regular intervals on a specific day(s). The time frame ranges from 15 minutes to 12 hours a day on specific days a week. By default, all the days in the week will be selected. If you don’t want to run your replication on all the days, then manually select the days in which you want to run the replication.
   
2. If you want to run your replication every day, select Run Daily option and configure the time period in which your VMware replication has to occur.
   
3. If you want to run your replication every week on a specific day and time, choose the Run Weekly option. Select the time frame and day in which the VMware replication will run.
   
4. Click Next when you have finished configuring the replication schedule.
   

Note: By default Run Every option will be selected for the replication schedule.

Step 5: Configure Target Replication Host

Choose the Target vCenter Server/ESXi host to which your source VMs data is to be replicated. If your target server is an ESXi host, select the corresponding ESXi host and the datastore from the drop-down list. If your target server is a vCenter Server, select the datastore from the drop-down list.

1. If you want to add the target VMware Server, click the Add ESXi/vCenter Server option. Provide the Hostname/IP address of the target Server. If you have previously added credentials for the target server, select it from the Select Credentials drop-down list.
2. To read more on adding credentials, read this section – Credential. If you have configured a different port number for the target server, change the port number manually and click Add.
   
3. BDRSuite provides you an option to add a suffix name to your Source VM name. This is used to identify the VM in the target server as a replication job. By default, the target VM replica will be given a suffix name as Replica, which can be edited. For Eg: If your Source VMs name is BDRSuite and Replica suffix name is Tech then your source VMs data will be replicated into a new VM in the Target Server named ‘BDRSuite_Tech’.
4. Select retention count for replicated data, that is the number of replication versions that have to be maintained in the target host. For eg: if you configure the retention count to three, then the latest 3 versions of the replication will be maintained. By default, the value is ‘7’. Click Next to proceed further.
   

Step 6: Configure Network Mapping and Re-IP Mapping

Network Mapping

1. If you configure two different types of networks in two different places your RTO and Business Continuity will be affected. To overcome this situation, Network Mapping utilizes the Power Replication feature.
   
2. You must select the source and target networks that are to be mapped. BDRSuite Backup Server cross-verifies the source VM with the replicated VM and checks if the network details are updated regularly. This signifies a nil failure rate.
   

Steps to configure source and target networks

1. Enable the Configure Networks check-box which is disabled by default
   
2. Click the Search icon next to Source Network and select the network in which the source VM resides
   
3. Click the Search icon next to Target Network and select the network to which the source VM has to be mapped
   
4. Rules can be added in a similar manner for all the VMs configured for replication using the (+) icon present
   
5. Once done, click Next to configure Re-IP mapping rules.
   

Note: By default, Network Mapping will be disabled.

Note: It is recommended to use the same network for the source and target hosts, as it saves time during replication and recovery.

Configure Re-IP Rules

1. While performing Failover to the replica machine, the IP you have configured in the source may not be available in the target location. Re-IP Mapping in this situation will provide you various combinations of mapping rules to configure your replica.
   
2. When you perform the Failover process, the replica machine registry will be updated with the IP rule that you have configured.
   

1. Enable the Network Re-IP Mapping option. Click the Add Rule option which will open a pop-up window.
   
2. Specify a Rule Name
   
3. Enter the IP address and subnet mask of the source VM
   
4. Enter the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway of the target VM
   
5. Specify the preferred and alternate DNS server
   
6. Click Save to save the Re-IP Mapping rule.
   
7. You can edit an already configured rule using the edit option. You can remove the added rule through the remove option.

Note:

Linux VMs and GPT formatted disk VMs are not supported for Network Mapping and Re-IP Mapping.

Re-IP Mapping will not work for Windows 7 Professional (32-bit) machine.

Source VM’s VMXNET3 ethernet adapter configuration will not be replicated to the replica VM. IPv6 configuration is not supported for IP Re-Mapping.

Note: Re-IP Mapping option is not supported for VM replication in Linux based backup Servers.

Step 7: Review Configuration

The last step in your VMware replication configuration is to review the configurations you have selected. Enter a Replication Schedule Name. BDRSuite Backup Server supports creating multiple replication schedules each with its own configuration. The replication schedule name will uniquely identify the replication. While restoring your replicated data, you need to choose the data to be restored using its schedule name.

1. Configured Host/VM(s) – The Host/VM you have configured for the replication process
   
2. Scheduling – Frequency of your replication schedule
   
3. Target Replication Host – The IP address of the host to which you have configured the replication
   
4. Network Mapping – Whether Network Mapping is enabled or not
   
5. Network Re-IP Mapping –  Whether Re-IP Mapping is enabled or not.
   

Note: There are few rules to be followed for specifying the job name. They are:

1. Only [a-z][A-Z][0-9][ – _ ] characters are allowed in the job name. Other Special Characters are not allowed in the job name.
   
2. The job name should not be more than 26 characters
   

Progress Details

You can verify the progress of your replication in the Overall Progress window. To view the backup progress window, Go to VM Replication tab and press the List Jobs option, Click the arrow mark in the Status section.

Note: Resizing virtual disks in the primary site after initial replication will result in replication job failure permanently. You have to configure a new job to perform replication.

Note: If the initial replication job fails intermittently, you have to delete the replica VM in the target site and create a new replication job.