6.5

Table Of Contents
Eager zeroed thick disks do not provide allocation information.
Virtual disks that are based on VVOLs are native to the volume.
vSphere Replication 6.x can get allocation information from them only when
they are on the target site. For this reason, the acceleration of the initial
synchronization will be partial.
Replicating Virtual Machines Using Replication Seeds
To reduce the network traffic that is generated by data transfer during the initial full synchronization,
vSphere Replication allows you to copy virtual disk files or use files that already exist in the target
datastore, and point those as replication seeds when you configure a replication.
vSphere Replication compares the differences on the source and target site, and replicates only the
changed blocks.
When, during replication configuration, you select a target datastore for the virtual machine,
vSphere Replication looks for a disk with the same filename in the target datastore. If a file with the same
name exists, vSphere Replication prompts you with a warning and offers you the option to use the
existing disk file as a seed for the replication. If you accept the option, after the virtual machine replication
is fully configured and enabled, vSphere Replication compares the differences and replicates only the
changed blocks. If you do not accept the prompt, you must change the target location for your replication.
Note If you plan to copy files from the source to the target datastore, the source virtual machine must be
powered off before downloading the vmdk files that will be used as seeds for the replication.
Replicating a Virtual Machine in a Single vCenter Server
Instance
You can use vSphere Replication to replicate a virtual machine in a single vCenter Server even if the
vCenter Server instance has only one host in its inventory.
When you configure replication in a single vCenter Server instance, you can select the source site as the
target site for replication. You then configure replication in the same way as for an infrastructure with a
source and a target site. For example, you can replicate a virtual machine to a different datastore
attached to the same host or another host. vSphere Replication prevents you from using the source or
replicated virtual machine's vmdk files as the target of the replication.
The virtual machine name must be unique in the same folder in the vCenter Server inventory. In the
recovery wizard, vSphere Replication does not allow you to select a folder if there is already a virtual
machine with the same name registered to it. During recovery if there is a virtual machine with the same
name, you might see an error message. See Error Recovering Virtual Machine in a Single vCenter Server
Instance for more information.
Using VMware vSphere Replication
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