When you enable Virtual Volumes with replication, in addition to general Virtual Volumes requirements, your environment must satisfy several specific prerequisites.
For general Virtual Volumes requirements, see Before You Enable Virtual Volumes.
Storage Requirements
Implementation of Virtual Volumes replication depends on your array and might be different for storage vendors. Generally, the following requirements apply to all vendors.
- The storage arrays that you use to implement replication must be compatible with Virtual Volumes.
- The arrays must integrate with the version of the storage (VASA) provider compatible with Virtual Volumes replication.
- The storage arrays must be replication capable and configured to use vendor-provided replication mechanisms. Typical configurations usually involve one or two replication targets. Any required configurations, such as pairing of the replicated site and the target site, must be also performed on the storage side.
- When applicable, replication groups and fault domains for Virtual Volumes must be preconfigured on the storage side.
For more information, contact your vendor and see VMware Compatibility Guide.
vSphere Requirements
- Use the vCenter Server and ESXi versions that support Virtual Volumes storage replication. vCenter Server and ESXi hosts that are older than 6.5 release do not support replicated Virtual Volumes storage. Any attempts to create a replicated VM on an incompatible host fail with an error. For information, see VMware Compatibility Guide.
- If you plan to migrate a virtual machine, make sure that target resources, such as the ESXi hosts and Virtual Volumes datastores, support storage replication.
