VM recovery by vSphere Replication on same Site

To setup replication for a VM on same site
Login to vCenter Web Client and click on “Site Recovery”:

 Click on “Open Site Recovery” at Primary vCenter, it will open Site recovery console in next tab:

Click on ‘View Details” and select PR vcenter:

Click on “Replication” tab:

Click on “+New” to setup replication for a VM and select VM:

Select datastore:

Select RPO and “Point in Time”:

Enable Network compression:

Click on finish. It will start Sync operation. 

Post Sync it will display status “OK”.

To recover VM using vSphere Replication

  Select VM which need recovery.

During maintenance activity we have to “pause” replication and post maintenance enable replication to click on “Resume”.

To perform recovery, click on “Recover”:

  

Option	Description
Synchronize recent changes	Performs a full synchronization of the virtual machine from the source site to the target site before recovering the virtual machine. Selecting this option avoids data loss, but it is only available if the data of the source virtual machine is accessible. You can only select this option if the virtual machine is powered off.
Use latest available data	Recovers the virtual machine by using the data from the most recent replication on the target site, without performing synchronization. Selecting this option results in the loss of any data that has changed since the most recent replication. Select this option if the source virtual machine is inaccessible or if its disks are corrupted.

Option

Description

Synchronize recent changes

Performs a full synchronization of the virtual machine from the source site to the target site before recovering the virtual machine. Selecting this option avoids data loss, but it is only available if the data of the source virtual machine is accessible. You can only select this option if the virtual machine is powered off.

Use latest available data

Recovers the virtual machine by using the data from the most recent replication on the target site, without performing synchronization. Selecting this option results in the loss of any data that has changed since the most recent replication. Select this option if the source virtual machine is inaccessible or if its disks are corrupted.

(Optional) Select the Power on the virtual machine after recovery check box.

Currently disabling power On option and proceeding with “Use latest available data”. Click next.

**Here Points in time recovery displays we have 5 currently retained instances available.

Select the recovery folder and click Next

(Optional) Select the Power on the virtual machine after recovery check box.

Select the target compute resource and click Next.

Click Finish.

**Keep refreshing the browser to get the latest status.

vSphere Replication validates the provided input and recovers the virtual machine. If successful, the virtual machine status changes to Recovered. The virtual machine appears in the inventory of the target site

vSphere Replication presents the retained instances as standard snapshots after a successful recovery. You can select one of these snapshots to revert the virtual machine. vSphere Replication does not preserve the memory state when you revert to a snapshot.

Post recovery VM will be visible in the chosen computing resource:

Go to snapshot manager and choose the snapshot which you want to go back as last known good configuration:

If a replicated virtual machine is attached to a distributed virtual switch and you attempt to perform a recovery in an automated DRS cluster, the recovery operation succeeds but the resulting virtual machine cannot be powered on. To attach it to the correct network, edit the recovered virtual machine settings.

vSphere Replication disconnects virtual machine network adapters to prevent damage in the production network. After recovery, you must connect the virtual network adapters to the correct network. A target host or cluster might lose access to the DVS the virtual machine was configured with at the source site. In this case, manually connect the virtual machine to a network or other DVS to successfully power on the virtual machine.

After a successful recovery, vSphere Replication disables the virtual machine for replication if the source site is still available. When the virtual machine is powered on again, it does not send replication data to the recovery site. To unconfigure the replication, click the Remove icon.

Similarly can be done for the recovery at secondary site.