5.0

Table Of Contents
Administering VMware vCenter Site
Recovery Manager 1
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is a business continuity and disaster recovery solution that
helps you plan, test, and execute the recovery of vCenter virtual machines between one site (the protected site)
and another site (the recovery site).
You can configure SRM to work with several third-party disk replication mechanisms (array based replication)
or with VMware vSphere Replication.
Two types of recovery are available.
Planned Migration
Planned migration is the orderly decommissioning of virtual machines at the
protected site and commissioning of equivalent machines at recovery site. For
planned migration to succeed, both sites must be up and fully functioning.
Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery is similar to planned migration except it does not require that
both sites be up. During a disaster recovery operation, failure of operations on
the protected site are reported but otherwise ignored.
SRM coordinates the recovery process with the underlying replication mechanisms that the virtual machines
at the protected site are shut down cleanly (in the event that the protected site virtual machines are still
available) and the replicated virtual machines can be powered up. Recovery of protected virtual machines to
the recovery site is guided by a recovery plan that specifies the order in which virtual machines are started up.
The recovery plan also specifies network parameters, such as IP addresses, and can contain user-specified
scripts that can be executed to perform custom recovery actions.
After a recovery has been performed, the running virtual machines are no longer protected. To address this
reduced protection, SRM supports a reprotect operation for virtual machines protected on array-based storage.
The reprotect operation reverses the roles of the two sites after the original protected site is back up. The site
that was formerly the recovery site becomes the protected site and the site that was formerly the protected site
becomes the recovery site.
SRM lets you test recovery plans. You can conduct tests using a temporary copy of the replicated data in a way
that does not disrupt ongoing operations at either site. You can conduct tests after a reprotect has been done
to confirm that the new protected/recovery site configuration is valid.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
“SRM Deployment,” on page 10
n
“Protected Sites and Recovery Sites,” on page 11
n
“About the Site Recovery Manager Database,” on page 16
n
“SRM and VMware vCenter Server,” on page 17
n
“SRM Licensing,” on page 18
n
“SRM Authentication,” on page 18
VMware, Inc.
9