Wanted to add some value to Official Documentation -
Prerequisites
- Please go ahead and grab the vSphere Replication ISO image, and then make sure to connect it to a system within your environment.
Procedure
To get started, sign in to the vSphere Client at the source site. Once you're on the home page, go ahead and click on "Hosts and Clusters." Now, when you right-click on a host, you'll see the option to "Deploy OVF template."
|
Setting |
Action |
|
Host Network IP Address Family |
Select the Network IP address family. The options are IPv4 or IPv6. |
|
Host Network Mode |
Select the host network mode. The options are static, DHCP, or autoconf. Autoconf is avalable only for IPv6. |
|
Default Gateway |
Enter the default gateway address for this VM. |
|
Domain Name |
Enter the domain name of this VM. |
|
Domain Search Path |
Enter the domain search path for this VM. Use comma or space separated domain names. |
|
Domain Name Servers |
The domain name server IP Addresses for this VM. Use commas to separate the IP addresses. |
|
Network 1 IP Address |
The IP address for the default Ethernet adapter. |
|
Network 1 Netprefix |
The prefix for the default Ethernet adapter. |
- You'll need to specify the location of the OVF file from which you want to deploy the vSphere Replication appliance and then click "Next."
- If you're deploying the appliance from an online URL, select "URL" and provide the necessary URL.
- Alternatively, if you've downloaded and mounted the vSphere Replication ISO image locally, select "Local file" and hit "Browse." Navigate to the \bin directory in the ISO image, and select the following files: vSphere_Replication_OVF10.ovf, vSphere_Replication_OVF10.cert, vSphere_Replication_OVF10.mf, vSphere_Replication-system.vmdk, and vSphere_Replication-support.vmdk.
- Confirm the name or enter a new one for the virtual appliance. Make sure it's unique within each vCenter Server virtual machine folder.
- Now, pick a cluster, host, or resource pool where you want to run the deployed template and click "Next."
- Review the virtual appliance details and proceed by clicking "Next."
- Accept the end-user license agreements (EULA) and click "Next."
- Choose the number of vCPUs for the virtual appliance. If you're unsure, 2 vCPUs should suffice in most cases.
Note:Selecting higher number of vCPUs ensures the better performance of the vSphere Replication Management Server, but might slow down the replications that run on ESXi host systems that have 4 or less cores per NUMA node. If you are unsure what the hosts in your environment are, select 2 vCPUs.
- Select a destination datastore and disk format for the virtual appliance and then click "Next." Note that encrypting the vSphere Replication appliance VM is typically not required to replicate encrypted VMs with vSphere Replication.
- Now, select a network from the list of available networks, set the IP protocol and IP allocation, and click "Next." You can choose between DHCP and static IP addresses. Network settings can also be adjusted later using the VRMS Appliance Management Interface.
- On the "Customize template" page, enter one or more NTP server host names or IP addresses, set the root account password, and provide the hostname or IP address of at least one NTP server.
- Optionally, you can check the "File Integrity Flag" box to verify the integrity of the vSphere Replication appliance binary files. If changes are detected, log traces will be sent to the syslog.
- You can also customize network properties as needed, specifying the IP address family, host network mode, default gateway, domain name, domain search path, and domain name servers.
- Finally, review all your settings one last time and click "Finish."
- With that, the vSphere Replication appliance will be deployed. Don't forget to power it on and make a note of its IP address. Afterward, you can log out of the vSphere Client.
- If you need to deploy vSphere Replication on the target site, simply repeat the same procedure.
