Concept Guide

General volume recommendations

When designing a disaster recovery strategy using VMware Site Recovery Manager and MD Series storage

arrays, keep in mind these considerations:

• Protection works on a datastore level (storage array virtual disk). All VMs on the same datastore that

requires protection are also protected and replicated.

• Multiple small-sized datastores and virtual disks must be used to limit the amount of data replicated to

the recovery site.

• Locate (migrate) protected VMs to the same datastore and migrate any VMs that do not require

protection to other locations.

• SRM does not provide for application-consistent failover, but does provide VM-consistent failover.

Therefore, even with a successful failover of a VM, the applications that are running on the VM may

not be in a consistent state. More recovery methods may be required to return to normal operation.

• Only MD Series storage arrays running firmware versions 07.84.XX.XX or later support asynchronous

Remote Replication groups. The groups are treated as consistency groups, so all virtual disks in the

group is treated as a single entity.

• Synchronization priority dramatically affects the speed of replication, assuming that sufficient

bandwidth is available between the protected and recovery storage arrays.

Command line options

SRA installs a CLI utility that provides the following functions:

• To stop the SRA service, run the following command.

<SRA_Path>\svrCmd.cmd

Restarting the SRA service requires a start command from Windows services.

• To track the SRA service and capture detailed logging for each command issued and received, run the

following command.

<SRA_InstallationPath>\svrCmd track on (enable)

<SRA_InstallationPath>\svrCmd track off (disable)

Log files are written to <SRA_InstallationPath>\track directory.

Advanced Settings in Site Recovery Manager and ESX/

ESXi

The following advanced settings in Site Recovery Manager (SRM) are recommended for best performance

when using the MD Series Storage Replication Adapter (SRA).

To establish these settings:

1. Click Sites in the SRM left pane, then right-click your site name and click Advanced Settings.