The environment in which you run the vSphere Replication virtual appliance must meet certain hardware requirements.

vSphere Replication is distributed as a 64-bit virtual appliance packaged in the .ovf format. It is configured to use a dual-core or quad-core CPU, a 16 GB and a 17 GB hard disk, and 12 GB of RAM. Additional vSphere Replication servers require 1 GB of RAM.

You must deploy the virtual appliance in a vCenter Server environment by using the OVF deployment wizard on an ESXi host.

You must deploy vSphere Replication in the same vCenter Server inventory where you replicate virtual machines.

vSphere Replication consumes negligible CPU and memory on the source host ESXi and on the guest OS of the replicated virtual machine.

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.

The operation of vSphere Replication depends on certain services, ports, and external interfaces. For more information, see Services, Ports, and External Interfaces That the vSphere Replication Virtual Appliance Uses.