Installing VMware vSphere Replication to back up and restore Kubernetes workloads

Learn the end-to-end process for installing this backup-and-restore solution

VMware vSphere® Replication™ is a hypervisor-based, asynchronous replication solution for vSphere that you can use for disaster recovery and to protect the data on your virtual machines.

This tutorial shows you the steps to of install and configure vSphere Replication in a VMware vSphere Cluster. You will also configure the replication of a Red Hat OpenShift cluster that hosts your container application.

Pros and Cons:

• Organization can protect their container workload against the infrastructure failure.

• No Additional license cost or third-party tool is required if you have VMware vSphere infrastructure.

• VMware vSphere Replication based approach is primarily used for disaster recovery but can also be used for immediate backup for an interim and give some time organization to think and plan for robust container backup solution.

• VMware vSphere replication doesn't guarantee the consistency of the Red Hat OpenShift cluster and in-memory transactional data as it doesn't have ability on flush the in-memory transactional data onto disk, so container native backup solution is recommended for such requirement.

Prerequisites

In this tutorial, we use the following software:

• VMware vSphere Replication 8.3 and above
• VMware vCenter Server 6.7 and above
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 and above

VMware vSphere Replication does not require a separate license, as it is included with different vSphere licenses:

• vSphere Essentials Plus
• vSphere Standard
• vSphere Enterprise
• vSphere Enterprise Plus

If you have an appropriate vSphere license, there is no limit to the number of virtual machines that you can replicate using vSphere Replication. VMware vSphere Replication can replicate the virtual machine on the same vSphere cluster, between two vSphere clusters within the same site, and between two different sites.

You can download vSphere Replication 8.3 from VMware. The file is an ISO image (that is, no boot is required), so you can mount it in a virtual machine or extract it and deploy as a . Then deploy as an OVF file in your vCenter Server.

Note: If you have an unsupported vCenter or ESXi host, check the vSphere Replication matrix and download a supported version.

High-level architecture

Steps

Only one vSphere Replication appliance can be registered with the same vCenter server. In this tutorial, we will protect a Red Hat OpenShift virtual machine (VM) within the same site, meaning we only need to deploy one vSphere Replication Virtual Appliance.

Follow the public article for the vSphere replication appliance installation and configuration in detail - [https://www.bdrsuite.com/blog/vmware-vsphere-replication-8-2-step-by-step/]{.underline}

Thanks to Author (Luciano Patrao) for publishing this article.

Below is the list of steps for vSphere replication appliance installation and configuration:

Step 1: Download the vSphere Replication Appliance (OVF File)

Step 2: Deploy the vSphere Replication Virtual Appliance on the source site.

Step 3: Register the vSphere Replication Appliance with vCenter Server.

Step 4: Assign VRM Administrator Role to User

vSphere Replication includes a set of roles, which include privileges that enable users to complete different actions. VRM Administrator is the role that includes all vSphere replication privileges. It’s a good practice to create a new user to act as the vSphere Replication administrator and then assign the VRM Administrator role to that user.

1. To create a user in vCenter, log in to vCenter Server. In the left menu, click Administration. The Administration menu opens.

2. In the Single Sign On section of the menu, click Users and Groups. In the Users and Groups panel, click ADD.

3. In the Add User window, enter a username and password and first and last name for your administrator. You can optionally add an email address and description.

   Click ADD.

   

4. To assign the VRM Administrator role to a user in vCenter, in the left menu, select your vCenter and click the Permissions tab.

5. Click ADD and search for the vrmadmin user that you created previously.

   

6. Click the VRM Administrator role from the list and select the Propagate to children check box. Click OK.

You have now created a user and assigned them the VRM Administrator role.

Step 5. Create a vSphere Replication for a virtual machine (Red Hat OpenShift Cluster)

The Red Hat OpenShift VM will now appear on the Replications tab and replications will begin immediately.

Step 6. Performing a recovery of a virtual machine

vSphere Replication performs the following sequence of steps to recover replicated virtual machines:

1. vSphere Replication prepares for the recovery operation.
   • If you perform a synchronization of the latest changes, vSphere Replication checks that the source site is available and source virtual machine is powered off before recovering the virtual machine on the target site. Then vSphere Replication synchronizes the changes from the source to the target site.
   • If you skip the synchronization and recover with the latest data available, for example, if the source site is not available, vSphere Replication uses the latest available data at the target site.
2. vSphere Replication rebuilds the replicated .vmdk files.
3. vSphere Replication reconfigures the newly replicated virtual machine with the correct disk paths.
4. vSphere Replication registers the virtual machine with vCenter Server at the target site. Note: Both the source and target sites are the same since the VM replication is configured for the same site.

Recover a virtual machine with vSphere Replication

With vSphere Replication, you can recover virtual machines that were successfully replicated at the target site. You can recover one virtual machine at a time.

Before you begin this step, ensure that the virtual machine at the source site is powered off. If the virtual machine is powered on, an error message will remind you to power it off.

1. Log in to the vSphere web client or vSphere client as vrmadmin.

2. On the home page, click Site Recovery and then click Open Site Recovery.

3. On the Site Recovery page, click View Details.

4. Click the Replications tab and select the VM that you want to recover.

5. Click Recover from the horizontal menu and select whether to recover the virtual machine with all the latest data with the most recent data available. Click Next.

6. Optional: Select the Power on the virtual machine after recovery check box.

7. Click Next.

8. In the Folder window, select a folder for the VM at the recovery site. Click Next.

9. In the Resource window, select the target compute resource at the recovery site. Click Next.

10. On the "Ready to complete" page, review the recovery information that you have entered. If you are satisfied with the settings, click Finish.

11. Review the status of the virtual machine. When it is fully restored, its status will change to Recovered.
    

12. Log in to the vCenter as the administrator. Right-click on the recovered VM and click Edit Settings.
    In the Edit Settings window, in the Network adapter 1 row, select the Connect check box and click OK.

13. Click the Snapshots tab in the horizontal menu, select your desired snapshot (that is, the point in time that you want to revert to) and then click REVERT.

14. Power on the virtual machine.

15. Wait for 5 mins and then access the Red Hat OpenShift Console.

Summary

This tutorial walked you through the steps to install VMware vSphere Replication Appliance. You configured a virtual machine replication for Red Hat OpenShift Cluster within the same site and recovered the Red Hat OpenShift Cluster VM from the vSphere Replication console.

To learn more about recovering your workloads ... [NEED CTA/DEMO/PRODUCT PAGE]