Deploy the
vSphere Replication
Virtual Appliance

vSphere Replication
is distributed as an OVF virtual appliance. To deploy
vSphere Replication
successfully, follow the sequence of instructions.
  • Download the
    vSphere Replication
    ISO image and mount it on a system in your environment.
You deploy the
vSphere Replication
appliance by using the standard vSphere OVF deployment wizard.
vSphere Replication
can be deployed with either IPv4 or IPv6 address. Mixing IP addresses, for example having a single appliance with an IPv4 and an IPv6 address, is not supported. To register as an extension,
vSphere Replication
relies on the
VirtualCenter.FQDN
property of the
vCenter Server
. When an IPv6 address is used for
vSphere Replication
, the
VirtualCenter.FQDN
property must be set to a fully qualified domain name that can be resolved to an IPv6 address or to a literal address. When operating with an IPv6 address,
vSphere Replication
requires that all components in the environment, such as
vCenter Server
and
ESXi
hosts are accessible using the IPv6 address.
Copying or migrating an existing
vSphere Replication
appliance is not supported. You must do a new deployment.
  1. Log in to the
    vSphere Client
    on the source site.
    If you use the HTML5-based
    vSphere Client
    to deploy the OVF virtual appliance, on
    vSphere
    version earlier than
    vSphere
    6.7 Update 1, the deployment succeeds, but
    vSphere Replication
    fails to start.
  2. On the home page, select
    Hosts and Clusters
    .
  3. Right-click a host and select
    Deploy OVF template
    .
  4. Provide the location of the OVF file from which to deploy the
    vSphere Replication
    appliance, and click
    Next
    .
    • Select
      URL
      and provide the URL to deploy the appliance from an online URL.
    • If you downloaded and mounted the
      vSphere Replication
      ISO image on a system in your environment, select
      Local file
      Browse
      and navigate to the
      \bin
      directory in the ISO image, and select the
      vSphere_Replication_OVF10.ovf
      ,
      vSphere_Replication_OVF10.cert
      ,
      vSphere_Replication_OVF10.mf
      ,
      vSphere_Replication-system.vmdk
      , and
      vSphere_Replication-support.vmdk
      files.
  5. Accept the name, select or search for a destination folder or data center for the virtual appliance, and click
    Next
    .
    You can enter a new name for the virtual appliance. The name must be unique within each
    vCenter Server
    virtual machine folder.
  6. Select a cluster, host, or resource pool where you want to run the deployed template, and click
    Next
    .
  7. Review the virtual appliance details and click
    Next
    .
  8. Accept the end-user license agreements (EULA) and click
    Next
    .
  9. Select the number of vCPUs for the virtual appliance and click
    Next
    .
    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.
  10. Select a destination datastore and disk format for the virtual appliance and click
    Next
    .
    Encrypting the
    vSphere Replication
    appliance VM is not necessary to replicate encrypted VMs with
    vSphere Replication
    .
  11. Select a network from the list of available networks, set the IP protocol and IP allocation, and click
    Next
    .
    vSphere Replication
    supports both DHCP and static IP addresses. You can also change network settings by using the
    VRMS Appliance Management Interface
    after installation.
  12. On the
    Customize template
    page, enter one or more NTP server host names or IP addresses.
  13. Set the password for the root account and enter the hostname or IP address of at least one NTP server.
    The password must be at least eight characters long and must contain characters from four character classes: lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
  14. Click
    Next
    .
  15. To check the integrity of the
    vSphere Replication
    appliance binary files, select the
    File Integrity Flag
    check box.
    If the
    vSphere Replication
    appliance detects changes to the binary files, it sends log traces to the syslog.
  16. You can modify the default Network Properties.
    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.
  17. Review the settings and click
    Finish
    .
    The
    vSphere Replication
    appliance is deployed.
  18. Power on the
    vSphere Replication
    appliance. Take a note of the IP address of the appliance and log out of the
    vSphere Client
    .
  19. To deploy
    vSphere Replication
    on the target site, repeat the procedure.
Configure the
vSphere Replication
Appliance to connect to a
vCenter Server
.