Administrators cannot configure the precise time when replica instances are created, because the retention policy is not directly related to the replication schedule and RPO. As a consequence, replications with the same retention policy might not result in replicas retained at the same time instants.

By default,

vSphere Replication

is configured to a one-hour RPO, so the latest available replica instance can never reflect a state of the virtual machine that is older than one hour. You can adjust the RPO interval when you configure or reconfigure a replication.

When the age of the latest replication instance approaches the RPO interval,

vSphere Replication

starts a sync operation to create an instance on the target site. The replication instance reflects the state of the virtual machine at the time the synchronization starts. If no retention policy is configured, when the new instance is created, the previous instance expires and the

vSphere Replication

Server deletes it.

To save some of the replica instances that are created during RPO synchronizations, you can configure

vSphere Replication

to keep up to 24 instances per replication. The exact instances that

vSphere Replication

keeps are determined by applying a specific algorithm. Using this algorithm, the

vSphere Replication

Server tries to match each instance to a slot of the retention policy. Instances that do not match any slot expire and are deleted. If a slot contains more than one instance, the instances that do not match the retention criteria are also deleted.

vSphere Replication

always keeps the latest created instance and it is not included when determining the number of instances to keep.

When the age of the latest instance approaches the RPO interval,

vSphere Replication

starts creating a replica instance. The start time of the sync operation is the time of the new instance. When the sync operation completes,

vSphere Replication

assesses the existing replica instances to determine which ones to keep:

The granularity of the retention policy is determined based on the replication settings. For example, if you configured
vSphere Replication
to keep three instances for the last one day, it means that you want to keep three replica instances that are relatively evenly distributed over 24 hours. This equals approximately one instance in an eight-hour interval, or the granularity of this retention policy is 8 hours.
The time of the last saved instance is rounded down to the nearest slot time. If the granularity is eight hours, the slot times are 0:00, 8:00, and 16:00.
The instances that are between the nearest slot time and the last saved instance are traversed. Let us assume that the time of the last saved instance is 10:55. Following our example, the nearest slot time is 8:00 o'clock. Let us also assume that the RPO is 1 hour, and each sync operation takes 5 minutes to complete. Between 8:00 o'clock and 10:55, the slot contains an 8:55 instance, and a 9:55 instance.
The earliest instance that is newer than the nearest slot time is saved, and the rest of the instances in this slot are deleted, except for the latest created instance that
vSphere Replication
always keeps. Following our example, the 8:55 instance is saved, and the 9:55 instance is deleted. The 10:55 instance is the latest created instance, so it is also saved.
The granularity of the retention policy decrements the slot time and a check is performed for the earliest instance between the beginning of the current slot and the beginning of the previous slot. If the slot contains expiring instances, they are deleted.
The number of slots that contain saved instances is analyzed. If the number of slots with saved instances is higher than the number of slots determined by the retention policy, the oldest saved instance expires and is deleted. The last saved instance is not included in this count. In our example, if we had an instance saved for the interval 8:00 - 16:00 o'clock of the previous day, that instance would be deleted.

The number of replication instances that

vSphere Replication

keeps depends on the configured retention policy, but also requires that the RPO period is short enough for these instances to be created. Because

vSphere Replication

does not verify whether the RPO settings creates enough instances to keep, and does not display a warning message if the instances are not enough, you must ensure that you set

vSphere Replication

to create the instances that you want to keep. For example, if you set

vSphere Replication

to keep six replication instances per day, the RPO period must not exceed four hours, so that

vSphere Replication

can create six instances in 24 hours.