Consider the following prerequisites and additional considerations as you plan for disaster recovery of your VMware virtual machines.
The following table describes the prerequisites for VMware instant recovery.
Prerequisite |
Description |
---|---|
VMware license |
A license that supports Storage vMotion is required. |
ESX version |
The following versions of ESX/ESXi and vCenter are supported: • ESX/ESXi 4.x • ESX/ESXi 5 • ESX/ESXi 5.1 • ESX/ESXi 5.5 • vCenter 4.x • vCenter 5 • vCenter 5.1 • vCenter 5.5 • vCSA 5 |
• To use this feature, you must back up your virtual machines with the Virtualization Protector. For details, see Executing VMware backups.
• You can perform instant recovery using local or replicated backups.
• The restore target must be an ESX server managed by a vCenter server that supports Storage vMotion. Both the target ESX server and its managing vCenter server must be registered to the Unitrends appliance from which you are performing the instant recovery.
• For the restore target, you must use an ESX host that is the same version (or higher) as the original ESX server hosting the virtual machine. It is highly recommended that you restore to an ESX version that matches the original.
• Since Unitrends does not create clones, the restored virtual machine is configured with the latest hardware version that is supported by the target hypervisor. For example, if a hardware version 8 VM is restored to an ESXi 5.5 server, the restored VM is hardware version 10.
• The ESX host that you select for the restore must have sufficient space for the new VM.
• You can perform the audit process using a stand-alone ESX server. However, to perform the instant recovery, you must use a vCenter server that supports Storage vMotion.