Bi-directional VM tag replication in NSX Federation

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

The VM tag replication works unidirectionally in Federation. This article provides the configuration steps to achieve bi-directional VM tag replication so that whenever the VMs are failed over to the recovery site and any tag configuration done on recovery site afterwards, should also get replicated to the former prod site.

Environment

VMware NSX

Resolution

Bi-directional replication can be configured by configuring 2 VM tag replication policies in Global Manager in reverse directions.

Policy 1:

 

"protected_site": "/global-infra/sites/LM_Paris",
    "replication_type": "STORAGE_ARRAY_REPLICATION", 
    "tag_delay_delete_time": 30,
    "recovery_sites": [
        "/global-infra/sites/LM_London"
    ],

 

Policy 2:

"protected_site": "/global-infra/sites/LM_London",
    "replication_type": "STORAGE_ARRAY_REPLICATION", 
    "tag_delay_delete_time": 30,
    "recovery_sites": [
        "/global-infra/sites/LM_Paris"
    ],

 

The tags will get replicated bi-directionally this way since the BIOS ID and Instance ID will be matching at both ends.

If we remove the tags configured in DR site afterwards after re-protecting the VMs at DR site, the tags on the other site will also get removed.
Refer to the Configuration Guide for detailed configuration steps.