vSphere Replication is distributed as an OVF virtual appliance.

You deploy the vSphere Replication appliance by using the standard vSphere OVF deployment wizard. Only one vSphere Replication appliance is deployed on each vCenter Server.

Note: 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.

Prerequisites

Download the vSphere Replication ISO image and mount it on a system in your environment.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the vSphere Client on the protected site.
  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-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.
    Note: Selecting higher number of vCPUs ensures 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.
  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. (Optional) 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 recovery site, repeat the procedure.

What to do next

Configure the vSphere Replication Appliance to connect to a vCenter Server.