Real-Time Replication (Beta) for VMware

NAKIVO Backup & Replication allows you to perform real-time replication (RTR) for VMware vSphere VMs. Unlike regular replication jobs, RTR jobs continuously copy data from the source host as it is being generated. In the event of a disaster, this feature allows you to perform a failover to a state mere minutes or even seconds before the disaster occurred.

Real-time replication jobs for VMware vSphere work as follows:

  1. A target Transporter is deployed as a VMware vSphere appliance.

  2. The I/O Filter and Journal Service are installed on the source and target hosts, respectively.

  3. A Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is set in the Real-Time Replication (Beta) Job Wizard for VMware .

  4. The VMware RTR job is run with the configured RPO and I/O Journal settings.

  5. Data changes made on the source VM are continuously transferred to the installed I/O Journal as quickly as possible.

  6. If a disaster occurs, a VMware real-time replication failover job is created and run to restore the VM to a selected recovery point (reference point that is a snapshot of data changes made to a source VM) of a replica VM and can be used for failover.

    Important

    Before starting a real-time replication job, make sure the time on the source ESXi host(s) and the target Transporter VA is synchronized.

    Otherwise, the RPO value and/or recovery point date-time data may be incorrect. Also, the Real-Time Replication Failover (Beta) Job Wizard for VMware process may yield the incorrect recovery points.

For more information on using real-time replication and the above terms, refer to the following pages: