System information

Protection and Recovery of Virtual Machines with Snapshots
Array-based replication supports the protection and recovery of virtual machines with snapshots, but with
limitations.
You can specify a custom location for storing snapshot delta files by setting the workingDir parameter in
VMX files. Site Recovery Manager does not support the use of the workingDir parameter.
Limitations also apply if you are running versions of ESX or ESXi Server older than version 4.1.
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If the virtual machine has multiple VMDK disk files, all the disk files must be contained in the same
folder as the VMX file itself.
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If a virtual machine is attached to a Raw Disk Mapping (RDM) disk device, you must store the mapping
file in the same folder as the VMX file. RDM snapshots are only available if you create the RDM
mapping using Virtual Compatibility Mode.
If you are running a ESX or ESXi Server 4.1 or later, these limitations do not apply.
vSphere Replication supports the protection of virtual machines with snapshots, but you can only recover
the latest snapshot. vSphere Replication erases the snapshot information in the recovered virtual machine.
As a consequence, snapshots are no longer available after recovery, unless you configure
vSphere Replication to retain multiple point-in-time snapshots. For information about recovering older
snapshots by using multiple point-in-time snapshots with vSphere Replication, see “Replicating a Virtual
Machine and Enabling Multiple Point in Time Instances,” on page 27.
Protection and Recovery of Virtual Machines with Memory State Snapshots
When protecting virtual machines with memory state snapshots, the ESXi hosts at the protection and
recovery sites must have compatible CPUs, as defined in the VMware knowledge base articles VMotion
CPU Compatibility Requirements for Intel Processors and VMotion CPU Compatibility Requirements for
AMD Processors. The hosts must also have the same BIOS features enabled. If the BIOS configurations of the
servers do not match, they show a compatibility error message even if they are otherwise identical. The two
most common features to check are Non-Execute Memory Protection (NX / XD) and Virtualization
Technology (VT / AMD-V).
Protection and Recovery of Linked Clone Virtual Machines
vSphere Replication does not support the protection and recovery of virtual machines that are linked clones.
Array-based replication supports the protection and recovery of virtual machines that are linked clones if all
the nodes in the snapshot tree are replicated.
Protection and Recovery of Virtual Machines with Reservations, Affinity Rules,
or Limits
When Site Recovery Manager recovers a virtual machine to the recovery site, it does not preserve any
reservations, affinity rules, or limits that you have placed on the virtual machine. Site Recovery Manager
does not preserve reservations, affinity rules, and limits on the recovery site because the recovery site might
have different resource requirements to the protected site.
You can set reservations, affinity rules, and limits for recovered virtual machines by configuring
reservations and limits on the resource pools on the recovery site and setting up the resource pool mapping
accordingly. Alternatively, you can set reservations, affinity rules, or limits manually on the placeholder
virtual machines on the recovery site.
Site Recovery Manager Administration
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