How to Recover VM with vSphere Replication | Detailed Steps

What is vSphere Replication Recovery

VMware vSphere Replication is a disaster recovery solution that allows you to replicate virtual machines on the same vCenter Server instance or to other instances within the same site. Multiple servers can be deployed for load balancing purposes in large environments.

It works with both versions of vCenter Server – Windows and appliance – and comes readily licensed with vSphere Essentials Plus kit, vSphere Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus and the vCloud Suite editions. From an architectural standpoint, a vSphere Replication appliance runs fully integrated with vCenter Server.

Once the source VM and replica are in sync, it is only changed blocks in the VM’s VMDKs that are replicated. For every VM configured for replication, you can independently set a recovery point objective (RPO) ranging from 5 minutes to 24 hours which determines the maximum allowable data loss. You can also set a retention policy for multiple point in time (MPIT) replica instances. This gives you a maximum of 24 snapshots for every replicated VM.

Here, I will introduce the vSphere replication recovery steps in detail.

How does vSphere Replication recovery work

With vSphere Replication, you can recover virtual machines that were successfully replicated at the target site. It performs a sequence of steps to recover replicated virtual machines.

• vSphere Replication prepares for the recovery operation.
  • If you perform a synchronization of the latest changes, vSphere Replication checks that the source site is available and source virtual machine is powered off before recovering the virtual machine on the target site. Then vSphere Replication synchronizes the changes from the source to the target site.
  • If you skip the synchronization and recover with the latest data available, for example, if the source site is not available, vSphere Replication uses the latest available data at the target site.
• vSphere Replication rebuilds the replicated .vmdk files.
• vSphere Replication reconfigures the newly replicated virtual machine with the correct disk paths.
• vSphere Replication registers the virtual machine with vCenter Server at the target site.

How to recover VM with vSphere Replication step by step

To complete vSphere Replication Recovery, perform the following steps:

1. Download the vSphere Replication appliance from VMware, and deploy vSphere Replication as a standard OVF template.

2. Sign in to the vSphere Replication appliance as root at https://ip_address_of_appliance:5480/.

• Select the Configuration tab (2) under VR (1)
• Type in the password for the SSO administrator account (3).
• Click on the Save and Restart Service button (4)
• Accept the SSL certificate when prompted to (5)

3. Configure the VRM (vSphere Replication Management) service.

4. Start the VRM service, and check the vCenter to verify that the VRM is running. You’ll know that the appliance registered successfully when the VRM service status is shown as running.

5. Repeat the steps to configure the replication on the secondary site: right-click the VM and then select All vSphere Replication Actions > Configure Replication.

When the primary site is live, the VRM service automatically synchronizes the changes from the primary site to the secondary site.

6. Monitor the progress of the automatic synchronization: go to vCenter > Monitor > vSphere Replication.

7. Access to vCenter > Monitor > Incoming Replications, right-click the VM, and then click Recovery. At any time after the replication finishes, you can invoke disaster recovery.

8. Power on the recovered VM and connect to the network: right-click the VM and then click Edit Setting. Enable the connection.

9. Restart and verify the recovered VM in the browser.

The IP address of the recovered VM is the same as for the VM that you recovered.

You can replicate and recover virtual machines (VMs) by using VMware vSphere Replication. vSphere Replication Recovery benefits in fast disaster recovery or data migration for VMware virtual machines. However, when looking for a viable solution, you may also need to consider some practical factors, such as whether you have enough budget, whether you can utilize vCenter, etc. If you only want to copy individual VMs to another ESXi host. Instead, you can use a VMware backup and replication software to complete the VMware VM protection.

Efficient and affordable VMware backup software

As a professional enterprise failover solution, vSphere Replication can be quite expensive. So if your requirements for business continuity are not as high, or you want a more long-term secure data protection solution, then you may also want to consider using a VMware backup tool instead of VMware replication.

AOMEI Cyber Backup is a professional data security software which helps to replicate ESXi virtual machines. It can quickly backup and restore VMs to another host without any complex settings and interruption and allow you to restore VM from any point. So, this part will introduce the detailed steps to use this VMware backup and replication software.

✦ Automatic VMware backup: auto backup virtual machines on regular basis to protect VMware workloads continuously, and auto delete unwanted obsolete backups to save space.
✦ Support Free ESXi: support both paid and free versions of VMware ESXi.
✦ Multiple VM Backup: batch backup large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server, or multiple VMs on a standalone ESXi host.
✦ Instant Disaster Recovery: Once the VMware crashes, quickly restore VMware to normal state and reduce business-critical downtime.
✦ Easy to use: You can back up and manage multiple VMware VMs though the central console without installing agent on each VM.
✦ Save storage: create full backup for entire VM or incremental/differential backup for only changed data, and specify retention policy as needed.
✦ Economical cost: reduce O&M costs and additional hardware cost for replication.

AOMEI Cyber Backup supports VMware ESXi 6.0 and later versions. Next, I will show you how to batch backup VMs managed by vCenter Server with AOMEI Cyber Backup. You can click the following button to download the software.

*You can choose to install this VM backup software on either Windows or Linux system.

How to recover VMs to another place using backup and restore

You could bind your device to AOMEI Cyber Backup first. Navigate to Source Device >> VMware >> + Add VMware vCenter or Standalone ESXi host. And then click … >> Bind Device.

1. Create Backup Task: Navigate to Backup Task >> + Create New Task, and then selectVMware ESXi Backup as the Device Type.

2. Set Task Name, Device, Target, Schedule, and Cleanup as need.

• Task Name: you can change the task name or use the default name with an ordinal.
• Device: batch select large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server for centralized backup.
• Target: select to back up to a local path, or to a network path.
• Schedule (optional): perform full, differential or incremental backup, and automate execution according to the frequency you specified.

• Cleanup (optional): automatically delete the old backup copies that exceed the retention period you specified.

• Click Start Backup. You can monitor the process of backup in the Backup Task page.

3. After creating a backup task for VM, click Restore to perform recovery from backup. Select backup content and click Restore to new location. Then choose the destination host and configure the storage, RAM and Virtual Processor for the new VM.

Summary

VMware vSphere Replication is a disaster recovery solution that allows you to replicate virtual machines on the same vCenter Server instance or to other instances within the same site.

Whilst VMware Site Recovery Manager will be suitable for basic and non-essential workloads for more important environments such as business dependent applications you will need a reliable third-party to simplify things. That’s why most companies turn to professional VM backup software who specialize in these types of software.