Deploying VMware Live Recovery Add-On Appliances to Create Additional Site Pairs in a Shared Recovery Topology

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

• This article provides guidance on how to design and deploy multiple VMware Live Recovery site pairs.
• It explains supported deployment limits and architectural considerations for shared recovery, shared protected, and many-to-many topologies.

Environment

• VMware Live Recovery 9.x

Resolution

Key Deployment Guidelines

1. One VMware Live Recovery Appliance per vCenter Server

   • Only a single VLR appliance should be deployed per vCenter on the shared recovery site.

   • Deploying multiple VLR appliances on the same recovery site can overwrite the previous registration and remove all configurations.

2. VMware Live Recovery Add-On Appliances

   • Can be deployed to pair with multiple protected sites.

   • Up to nine Add-On appliances can be deployed per vCenter when scaling beyond 5000 VMs or when building fan-in / fan-out topologies.

3. Supported Multi-Site Topologies

   Topology Type	Description
   Many-to-one (Fan-in / N:1)	Multiple protected sites failover to a common recovery site
   One-to-many (Fan-out / 1:N)	One protected site connects to multiple recovery sites
   Many-to-many (N:N)	Multiple protected sites pair with multiple recovery sites

4. Server Pairing Requirements

   • Each VLR server instance in a pair must use the same VLR extension ID.

   • When using a shared recovery site, multiple Add-On appliances on the recovery site must pair with VLR appliances on the protected sites.

   • When using a shared protected site, multiple Add-On appliances on the protected site must pair with VLR appliances on the recovery sites.

5. Replication Compatibility

   • Supported replication options:

     • Array-Based Replication (ABR)

     • vSphere Replication (VR)

     • Both types of replication together.

6. Use the following documentation link for deployment and configuration steps:

   Deploy the VMware Live Recovery Add-on appliance --> Configure VLR on multiple protected sites to use a shared recovery site.

Important Considerations:

• Deploy only one VLR primary appliance on the shared recovery site.

• Use VLR Add-On appliances to establish additional site pairings.

• If multiple VLR appliances are deployed in the same recovery site, the latest appliance will overwrite the registration of the previous one in vCenter - causing all existing replications and configurations to break.

Diagram – Many-to-One (Fan-In / Shared Recovery Site) as an example: 

Additional Information

Learn more about VMware Site Recovery in a multi-site topology