VMware Site Recovery brings VMware enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) Disaster Recovery as a Service to the AWS Cloud. It enables customers to protect and recover applications without the requirement for a dedicated secondary site. It is delivered, sold, supported, maintained and managed by VMware as an on-demand service. IT teams manage their cloud-based resources with familiar VMware tools without the difficulties of learning new skills or utilizing new tools. 

Before you can use VMware Site Recovery, you must connect the Site Recovery Manager Server and vSphere Replication instances on the protected and the recovery sites. This procedure is known as site pairing.

In this example we are configuring a second VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC as a pair. Protections schemes can be:

• On premises -> Cloud
• Cloud -> On premises
• Cloud -> Cloud

1. Click on View Details
2. Click on the Add Ons tab
3. Click ACTIVATE button under Site Recovery
   • VMware Site Recovery is an add-on service in VMware Cloud on AWS and is not enabled by default. Customers wishing to utlize the service need to go through the activation process of the service which takes a few minutes to complete.
4. Click ACTIVATE

The operation of VMware Site Recovery requires certain ports to be open.

The components that make up the VMware Site Recovery service, namely vCenter Server, vSphere Web Client, Site Recovery Manager Server, the vSphere Replication appliance, and vSphere Replication servers, require different ports to be open. You must ensure that all the required network ports are open for VMware Site Recovery to function correctly.

In this exercise, we will leverage the Firewall Rule Accelerator feature included with VMware Cloud on AWS which allows us to quickly create all the necessary Firewall Rules for common services like Site Recovery.

1. Click the Network tab
2. Click the scrollbar to scroll down on the window
3. Click to expand FIREWALL RULE ACCELERATOR
4. Click the dropdown box next to Rule Group to expose the options
5. Click to select Site Recovery as shown
6. Click the CREATE FIREWALL RULES button and watch the service create all the Firewall Rules necessary for Site Recovery to function properly.

1. Click the Add Ons tab
2. Click OPEN SITE RECOVERY
3. Click the User name field and type "cloudadmin@vmc.local"
4. Click the Password field and press any key to type out the password
5. Click Login
6. Click NEW SITE PAIR
7. Click the local vCenter Server to pair
8. Click the PSC host name field and type "vcenter.sddc-52-32-74-238.vmc.vmware.com"
9. Click the User name field and press any type "cloudadmin@vmc.local"
10. Click the Password field and press any key to type out the password
11. Click NEXT
12. Click the vCenter Server to pair with
13. Click the Checkbox to select all services
14. Click NEXT
15. Click FINISH

1. Click VIEW DETAILS
2. Click Network Mappings
   • Network mappings indicate the network(s) in the protection or recovery site that map to those network(s) in the protected site
3. Click +NEW 
4. Click to select Prepare mappings manually
5. Click NEXT
6. Click to expand the SDDC-Datacenter on the left
7. Click to expand VMC Networks
8. Click to expand vmc-dvs
9. Click to select LN9
   • This is the network on the primary site
10. Click to expand the SDDC-Datacenter on the right
11. Click to expand VMC Networks
12. Click to expand vmc-dvs
13. Click to select LN8
    • This is the equivalent network mapped on the secondary site
14. Click ADD MAPPINGS
15. Click NEXT
16. Click NEXT
17. Click NEXT
18. Click FINISH

1. Click Folder Mappings on the left pane
2. Click +NEW 
3. Click to select Prepare mappings manually
4. Click NEXT
5. Click to expand SDDC-Datacenter on the left
6. Click to select Workloads
7. Click to expand SDDC-Datacenter on the right
8. Click to select Workloads
9. Click ADD MAPPINGS
10. Click NEXT
11. Click NEXT
12. Click FINISH

1. Click Resource Mappings on the left pane
2. Click +NEW 
3. Click to expand SDDC-Datacenter on the left
4. Click to expand Cluster-1
5. Click to select Compute-ResourcePool
6. Click to expand SDDC-Datacenter on the right
7. Click to expand Cluster-1
8. Click to select Compute-ResourcePool
9. Click ADD MAPPINGS
10. Click NEXT
11. Click NEXT
12. Click FINISH

