6.1

You select a target location on a datastore on the remote site when you configure vSphere Replication on a
virtual machine. When you include a virtual machine with vSphere Replication in a protection group,
Site Recovery Manager creates a placeholder virtual machine for recovery. It is possible for the replication
target for vSphere Replication and the placeholder virtual machine that Site Recovery Manager creates to
both be on the same datastore on the recovery site because they are created in different datastore folders.
When the replication target and the placeholder virtual machines are in the same datastore,
Site Recovery Manager creates the placeholder virtual machine name by using the replication target name
with the suffix (1). To avoid confusion, the best practice is to use different datastores for the
vSphere Replication replication target and for the Site Recovery Manager placeholder virtual machines.
Site Recovery Manager applies the inventory mappings to the placeholder virtual machine on the recovery
site.
vSphere Replication synchronizes the disk files of the replication target virtual machine according to the
recovery point objective that you set when you configured vSphere Replication on the virtual machine.
When you perform a recovery with Site Recovery Manager, Site Recovery Manager powers on the
replication target virtual machine and registers it with vCenter Server on the recovery site in the place of the
placeholder virtual machine.
When using vSphere Replication protection groups, Site Recovery Manager is dependent on
vSphere Replication, but vSphere Replication is not dependent on Site Recovery Manager. You can use
vSphere Replication independently of Site Recovery Manager. For example, you can use
vSphere Replication to replicate all of the virtual machines in the vCenter Server inventory, but only include
a subset of those virtual machines in protection groups. Changes that you make to vSphere Replication
configuration can affect the Site Recovery Manager protection of the virtual machines that you do include in
protection groups.
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Site Recovery Manager monitors the vSphere Replication status of the virtual machines in
vSphere Replication protection groups. If replication is not functioning for a virtual machine in a
protection group, Site Recovery Manager cannot recover the virtual machine.
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If you unconfigure vSphere Replication on a virtual machine, Site Recovery Manager continues to
include that virtual machine in protection groups in which you included it. Site Recovery Manager
cannot recover that virtual machine until you reconfigure replication. If you unconfigure
vSphere Replication on a virtual machine, you can remove it from the protection group manually.
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If you configured vSphere Replication on a virtual machine that resides on a datastore that
Site Recovery Manager already protects with array-based replication, Site Recovery Manager reports an
error if you try to include that virtual machine in a vSphere Replication protection group.
If you remove a virtual machine with vSphere Replication from a protection group, vSphere Replication
continues to replicate the virtual machine to the recovery site. The virtual machine does not recover with the
rest of the virtual machines in the protection group if you run an associated recovery plan.
About Storage Policy Protection Groups
Storage policy protection groups enable the automatic protection of virtual machines that are associated
with a storage policy.
You use array-based replication to replicate the datastores from the protected site to the recovery site. If you
tag a datastore and you create a storage policy that maps to that tag, the datastore is automatically
associated with that storage policy. A storage policy protection group that includes that storage policy
automatically protects any virtual machines that have been tagged appropriately that reside on the
datastore. If you disassociate a virtual machine from the storage policy or move it off the datastore,
Site Recovery Manager automatically unprotects it.
When you create a storage policy protection group, Site Recovery Manager performs the following
operations:
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Creates a managed object that represents the storage policy protection group on the local
Site Recovery Manager Server instance.
Site Recovery Manager Administration
48 VMware, Inc.