If you installed vSphere Replication as part of a previous Site Recovery Manager installation, you must upgrade vSphere Replication after you upgrade Site Recovery Manager.
If you upgrade Site Recovery Manager, vSphere Replication is not upgraded automatically. You must upgrade vSphere Replication as a separate process from upgrading Site Recovery Manager.
You might have installed an earlier version of vSphere Replication as part of an earlier Site Recovery Manager installation, or you might have installed the standalone version of vSphere Replication.
vSphere Replication 1.0.x was delivered with Site Recovery Manager 5.0.x.
vSphere Replication 5.1.x was delivered with Site Recovery Manager 5.1.x and is also available as a standalone product, independently of Site Recovery Manager.
The upgrade preserves the configuration from the previous installation, including the database configuration, certificates, vSphere Replication site pairings, registered vSphere Replication servers, and configured replications.
You upgrade vSphere Replication 1.0.x and 5.1.x to vSphere Replication 5.5.x by using a downloadable ISO image. The downloadable ISO image is the only means of upgrading from vSphere Replication 1.0.x or 5.1.x to vSphere Replication 5.5.x. You cannot upgrade vSphere Replication from version 1.0.x or 5.1.x to to version 5.5.x by using vSphere Update Manager or the virtual appliance management interface (VAMI) of the vSphere Replication appliance. After you have upgraded vSphere Replication to version 5.5.x by using the ISO image, you can use the VAMI or Update Manager to install later 5.5.x update releases.
In Site Recovery Manager 5.0 the vSphere Replication management server and the vSphere Replication server are separate appliances. In Site Recovery Manager 5.1 and later and vSphere Replication 5.1 and later, vSphere Replication is a single appliance named the vSphere Replication appliance, that contains both the vSphere Replication management server and a vSphere Replication server.
When upgrading vSphere Replication 1.0.x to vSphere Replication 5.5, the upgrade process upgrades the vSphere Replication management server to the combined vSphere Replication 5.5 appliance. As a consequence, an upgraded installation of vSphere Replication uses the vSphere Replication server that is embedded in the combined appliance. If your infrastructure uses more than one vSphere Replication server, you must upgrade them to vSphere Replication 5.5 and reregister them with the vSphere Replication appliance.
After you upgrade vSphere Replication 1.0.x, the port on which the vSphere Replication appliance publishes the VAMI changes from 8080 to 5480.
Using Standalone vSphere Replication with Site Recovery Manager
vSphere Replication 5.1 and later is available as a standalone extension of vCenter Server, that is independent of Site Recovery Manager. If you installed a standalone version of vSphere Replication and then install Site Recovery Manager, all existing pairings and replications are immediately accessible through the Site Recovery Manager user interface, except for pairings and replications in a single vCenter Server. Pairings and replications in a single vCenter Server are visible only in the vSphere Replication user interface in the vSphere Web Client.
Migration of the vSphere Replication database is not supported. If you upgrade vSphere Replication 5.1 to Site Recovery Manager 5.5, vSphere Replication uses the embedded database. The standalone version of vSphere Replication and Site Recovery Manager can coexist and work together in the same infrastructure. For example, you can replicate 100 virtual machines with vSphere Replication but choose to protect only 50 of them by using Site Recovery Manager. You can manage all of the replications by using either the vSphere Replication interface in the vSphere Web Client or by using the Site Recovery Manager interface. Some limitations apply to the management of the replications, depending on which interface you use.
You cannot manage replications in a single vCenter Server instance in the Site Recovery Manager interface.
You cannot use the vSphere Replication interface in the vSphere Web Client to manually recover virtual machines that Site Recovery Manager protects.
You must use the vSphere Web Client to configure vSphere Replication to retain point-in-time snapshots of virtual machines.
vSphere Replication Upgrade Scenarios
These examples of upgrade and update scenarios are not exhaustive. For the full list of supported upgrade paths, see the Compatibility Matrixes for vSphere Replication 5.5 at https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-replication-compat-matrix-5-5.html.
You can upgrade from vSphere Replication 1.0.3 to vSphere Replication 5.5.1 by using the ISO file for vSphere Replication 5.5.1.
You can upgrade from vSphere Replication 5.1.2 to vSphere Replication 5.5.1 by using the ISO file for vSphere Replication 5.5.1.
You can update vSphere Replication 5.5.0 to 5.5.1 by using the ISO file for vSphere Replication 5.5.1.
You cannot upgrade from vSphere Replication 1.0.3 to 5.5.1 by using Update Manager or the VAMI.
You cannot upgrade from vSphere Replication 5.1.2 to 5.5.1 by using Update Manager or the VAMI.
You can update vSphere Replication 5.5.0 to 5.5.1 by using Update Manager or the VAMI.