1. Click Storage Policy Mappings on the left pane
2. Click +NEW 
3. Click Prepare mappings manually
4. Click NEXT
5. Click to select Datastore Default on the left
6. Click to select Datastore Default on the right
7. Click ADD MAPPINGS
8. Click NEXT
9. Click to select Datastore Default
10. Click NEXT
11. Click FINISH

1. Click Placeholder Datastores on the left pane
2. Click +NEW 
3. Click to select WorkloadDatastore 
4. Click ADD

1. Click Replications
2. Click +NEW
3. Click #2 to move over to the following page of Virtual Machines
4. Click to select VM9 virtual machine
5. Click NEXT
6. Click NEXT
7. Click to select WorkloadDatastore for the target Datastore
8. Click NEXT
9. Click to adjust RPO (Recovery Point Objective) to 1 hour
   • RPO can be as low as 5 minutes as high as 24 hours.
10. Click the checkbox to Enable point in time instances
    • Point in time instances is a feature of vSphere Replication. It is the ability to retain historical  replications as point-in-time snapshots on the recovered virtual  machines. Using this feature is quite handy in order to recover from systems that have corrupted data or viruses or even to do auditing of system changes.
11. Click the Scroll Bar on the right hand side
12. Click NEXT
13. Click the Radio Button to select Add to new protection group
14. Click the area next to Protection group name and type "PG9"
15. Click NEXT
16. Click the Radio Button to select Add to new recovery plan
17. Click the area next to Recovery plan name and type "RP9"
18. Click NEXT
19. Click FINISH
20. Click VM9 to expand the progress of the initial replication of this virtual machine

1. Click Protection Groups
   • In SRM, protection groups are a way of grouping VMs that will be recovered together. A protection group contains VMs whose data has been replicated. A VM can only belong to a single protection group.
2. Click on Protection Group PG9
3. Click the Virtual Machines tab to show the protection status of the VM you previously set up for replication

1. Click Recovery Plans
   • A recovery plan runs a series of steps that must be performed in a  specific order. You cannot change the order or purpose of the steps, but  you can insert your own steps that display messages and run commands.
2. Click Recovery Plan RP9
3. Click Recovery Steps
4. Click the Virtual Machines tab
5. Click to select VM9
6. Click Priority Group to change priority start for a VM
   • In a recovery plan, the virtual machines being recovered can be assigned to five different priority groups.
7. Click 1(Highest)
8. Click YES
9. Click to select VM9
10. Click CONFIGURE RECOVERY
11. Click IP Customization 
    • You can customize IP settings for virtual machines for the protected site and the recovery site. Customizing the IP properties of a virtual machine overrides the default IP settings when the recovered virtual machine starts at the destination site.
    • If you do not customize the IP properties of a virtual machine, Site Recovery Manager uses the IP settings for the recovery site during a recovery or a test from the protection site to the recovery site. Site Recovery Manager uses the IP settings for the protection site after reprotect during the recovery or a test from the original recovery site to the original protection site.
12. Click the drop down box 
13. Click Auto
14. Click OK

Running a test recovery is an important step to take before having an actual disaster. One of the most valuable pieces of VMware Site Recovery Manager is that you can non-disruptively test the configurations.

1. Click Recovery Steps
2. Click the TEST button to test the recovery plan
3. Click Next
4. Click Finish
5. Click History to test report exports
   • Recovery plan histories provide information about each run, test, or  cleanup of a recovery plan. The history contains information about the  result and the start and end times for the whole plan and for each step  in the plan. You can export history at any time, but history always  contains entries only for completed operations. If an operation is in  progress, the history appears after the operation completes.
6. Click to select Test
7. Click EXPORT REPORT
8. Click Open in New Tab
9. Click X to close the tab
10. Click Close
11. Click CleanUp
12. Click Next
13. Click Finish