6.1

Table Of Contents
Isolating Devices For Stretched Storage During Disaster Recovery
In a disaster recovery with stretched storage, the failover command must isolate devices at the recovery site.
If some hosts at the protected site are still operational and continue running virtual machines when you
initiate a disaster recovery, Site Recovery Manager cannot power on the corresponding virtual machines at
the recovery site due to file locks. If the storage array isolates the devices at the recovery site, the ESX hosts
at the recovery site can break the necessary locks and power on the virtual machines.
Site Recovery Manager must use isolation="true" in the failover SRA command for the stretched devices
that were not deactivated at the protected site.
Implementation details of isolation for stretched storage is specific to array vendors. Some array vendors
might make the devices inaccessible at the protected site after running the failover SRA command with
isolation. Some array vendors might break the communication between source and target site for that
particular device.
Using vSphere Replication with Site Recovery Manager
Site Recovery Manager can use vSphere Replication to replicate data to servers at the recovery site.
You deploy the vSphere Replication appliance and configure vSphere Replication on virtual machines
independently of Site Recovery Manager. See the vSphere Replication documentation at
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-replication-pubs.html for information about deploying
and configuring vSphere Replication.
vSphere Replication does not require storage arrays. The vSphere Replication storage replication source and
target can be any storage device, including, but not limited to, storage arrays.
You can configure vSphere Replication to regularly create and retain snapshots of protected virtual
machines on the recovery site. Taking multiple point-in-time (PIT) snapshots of virtual machines allows you
to retain more than one replica of a virtual machine on the recovery site. Each snapshot reflects the state of
the virtual machine at a certain point in time. You can select which snapshot to recover when you use
vSphere Replication to perform a recovery.
Site Recovery Manager Administration
28 VMware, Inc.