VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘srm’

VMware engineer Michael White’s post 64 bit is almost here – are you ready? on the Uptime (VMware and Business Continuity) Blog foretells of the future 64 bit requirement of both vCenter and SRM (Site Recovery Manager). White writes:

“I wanted to remind everyone, of what I have already seen floating around the internet, but still important enough to remind.  Our next release of SRM is going to require a 64 bit OS.  This is the same as our next release of VC as it too will require a 64 bit host OS.  This change is required to support the increased capabilities of our products.  As we scale our products to match our customers needs, generally 1 – 2 years in advance of where they will need all the capabilities of a given product we have had to use a 64 bit OS.  This will show itself in increased numbers in things like more simultaneous vSphere client connections.”

To me these new operating system (OS) requirements mean we will see even more instances of vCenter as a VM (virtual machine). It only seems logical that a least path of resistance is to virtualize the management server in order to upgrade, especially considering all have already invested in 64 bit hardware for their hypervisors if they decided to upgrade to vSphere 4 in the first place. To go a step further, I’m willing to argue that it will be more common for an IT Department to justify the cost of additional ESX hosts, even if only dedicated for management, then it will to deploy new servers for physical instances of vCenter.

The looming transition to a console-less ESXi eventually means more management virtual appliances in the future too. Solutions which will continue to need a ESX console or similar will have to substitute their own appliance to operate with ESXi. This means even more justification for additional ESX/ESXi hosts and thus greases the decision to virtualize vCenter as well. I expect to see management clusters of ESX hosts become more common in the future than even the use of management networks today.

ESX hosts have bigger and badder hardware now than ever before allowing for higher consolidation ratios and larger applications to easily run in virtual machines, but it will be interesting to see if the vCenter as a VM best practices change over time. I personally feel that continuing to separate the database from the virtualized vCenter will continue to be a smart choice. Running a separate, and even virtualized, SQL instance ensures not only better performance of vCenter as a VM but enhances DR scenarios. In fact, those that already have the vCenter database on a remote instance will likely have a safer upgrade to the 64 bit vCenter.

The new 64 bit requirements will no doubt make for an interesting migration scenario, and I’m sure we will see some positive and negative opinions. Let me know your thoughts on a 64 bit vCenter as a VM in the future!

Mike Laverick

VMware needs feedback from SRM (Site Recovery Manager) customers. The SRM product team is asking that customers take a 15 minute survey about their deployments. In return, the first 1000 to participate will receive a free PDF copy of Mike Laverick’s SRM 4.0 book, and VMware will donate $10 to charity. Laverick indicated in an email the chosen charity is UNICEF.

Here’s the VMware Communities: Survey for SRM customers – please … original post from May 27:

Hello SRM users,

The VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) product team is looking for product feedback on SRM deployments. If you have purchased SRM, we would like to hear from you. Your participation will be very valuable to us and the information you provide will be used to improve the SRM product going forward.

You can provide your feedback by completing the survey

The survey should take no longer than 15 minutes and will expire on June 10, 2010. Please note that this survey is for SRM customers only.

Upon completion of the survey, if you are among the 1st 1000 respondents, VMware will donate $10 per response to charity. You will also receive a link to download the electronic copy of Mike Laverick’s book "Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager 4.0" upon completion of the survey.

We appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your valuable feedback.

Thank you,

The VMware SRM Team

Check out Laverick’s post on this survey as well:

SRM Customer? Complete this survey, and VMware will donate $10 to UNICEF

VMware has announced an upgrade release of Site Recovery Manager (SRM).  Available today, SRM version 4 not only adds the much anticipated compatibility for vSphere 4 but also provides support for NFS storage, allows multi instance replication between single site pairs, and can be managed in vCenter Linked Mode. More details on the new version follow in the paragraphs below.

VMware customers who currently own SRM with active Sales and Support (SnS) contracts will receive the upgrade at no additional cost. VMware has not changed the per processor licensing model or cost for new customers wishing to purchase.

Some quick links for SRM 4:

• SRM 4. Release notes – http://www.vmware.com/support/srm/srm_releasenotes_4_0.html
• Upgrade KB article – http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1013166
• SRM download – http://downloads.vmware.com/d/ and select Site Recovery Manger
• Michael White’s post SRM 4.0 is here! The wait for vSphere and NFS support is over! on the VMware Uptime Blog covers upgrade strategy options.
• VMware’s documentation for all version of SRM – http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/srm_pubs.html

vSphere 4.0 Supported

The main requirement to enable the new compatibility and features in SRM is upgrading vCenter to version 4. In fact, Read the rest of this entry »

Now that I’ve sat the VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) class, done the labs, and had some design and implementation time with the product I am reminded of a scene from the movie The Wizard of Oz. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” is a famous line from the movie which comes from the scene when Dorothy and gang discover that the mighty and powerful Wizard they fear is really just an elaborate machine controlled by an ordinary man.

I am not suggesting that SRM is a sham. In fact, it provides automation of virtual infrastructure fail over between sites that is truly wizard-like. Understand however, VMware SRM software is just the last piece of the total data center recovery “machine”. Many organizations may be seeking the semblance of automated site fail over, but have they really considered in detail what it takes to start up their business critical systems at a secondary location?

A simple determination of readiness for SRM’s wizardry is answering this question: Read the rest of this entry »

This post is a collection of VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) links that have been building up as various notes, to dos, and draft posts collecting dust for VM /ETC. I’m including links to popular blog posts describing how to set up “in a box” demo lab environments for SRM,  links to a couple free chapters from a SRM book, and links to multiple VMworld 2008 SRM presentations for those readers that did not get attend either VMworld Europe or VMworld in Las Vegas this year. Finally, at the end of this post I am also including the VMworld 2008 Installing Configuring and Troubleshooting SRM lab materials.

Be sure to follow all links to read the original content, but I am briefly quoting from each source to provide some descriptions.

New SRM posts and links seem to be popping up daily. If you have a great SRM link please leave it in the comments for all to find.

Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »

VMware announced officially today that Site Recovery Manager will be available for order next week and then generally available within 30 days. As I mentioned in my Site Recovery Manager Overview post last week, a requirement to using SRM will be a Site Recovery Agent (SRA) from the various storage vendors. VMware’s announcement reveals what vendors will provide SRAs initially:

“VMware Site Recovery Manager leverages customers’ investment in storage replication software from VMware’s leading storage partners including 3PAR, Dell, EMC, FalconStor, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, LeftHand Networks and NetApp. VMware is working with partners across its storage partner ecosystem to ensure that customers can use Site Recovery Manager with their storage system and software platform of choice.”

As expected, several reports surfaced on the Internet today Read the rest of this entry »

One of the hands on labs I attended at VMware Partner Exchange was the Site Recovery Manager (SRM) lab. In the lab I was able to get a good understanding of the technical details of how the yet to be released product is configured. The lab then walked us through the fail over process and workflow. This post is a high level summary of what I learned. This post is not intended to be a detailed how to, but instead just a logical overview about what it will take to set up SRM.
Read the rest of this entry »