Some components in the Site Recovery Manager and vCenter installations must be identical on each site. Because the protected and recovery sites are often in different physical locations, some components on the protected site can be of a different type to their counterparts on the recovery site.

Although components can be different on each site, you must use the types and versions of these components that Site Recovery Manager supports. See the Compatibility Matrices for SRM.

Table 1. Heterogeneity of Site Recovery Manager Components Between Sites
Component Heterogeneous or Identical Installations
Site Recovery Manager Server Must be 8.x version on both sites.
vCenter and Platform Services Controller The Site Recovery Manager version must be compatible with the vCenter and Platform Services Controller version.
vSphere Replication Must be 8.x version on both sites. The vSphere Replication version must be compatible with the Site Recovery Manager version and the vCenter version.
vCenter Appliance or standard vCenter instance Can be different on each site. You can run a vCenter Appliance on one site and a standard vCenter instance on the other site.
Storage arrays for array-based replication Can be different versions on each site. You can use different versions of the same type of storage array on each site. The Site Recovery Manager Server instance on each site requires the appropriate storage replication adapter (SRA) for each version of storage array for that site. Check SRA compatibility with all versions of your storage arrays to ensure compatibility.
Site Recovery Manager database Can be different on each site. You can use different versions of the same type of database on each site, or different types of database on each site.
Host operating system of the Site Recovery Manager Server installation Can be different on each site. You can run different versions of the host operating system and the host operating system can run in different locales on each site.
Host operating system of the vCenter installation Can be different on each site. You can run different versions of the host operating system and the host operating system can run in different locales on each site.

Heterogenous Configurations on the Protected and Recovery Sites

The Site Recovery Manager and vCenter installations might be in different countries, with different setups.

  • Site A in Japan:
    • Site Recovery Manager Server runs on Windows Server 2008 in the Japanese locale
    • Site Recovery Manager extends a vCenter Appliance instance
    • Site Recovery Manager Server uses the embedded Site Recovery Manager database
  • Site B in the United States:
    • Site Recovery Manager Server runs on Windows Server 2012 in the English locale
    • Site Recovery Manager extends a standard vCenter instance that runs on Windows Server 2008 in the English locale
    • Site Recovery Manager Server uses an Oracle Server database