About managing VMware snapshots in Resiliency Platform
Resiliency Platform behavior with VMware vSphere virtual machine snapshots is different for different replication technologies. Refer to the following table to understand how the snapshots are handled before and after the disaster recovery operations.
Table: Behavior of Resiliency Platform with VMware snapshots
Scenario | 3rd party replication technology | Recovery to on-premises data center using Resiliency Platform Data Mover | Recovery to any cloud data center |
|---|---|---|---|
Virtual machines have snapshots on source data center | Create resiliency group operation is allowed. | Cannot create resiliency group due to VMware limitation. | Cannot create resiliency group. The operation is blocked. |
If you take, revert, or remove snapshot on source data center after resiliency group is created | No operation is impacted or blocked | Cannot delete resiliency group. See note below. | No operation is impacted or blocked |
Snapshot tree is replicated and maintained on the target data center | Yes | No | No |
After migrate or recover operations, the virtual machine on the target data center is in the same place in the snapshot tree as on the source data center | Yes | No | No |
When a virtual machine is on the target data center, taking, reverting or removing its snapshot from source data center | Yes, this is supported | Yes, this is supported | No, this is not supported |
Updating the snapshot tree on source data center if snapshots are created on target data center | Yes | No | No |
After migrating or taking over a virtual machine back to the source data center, the virtual machine is placed in the same position in snapshot tree as on the target data center | Yes | No | No |
Note the following:
After successful completion of rehearsal operation, do not delete or modify existing snapshots on target data center. Else cleanup rehearsal operation fails. You may create new snapshots as well as delete them on the target data center, but do not delete or modify the existing snapshots.
When recovering to on-premises data center using Resiliency Platform Data Mover or recovering to any cloud data center: For a virtual machine in a resiliency group, if a snapshot is reverted, then perform the Resync operation on the respective resiliency group. Resync operation synchronizes the data on the target data center.
After configuring a resiliency group for recovering to on-premises data center or cloud data center using Resiliency Platform Data Mover, if you create any snapshots, then Delete resiliency group operation is blocked. You need to first remove the snapshots from the vCenter server, refresh the vCenter server using Resiliency Platform console, and then delete the resiliency group.
For more information on VMware snapshots feature, refer to VMware documentation.